This week, JPMorgan Chase launched a 5-year initiative to drive economic opportunity in disadvantaged neighborhoods across the country. Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods (PRO Neighborhoods) will invest $125 million to support collaborative partnerships and financial solutions that will grow small businesses, create health and social service facilities, collect local-level data, and improve access to affordable housing.

Thriving neighborhoods are critical to the long-term economic success of individuals, communities, and cities. Though commercial corridors and downtowns in many regions are experiencing a renaissance, many neighborhoods are being left behind, especially those that have historically faced disinvestment, displacement, and high rates of poverty and unemployment. Building off its recent work to revitalize Detroit, JPMorgan Chase is seeking to promote economic growth and opportunity in low-income communities through three main PRO Neighborhood efforts:

• Collaborative Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) Partnerships: Too often, projects that can provide essential economic resources and social services to distressed neighborhoods are unable to qualify for traditional financing. PRO Neighborhoods aims to break down this barrier by providing regional CDFIs with necessary capital that encourages them to work together so they can pool resources and expand lending activities for building health and education facilities, opening retail centers and supporting community services in area neighborhoods.
   
• Affordable Housing Seed Capital: As public subsidies for housing decline, there is a critical need to identify new and innovative financial tools to help make affordable housing more widely available. PRO Neighborhoods will support the development and preservation of housing for low- and middle-income families. This resource will provide critical seed capital to enable local partners to acquire, refurbish, and provide affordable housing in communities that are at risk of gentrification.
   
• Data-Driven Neighborhood Solutions: Armed with high-quality data about land use, housing trends, and shifting demographics, PRO Neighborhoods will dedicate funding to research that will help local community development organizations better understand the implications of demographic shifts and help cities become smarter about what strategies work best and where to apply local support.
   

“Thriving neighborhoods are critical to the long-term economic success of our cities and to addressing many of the major barriers to economic mobility for low-income families,” said Janis Bowdler, Head of Community Development for Global Philanthropy, JPMorgan Chase. “PRO Neighborhoods provides local leaders tools and resources they need to ensure that opportunities to prosper are extended to disadvantaged neighborhoods and the people who live there.”