New York City is a one-of-a-kind place where communities thrive and culture is born, celebrated and nurtured. For the city’s diverse cultures to blossom, there must be people looking out for those in need. That is LISC NY’s mission, to aid those in need and to keep the city’s culture preserved.
So much of NYC’s culture, popularity and industry icons stem from culture in minority populations. Now, these communities are struggling more than ever as inflation rises, rent skyrockets and resources run dry.
LISC NY is a non-profit focused on the community development of underprivileged areas throughout New York. They are bringing aid “…through capital investment in community infrastructure, housing, and commercial real estate in disinvested communities across the state.”
“For years, we’ve been doing everything we can to close the racial wealth gap, ensuring that underserved, minority communities and businesses have the resources they need to break through the systemic inequities that they’ve been forced to contend with,” said Valerie White, senior executive director of LISC NY. “Through community development lending much-needed capital investment, we’ve expanded [the] capacity of minority businesses, we’ve connected minority entrepreneurs to the networks needed to launch their businesses, and we’ve invested in minority commercial corridors to ensure the growth and vibrancy of Black and brown neighborhoods. Much of our work has been achieved in New York City and Buffalo, and we cannot wait to not only grow our impact in each of those local markets; but also elsewhere across the state next.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, LISC NY used a combined $5 million to aid fellow non-profits and especially minority-owned small businesses. LISC NY has a wide variety of supporters, from big names like Capital One, to the NYC Housing Development Corporation, to even individuals looking to aid communities in need. The support left White feeling fulfilled, knowing she has the backing to be able to help the communities she has worked with her entire life, “I’m just very grateful to be in this space at this time.”
The intense hardship minority-owned businesses and impoverished families went through, and are still going through, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is what is currently inspiring LISC NY to help in-need New Yorkers with their housing, protecting their assets, overseeing their capital and so much more.
“Most of those communities were in a place of inequity in terms of services, in terms of capital, in terms of access to food, to healthcare, quality housing, ownership and wealth. So the pandemic just exacerbated those conditions,” said White. “So for families that might have been living, or businesses that might be serving these communities, going from month to month, we saw many of them go out of business. That’s why you saw higher rates of infection, higher rates of death, higher rates of illness, higher rates of unemployment in minority or high-poverty communities.”
LISC NY is beginning more expansion into New York State, the company already has influence but their expansion into rural areas will bring new goals and challenges. When meeting the needs of these rural communities White said that differences between urban and rural aid are that “With rural we also work in the area of poverty, and we do find that in [communities] across the country you find pockets of poverty in rural areas. So, in that area we’re a little bit more focused on home preservation […] as well as workforce development. And looking to target the industries in rural communities that will provide opportunities for ownership and workforce development.”
LISC NY is adapting to the needs of every New Yorker that they can. Their ongoing support of New York residents will not be over until equity for all is achieved. To learn more and support their organization, you can click here.
