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Financing
Facilities for Children
by Noni Ramos, Low Income Investment
Fund
 The overarching
goal of the Affordable Buildings for Child Development (ABCD) Initiative
is to build a comprehensive and sustainable financing
system for high-quality child care facility development with the objective
of creating 15,000 spaces in five years with a particular focus on low-income
communities. However, experience has shown that it takes more than just
funding to meet the demand for affordable and high-quality childcare
facilities. That is why the ABCD initiative utilizes the expertise and
capacity of existing community organizations, while employing four interrelated
strategies.
ABCD Fund – Provides technical assistance,
grants and loans for child care centers, feasibility planning, acquisition,
and construction
costs, and long-term real estate financing needs.
ABCD Development Assistance – Utilizes
the expertise of regional community developers to increase statewide
the construction of child
care facilities within educational, health, and housing facilities. Partners
include Bridge Housing, Los Angeles Community Design Center (LACDC),
Mercy Housing California and Child Development, Inc. (CDI).
ABCD Constructing
Connections – Strengthens the facilities development
expertise of child care center operators and intermediaries, and improves
the regulatory and funding environment to support child care facilities
as a priority.
ABCD Campaign
to Sustain Child Care – Brings together new coalitions
of representatives of a variety of sectors to advocate for increased
child care program operating subsidies from state and local governments.
Read The Next Stage in Childcare Facilities
Development to learn more about this four-pronged strategy.
by Susan
Harper, Low Income Investment
Fund
Financing of charter schools is a way for banks
to assist the public school system. Many charter schools open in low-
and moderate-income
communities and are created on derelict or long neglected property
making them a catalyst for revitalization and stabilization, an activity
that
is supported by CRA.
In Funding Our Future: Charter School Finance
101, Susan Harper, the
program manager of the California Charter School Program at the Low Income
Investment Fund www.liifund.org (LIIF) writes about the financing needs
of charter school, including a discussion of traditional financing for
school facilities, and the critical need for cash flow financing of budget
shortages that occur due to mid-year school funding disbursements by
school districts.
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