OCDCA would like to welcome our newest members: Marketplace For All People in Toledo and Jurisdiction-wide Resident Advisory Board Inc in Cincinnati. Welcome!

LISC and Next Street invite you to a workshop for a sneak peek at Advancing Equitable Small Business Ecosystems: A Practitioner’s Guide. This playbook outlines how organizations serving small businesses can work together to identify ecosystem-level and organization-specific strategies. Join us to celebrate the release on Thursday, September 30th from 12:30-2PM ET.

The 2021 Heritage Ohio Annual Conference is in historic downtown Springfield on October 18-20, 2021.

The Heritage Ohio Annual Conference is the premiere statewide conference for historic preservation and downtown revitalization in Ohio. Learn more.

To ensure Ohioans can remain in their homes, the Ohio Department of Development continues to have funding available to help low-income residents with their rent, mortgage, and utility bills through Emergency Rental Assistance (also called the Ohio Home Relief program). To access this funding, grantees should collaborate with their local Community Action Agency. To find your local Community Action Agency and additional information on Emergency Rental Assistance, visit InvestingInOhiosFuture.ohio.gov.

Finance Fund is providing loan funds to support small businesses and non-profits impacted by COVID-19. Eligible applicants include organizations that are existing and operating, or that stopped operating in response to hardships created by the pandemic. Finance Fund is accepting and reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

The African American Community Fund (AACF), in partnership with the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio (FAO), invites nonprofit and public organizations seeking funding for a project or program serving African American communities throughout Appalachian Ohio’s 32 counties to apply for a grant by October 12.

The CDFI Fund awards Capital Magnet Fund grants to certified Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and certain nonprofit organizations to finance: (1) the development, preservation, rehabilitation, or purchase of affordable housing for primarily extremely low-, very low-, and low-income families; and (2) economic development activities or community service facilities, such as day care centers, workforce development centers, and health care clinics, which in conjunction with affordable housing activities implement a concerted strategy to stabilize or revitalize a low-income area or underserved rural area. Deadline is October 12.

Eligible Applicants: Private, nonprofit organizations registered with Ohio's Secretary of State and granted 501(c)(3) status by the Internal Revenue Service. Apply by October 13.

This ARPA BBBRC NOFO is designed as a two-phase competition to (1) help regions develop transformational economic development strategies and (2) fund the implementation of those strategies that will create and grow regional growth clusters. Such efforts will help regional economies recover from the pandemic and build economic diversity and resiliency to mitigate impacts of future economic disasters. Deadline is October 19.

Development Finance Authority of Summit County, Akron, is seeking a Director, Administration.

Price Hill Will is seeking a Part-Time Community Engagement Coordinator.

Cincinnati Development Fund is seeking a Construction Manager/Lending Officer.

Over-the-Rhine Community Housing is seeking a Maintenance Technician Position Description.

Franklinton Farms, Columbus, is seeking an Education Assistant.

There are two AmeriCorps VISTA Leader positions in our office which still need to be filled. VISTA Leaders are essential to the function of the OCDCA VISTA program. Learn more.

View more employment opportunities on our website. OCDCA members and our funders with employment opportunities may send their notices for free posting to Lisa Much. There is a small fee for non-members to post jobs.

The Build Back Better Act is a transformational plan to invest in America’s people and communities that includes affordable housing and community development ($300 Billion+), permanently extending the child tax credit, establishing universal pre-K, federally paid family and medical leave, climate change mitigation and renewable energy, among other initiatives. This would be paid for by tax increases on large corporations and the wealthy (2017 witnessed substantial tax reductions). The Build Back Better Act is unfortunately referred to by the oft-cited (without context) amount of $3.5 Trillion in spending. It’s important to note that political attacks and media coverage rarely cite the important nuances of corresponding revenue raised and that the amount is over a whole decade and only represents 1.2% of the American economy over this time period.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has planned an infrastructure vote (bi-partisan $1 Trillion for traditional infrastructure) on September 30 as the safety net bill (budget reconciliation bill aka $3.5 Trillion package) that includes community development and housing investments remains mired. The move appears to decouple the two packages after the Democratic consensus strategy to move them concurrently. This is also occurring as the necessity to increase the debt ceiling is being used as a destructive wedge to stall much-needed investments in America’s people and communities. Needless to say the situation is changing constantly.

From NLIHC: The House Budget Committee voted September 25th to advance the “Build Back Better Act,” a $3.5 trillion comprehensive infrastructure and economic recovery package, to the House Rules Committee in preparation for a full vote on the House floor. The full vote in the House could take place as soon as the coming week. While the vote was procedural and did not allow members to make any substantive changes to the bill text, the Rules Committee may make sweeping changes to the bill, including major cuts in funding. Any reduction to the “Build Back Better Act” could result in harmful cuts to the $327 billion proposed for affordable housing currently in the bill and put at risk the HoUSed campaign’s top priorities: $90 billion for rental assistance, $80 billion to preserve public housing, and $37 billion in the national Housing Trust Fund to build and preserve homes affordable to people with the lowest incomes.

From NACEDA: The updated bill out of the House Budget Committee includes:

The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act is also progressing through the budget reconciliation process. The bill would create a new federal tax credit to support the construction and rehabilitation of single-family, owner-occupied homes in distressed communities. Learn more. 

From Enterprise: On September 8, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued an official notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) to rescind its June 2020 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rulemaking and replace it with rules largely based on the 1995 CRA rules, as revised. This NPR follows the OCC’s announcement in July to rescind its May 2020 final rule, which it issued independently in an unprecedented break from the other governing agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The CRA, which aims to help low- and moderate-income communities gain access to financial services, loans, and community development investments, was first enacted into law in 1977 and has only been amended twice since – in 1995 and 2005.

The OCC’s NPR notes that replacing the OCC’s 2020 CRA rule with regulations based on rules that were previously adopted jointly by the three banking regulators would facilitate the ongoing interagency work to modernize the CRA regulatory framework and promote consistency for all financial institutions subject to CRA examination. Last month, the U.S. banking regulators issued a joint statement, committing to working together on developing a joint rule that would strengthen and modernize the CRA. The OCC is accepting public comments on its NPR through Friday, October 29.