The Washington State Department of Commerce awarded $1.39 million to Vancouver nonprofit Fourth Plain Forward as part of a statewide initiative to address wealth disparities and promote homeownership.
“This is a huge award for us. We applied because as an organization, our goal is to eventually transition to a community development corporation in the next couple of years,” Executive Director Paul Burgess said. “We recognize the need for economic development and housing in the city of Vancouver and Clark County.”
The department awarded more than $29 million to various state organizations. The funds come from the Community Reinvestment Project, which assists individuals and families in securing homes and property, as part of a broader effort to support communities disproportionately impacted by systemic racism, the Department of Commerce said in a news release Thursday.
Of the funding, $14.5 million will be allocated to support eight existing and emerging Black, Latino and tribal-led agencies. Among them is Fourth Plain Forward, which received $1,390,368 through the Black, Latine and Tribal-led Agency Support Awards.
Fourth Plain Forward is working to uplift Black, brown and Indigenous communities, as well as those facing resource limitations and exclusion from mainstream services in Vancouver.
Burgess said a portion of the grant money will be used to set the nonprofit up as a long-term lending agency, while the rest will be offered as loans to Black, brown and Indigenous-led businesses at lower interest rates than traditional financial institutions offer.
The funds will also allow the organization to hire a chief financial officer, a lending officer and a bookkeeper, as well as cover the operational costs of running a lending agency.
“We want to lend it out to folks who can’t necessarily access traditional funding,” Burgess said. “We’re looking holistically at the individual business, what they do and who they serve, rather than looking at credit.”
An additional $14.5 million was awarded to five lending agencies to support the Homeownership Capital Accelerator program, which is designed to reduce homebuyers’ monthly mortgage payments.
Those grants will provide money for lending, operations and salaries, further allowing these organizations to better serve their communities, the Department of Commerce said.
“The communities supported by this funding have long histories of experiencing harm from government-led services and supports,” Commerce Director Mike Fong said in a news release. “This funding is one way we’re working to ensure that they have equal opportunities in the future and we create a more equitable Washington for everyone.”
Burgess said this grant is the first step toward addressing the wealth disparity for people of color in Vancouver.
“It’s going to provide much easier access to finance, which in turn will really help build the local economy,” Burgess said. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us to harness a community-led approach. That to me is really exciting, because we can be really innovative about this.”
