Bank invests $500,000 in Ability Housing's affordable housing fund
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Bank invests $500,000 in Ability Housing’s affordable housing fund

Jacksonville Business Journal, September 24, 2024

By Emma Behrmann, Reporter

A nonprofit affordable housing developer received its first private investment for a fund it created to help finance its projects.

Ability Housing, a Jacksonville-based nonprofit, announced it created an affordable housing fund in August, which now has its first private investor — Cogent Bank. Cogent invested $500,000 into the fund, the nonprofit announced Tuesday.

“Cogent Bank’s support of our Affordable Housing Fund signifies that ‘community’ is truly at the heart of their business,” said Shannon Nazworth, president and CEO of Ability Housing. “Their generous support will expedite our ability to bring new affordable housing communities to Central and Northeast Florida.”

The fund serves as a solution to the challenges that come with financing affordable housing developments as a nonprofit. It will provide Ability Housing with low- or no-interest predevelopment loans, enabling the organization to maintain a pipeline of projects.

“As the population and economy of Florida’s First Coast continues to grow, the lack of affordable housing has become an increasingly relevant issue that impacts our entire community,” said Phil Bravo, SVP, North Florida market president of Cogent Bank. “This collaboration will help build flourishing communities that can help these individuals secure a quality, affordable home.”

The fund was seeded with an initial investment of $3.75 million from the Capital Magnet Fund, a grant program administered by the Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and leveraged with $950,000 from the state.

Cogent’s contribution, structured as a seven-year loan with a below-market interest rate, brings the fund more than halfway to its $10.2 million goal.

Ability Housing is actively seeking partnerships with foundations, banks, health care and educational institutions and individual philanthropic investors to expand the fund to $10.2 million, which will support the organization’s goal of developing 2,235 additional units of affordable housing by 2030.

The nonprofit is currently developing the site of a vacant elementary school into 120 affordable apartment units called Village at Lake Forest, broke ground on 90 units for a project called Village at Cedar Hills and a 92-unit complex in St. Johns County called Villages of West Augustine.

More projects, with the help of the fund, are in the pipeline.