Mayor London N. Breed today announced the San Francisco Community Investment Fund received new tax credits, which will help create quality jobs and improve the lives of residents in low-income communities throughout the City. The New Markets Tax Credits are designed to help nonprofits and businesses that serve San Francisco’s most economically distressed communities secure flexible, low-cost financing.
The $35 million in New Markets Tax Credits will be invested in a range of projects and organizations located in or serving low-income communities, including manufacturing, retail, healthcare, food security, education, and the arts. The funding will also spur the creation and retention of permanent local jobs and will provide residents with greater access to community facilities and commercial goods and services. Today, Mayor Breed will join Meals on Wheels San Francisco as they celebrate the groundbreaking of their new kitchen at 2330 Jerrold Avenue in the Bayview, which was made possible in part by New Markets Tax Credit financing.
“These tax credits will help us invest in our City’s neighborhoods that have, for too long, lacked access to financing and private investment,” said Mayor Breed. “With these financial incentives, businesses and nonprofit organizations will be able to grow and succeed, create local and permanent jobs, and provide goods and services for our residents. The new Meals on Wheels kitchen is a great example of how these tax credits result in tangible, positive outcomes for our community.”
The San Francisco Community Investment Fund (SFCIF) was awarded New Markets Tax Credits from the United States Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). The CDFI Fund provides tax credit authority through a competitive process to Community Development Entities, like SFCIF, in order to generate economic growth and inject new sources of capital into neighborhoods that lack access to financing.
Since 2010, the SFCIF has provided $133.5 million of New Markets Tax Credits to local businesses and nonprofits in the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission, Chinatown, Visitacion Valley, Bayview Hunters Point, and Treasure Island. The SFCIF has used the funding to help with the construction of projects such as SF Jazz and the Boys & Girls Club San Francisco in the Western Addition, the ACT Strand Theatre on Central Market, The Manufacturing Foundry, and the renovation of the Geneva Car Barn in the Excelsior. These projects have resulted in approximately 363,000 square feet of new or rehabilitated real estate and 560 permanent jobs created or retained, while providing community services to 6,100 San Francisco residents each year.
“We are thrilled that the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund continues to support the investments we’ve made to improve San Francisco’s more distressed neighborhoods,” said Brian Strong, President of the SFCIF Board of Directors. “These funds help us create and retain jobs, community programs, and services in the City’s low-income neighborhoods.”
SFCIF is one of 214 Community Development Entities that applied for an allocation of the $3.5 billion in New Markets Tax Credits awarded for calendar year 2018 as part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010. The New Markets Tax Credit program was established in 2000.
For more information on the New Markets Tax Credit Program, go to: www.cdfifund.gov