THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT (CRA)

Since it was enacted in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has provided regulatory incentives for funneling more than a trillion dollars into LMI communities. This infusion of private capital leverages public subsidy for affordable rental housing as much as 10-25 times, and also finances LMI community services and economic development activities such as charter schools, day care facilities, small business and microenterprise lending.

CRA has been, and will continue to be critical to the preservation and expansion of rental housing affordable to LMI communities because it encourages private capital lending and investing in community development projects. The private-public partnership fostered by CRA has evolved and matured over the past 30-plus years. For-profit and non-profit lenders and investors, developers, community leaders, and government at all levels, have all learned to collaborate as partners in devising new solutions and creative strategies for financing affordable housing and other community development activities.