Mahia Rahman has her train ticket. A graduate of Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, Virginia, she is headed to Harvard in August, on her 18th birthday.

Prestamos CDFI, a division of NeighborWorks network nonprofit Chicanos Por La Causa, has funded billions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the pandemic, with more than three fourths of those loans going to minority-owned businesses. By the end of June, the Community Development Financial Institution funded $7.6 billion in loans, supporting hairstylists, artists, custodians and more.

Preem Cabey had wanted a house for years. But when she found the perfect home, a "fixer-upper" available through the Albany County Land Bank, she didn’t qualify for a loan that would cover the repairs. "I wasn’t working enough hours," says Cabey, who had been a director of a recreational facility while working as an artist and community advocate.

Kerri-Ann Griffith had just returned to her apartment in the Germantown neighborhood after an evening out with friends when the lights started to blink. Then the howling started. She grabbed her cat, Jaeda. "We were both screaming."

When Malcolm Yeung interviewed for the executive director post at Chinatown Community Development Center, COVID-19 was still on the horizon. "By January 2020, it was becoming clear we were on the precipice of something very monumental," he says. "I don’t think it quite hit home as to how monumental."
 

When Michelle Swittenberg began looking for a place to locate BRWL, her boxing and yoga studio, she wanted to settle in Orange, New Jersey. She'd found that most of the studios were located in more of the higher income areas, like Milburn or Short Hills, when working out on her own. "It was important for me to get people to come to Orange," she says. "This keeps money in the neighborhood and hopefully attracts money to the neighborhood, too." 

Veronica Lopez will always remember March 16, 2020. It’s the day that Los Angeles County ordered the closure of businesses and banned large public gatherings of any kind to contain the COVID-19 virus. Almost immediately, the constant phone calls from businesses seeking assistance began and didn’t start to slow down until several months later in June.

When people seek to improve their finances, credit is one of the top three concerns people have, believes Sarah Chenven, chief operating and strategy officer for Credit Builders Alliance (CBA).

Creative placemaking, or placekeeping, is essentially a resiliency tool. Normally in discussions of placemaking or placekeeping, the stress or disturbance communities face have to do with economic factors, like displacement due to shifting development, or sometimes even environmental factors. In 2020, placekeeping projects designed by organizations in the NeighborWorks cohort faced an unanticipated outlier: the COVID-19 pandemic.