Elevating Equity Initiative

Today we are thrilled to announce LISC DC’s Elevating Equity Initiative, a $50 million comprehensive effort to help foster equity, inclusiveness and an improved quality of life in the neighborhoods surrounding the future 11th Street Bridge Park.

This investment will support the work of the Equitable Development Plan (EDP), our effort to be an anchor for inclusive economic development. Over the course of 2015, the EDP was shaped by community stakeholders who developed 19 actionable recommendations in the areas of workforce development, small business enterprise and affordable housing.

To support the residents living within the Bridge Park Impact Area (neighborhoods within a one-mile radius of the future site of the 11th Street Bridge Park), LISC DC will work through its nonprofit partners to provide loans, grants, equity, in-kind services and technical support. These investments will go towards affordable housing, early childhood education, medical care, food support, arts education and other services and supports LISC DC’s mission to help neighborhood residents create healthy and sustainable places of choice and opportunity – good places to live, work, raise children and conduct business.

Our partnership with LISC DC has evolved over the years. They have provided grant support as well as intensive technical assistance, significantly helping in the development and program management of the Equitable Development Task Force and Plan, as well as providing data analysis and mapping along the way.

We thank LISC DC for being an early champion in this new civic space and for helping ensure that the Bridge Park is a driver of inclusive development in the nation’s capital. The Bridge Park has been shaped by thousands of nearby residents and we continue to build this project in partnership with our community.

Learn more about this initiative here and in this Washington Post article.