News & Events > Beyond Bricks and Mortar - Project Updates for November 2008  

In this our 25th anniversary year, the Leviticus Fund once again marks an extraordinary level of lending for affordable housing and community-based facilities serving low-income communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

With our nonprofit partners, we celebrate $4.2 million in approved financing as of early November, bringing our cumulative total of lending to more than $26 million over our long history.

The urgency for affordable housing in the communities that Leviticus serves is clearly seen from this year’s lending tallies. All but one of the year’s 16 approved loans focused on some aspect of affordable housing, whether for rental or homeownership, housing with supportive services, or preservation of homes for low-income families in manufactured home parks.

The following is a brief highlight of just some of the year’s financed projects:

Unified Vailsburg Services Organization, Inc. is a human service and community development agency in Newark, New Jersey that has received numerous loans from Leviticus over the past 15 years. Our most recent loan - for $1 million - completed the financing necessary for the construction phase of a $5.1 million, 14-classroom early education center. When completed, the facility will enroll 210 three- and four-year-olds from the Ivy Hill section of Vailsburg, in Newark’s West Ward, which is an area with the largest concentration of pre-school aged children in the entire city.

Staff and Board Members of Unified Vailsburg Services Organization, Inc., above, join Newark’s Mayor, Cory A. Booker, for the ground breaking celebration of a 14-classroom early education center in the Ivy Hill community. Leviticus is one of three area community loan funds providing financing during the project’s construction phase.

 

 

 

 

Bellport, Hagerman, East Patchogue Alliance in Bellport, New York received a $150,000 loan to refinance and renovate two single-family residences that are home to two low-income families in Bellport, in Suffolk County. Renovations on one of the homes has already been completed, with new siding and insulation to be installed in the second home.

Leviticus’ loan to a New York-based nonprofit helped to preserve two single-family homes, pictured below, as affordable housing for low-income families living on Long Island’s east end in Bellport.

 

Community Services Programs, Inc., a nonprofit housing development agency in Wappingers Falls, New York, received $600,000 in financing for two separate projects. The projects include: $475,000 to refinance a building housing the organization’s headquarters and additional apartments (pictured), plus $125,000 to cover predevelopment costs for an $11 million, 60-unit new senior citizen housing project. The senior housing project will be known as Kingston Meadows and will be located in Kingston, New York.

La Casa de Don Pedro, a non-profit borrower well know to Leviticus for past childcare projects, received approval for $400,000 in financing for a home-ownership project in Newark.

The groundbreaking ceremony, pictured at left, was held in mid-June. The project, for 19 new housing units in the Lower Broadway area of Newark, consists of three single family and eight two-family houses. The two-family houses have an owner’s unit and a rental unit. These houses will be sold to low-moderate income homebuyers, with no income restriction on who can lease the rental units.

 

Southern Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New York is a first-time borrower with Leviticus. A $204,000 loan was approved in early May by Leviticus, which is facilitating the development of affordable housing for the local community. The proposed plan is to subdivide Southern Baptist’s existing property, where its church and parking lot are located, in order to build 38 low-income housing units, two commercial spaces and resident parking. The tax credit project is slated to include green components - a green roof, garden and energy saving appliances and fixtures.