Self-Help Credit Union and partners launch a $20M Jacksonville housing fund
What's the deal? A coalition of private and philanthropic investors on Thursday launched a $20 million loan fund to spur $80 million worth of new affordable apartment construction in Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Growth and Affordability Partnership FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — the Jax GAP Fund — began accepting applications this week.
Who's backing it? Northern TrustDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → anchored the fund with a $10 million commitment, its largest. The Jessie Ball duPont FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → added $5 million, and The Community Foundation for Northeast FloridaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and its donors contributed $3 million.
How it works: The fund provides low-cost loans to affordable housing developers, closing funding gaps in projects that rely on 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. It also offers a short-term bridge loan to help developers move fast on competitive properties in high-demand neighbourhoods.
Self-Help Ventures FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a nonprofit that has run five similar funds in North Carolina communities including Durham, Wake County, and Chapel Hill, will administer the Jacksonville fund. It pools investor capital and issues loans that developers repay over 20 years, letting the money recycle into future projects.
Why now? Duval County developers sought more than $40 million from the state's SAIL gap-financing programme in 2025, but only about 20% of those applications were funded.
The numbers: Jacksonville renters have been considered cost-burdened — spending more than 30% of income on housing — since 2011. For households earning half the area median income or less, about $51,250 for a family of four, only 48 affordable units exist for every 100 renters who need one, according to the University of Florida's Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.
The signal: The fund is the product of more than five years of work by Northern Trust, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, and The Community Foundation, adapting a lending model already tested across North Carolina. Its revolving structure is a bet that patient, low-cost capital can multiply a modest commitment into far larger housing output.
Read more: Yahoo Finance
Image credit: NCinDC
