The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund recently announced that it will grant a total of $17,969,543 to 59 banks in recognition of their service to economically distressed communities. The grants will be awarded through the fiscal year 2012 round of the CDFI Fund’s Bank Enterprise Awards Program, which provides capital to FDIC-insured depository institutions serving census tracts where at least 30 percent of the population lives at or below the national poverty level and the unemployment rate is at least 1.5 times the national average. The CDFI Fund selected the 2012 grant recipients from a pool of 71 applicants.
Of the 59 recipients, three are headquartered in the Ninth Federal Reserve District: Franklin National Bank in Minneapolis; Park Midway Bank in St. Paul, Minn.; and University National Bank, also in St. Paul. The three banks are owned by Sunrise Community Banks, a St. Paul-based bank holding company, and are certified CDFIs. They will receive a total of $1,141,225 in recognition of making various real estate loans, affordable housing loans, and project investments in distressed inner-city communities in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
