Although Grand Rapids is often named as a top place to live, with good jobs, affordable housing, and a high quality of life — there is still disparity amongst the 49507 zip code. Through collaboration between private and public sectors, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and community development financial institutions (CDFIs), there’s a concerted goal to invest in this specific area.
Over the last decade,
IFF, a community development financial institution based in Illinois, has invested and shown a commitment to uplifting communities by providing financial support
all over the state, including Grand Rapids neighborhoods. Part of IFF’s investment in Grand Rapids has been focused on the 49507 zip code, centered in a collection of
neighborhoods southeast of downtown Grand Rapids. This section of the city is home to more than 38,000 diverse residents across the culturally rich Third Ward of the city.
In order to shift the paradigm and address disparity, IFF is working together with strong community leaders to build a more sustainable and equitable future for neighborhood residents. A future that includes investment in small businesses, an increase in safe affordable housing and education, upgraded greenspaces, and reduced violence.
Many nonprofits and community-based organizations are working tirelessly each day, and with IFF’s collaboration with these public and private partners, their impact reaches even farther. IFF has provided almost $24.6 million to the 49507 zip code. Together, these partners are helping address high foreclosure rates and decreasing property values, and providing affordable housing options.
Chris Uhl, IFF executive director of the Eastern region, says the 49507 zip code was the recipient of one of the first loans in Grand Rapids back in 2015. IFF provided that loan to
LINC UP, which helped address affordable housing in the area.
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Chris Uhl works in the Grand Rapids office of IFF, located within the 49507 zipcode, right in the heart of the SE neighborhood they invest in. Photo courtesy of IFF.
LaKiya Jenkins, executive director of LINC UP, says the organization exists to expand racial equity in neighborhoods through affordable housing, economic and community political power.
“We envision a community that is healthy, abundantly resourceful and has autonomy over its destiny,” she says.
LINC UP has grown significantly over the past 24 years, and has invested over $100 million in housing and commercial development, and developed or improved more than 900 single-family homes, townhomes and multi-family apartments.
“Our work continues today with new developments, advocacy for policy changes, and a deeper commitment to racial equity,” Jenkins says.
Part of that work is made possible by IFF, the current lending partner on three affordable housing development projects: West Garfield Apartments built in 2018, Avenue II Apartments built in 2023, and MoTown Square Affordable Assisted Living built in 2024.
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LINC UP celebrate their recent community development at the groundbreaking ceremony for the MoTown Square Affordable Assisted Living, built in 2024.
Jenkins says IFF has recognized LINC UP as a comprehensive community organization and supported their efforts and events.
“IFF staff listens to and understands the complexities and challenges nonprofit developers face and their advocacy is critical in the competitive real estate development environment in which we operate,” she says.
As LINC UP enters its 25th year of service, Jenkins says the organization seeks to learn from the past and forge into the future.
“We will engage and build the capacity of residents through our leadership development programs and help support on-ramps to grow their voice within the community,” she says.
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Photo rendering of MoTown Square Affordable Assisted Living, slated to open in 2025. Photo courtesy of LINC UP.
Becoming aware of the deep commitment these organizations had for their neighborhood helped inspire IFF to want to invest in these areas, interacting with these community advocates and local voices.
“It’s one of the neighborhoods in Grand Rapids that’s starting to see investment,” Uhl says. “A number of the neighborhoods have really priced a lot of individuals out, so it’s been really important to focus especially on this neighborhood — on producing and maintaining affordable housing. That’s one of the big things we’ve seen, so a lot of those partnerships with Dwelling Place, LINC UP, and ICCF are funding affordable and workforce housing projects in the neighborhood.”
Amplify GR is another southeast Grand Rapids community development nonprofits that IFF partners with. Uhl says their purpose-built community model is used to invest in everything from educational ecosystems to housing, and reactivating commercial corridors.
“We’ve made over $24 million worth of loans in 49507 area, and we actually decided to open our West Michigan office in that neighborhood in 2022,” Uhl says. “Amplify GR is our landlord and we’re in a building where we are the sole tenant. It’s a building that had been vacant for quite some time on Madison Street, where the Madison commercial corridor is being invested in and activated. We just wanted to be a part of that as well.”
Having that presence within the neighborhood has helped increase the trust required in order to collaborate cohesively, says Uhl.
In order to build a strong community, establishing quality early childhood education is also crucial. IFF has also dedicated many resources to increasing access to this in the 49507 area. With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, IFF created
Learning Spaces. Learning Spaces provides an increased access to quality early childhood education (ECE), grant funding, and technical assistance to local child care providers. Through nearly $449,000 in grants, 11 home-based ECE providers were able to upgrade their facilities, and 48 new ECE slots were created.
Since there’s still a large need for child care, IFF is also taking a proactive approach by investing even more, with a project led by Amplify GR. The
new, 9,000-square-foot inclusive child care center is located in the Boston Square neighborhood, and will include six or seven classrooms, a break room, kitchen, and outdoor play space.
The center is part of the
Boston Square Community Hub (HUB 07), a $25 million project which will include community classrooms, coworking spaces, a coffee shop, offices, a health clinic, and mixed-income housing.
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Amplify GR celebrates with a groundbreaking of the Boston Square Community Hub. Courtesy photo.
“There are lots of different ways we’re trying to aggregate different investments,” Uhl says. “Loans to a number of the projects, grant dollars passing through to learning spaces, and our equity as well as several other sources of capital for the ECE we’re building in Boston Square.”
Jon Ippel is the executive director of Amplify GR, the place-based organization focused on working in the Madison Square and Boston Square neighborhoods of SE Grand Rapids.
Amplify GR believes that people deserve to live in supportive neighborhoods full of greenspaces, healthcare centers, high-quality education, safe affordable housing, and good-paying jobs — and they are all interdependent.
Ippel says IFF’s role in helping to develop the new 45,000-square-foot community center in the Boston Square neighborhood has been very critical, and served as a catalyst for many upcoming projects.
“In working in neighborhoods like these, the market in and of itself is never going to solve the enormity of building some of these critical community facilities,” he says. “It’s through organizations like IFF that provide a critical source of capital that’s relatively flexible in terms of how those dollars are ultimately deployed in these types of projects.”
Ippel says these neighborhoods were thriving 100 years ago, full of great jobs, schools, parks, and grocery stores. Like other cities in urban America, many of these large employers left, schools shuttered, and parks and other open spaces got converted. Although the assets seemed to dwindle, hope did not.
“I think what we are inspired by, despite all these things, is that there is just such tremendous culture, commitment and pride in the neighborhoods we serve,” he says.
In talking with residents about what they love about their home, what they need, and what they would like to see, community feedback and input helped create a concentrated vision. This vision led to the
Boston Square Together (BSQ Together), a community-focused planning process.
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Boston Square residents and neighbors were involved in the steps of the development of the future community hub, providing input and feedback.
Over the next couple of years, Ippel says Amplify GR is working on expanding more mixed-use, mixed-income housing, increased home ownership opportunities, a new park, and welcoming a new employer to the area.
“From our perspective, it’s looking at the ecosystem and looking at cultivating those assets that residents have said we consistently need more of,” he says. “Neighborhoods really can be the agent of change to unlock more potential.”
Seeing the day-to-day work of these community organizations so deeply rooted in their neighborhoods has been inspiring for Uhl. These driving forces also make for good partnerships. Partnerships and projects he hopes IFF can continue to do more of in the future, growing the Grand Rapids team, and making broader investments.
“I would also like to expand our general lending across all of what IFF does — not just the housing space, but the healthcare space and all the other things that we do,” he says. “I’d like to see us continue to make additional investments in that neighborhood, and future real estate development projects there.”