LHOME

WHY LHOME?

As Louisville’s only locally grown CDFI, LHOME works hard every day to address the economic harm resulting from legislated segregation, sector wide policies and racism that have denied and suppressed Black wealth creation opportunities for business, housing and land ownership for minority populations.

LHOME was formed by the leadership of two Louisville nonprofit organizations – Jewish Family and Career Services and the Metropolitan Housing Coalition – who were concerned about chronic disinvestment in Louisville and the city’s lack of (Community Development Financial Institutions) CDFIs and Community Development Entities (CDEs) to meet this challenge.  Today, the organization is an independent 501(c)3 CDFI with board representation from corporate and community-based organizations, committed to improving the quality of life, inclusive of all Louisvillians. With funding from a variety of sources including government, local foundations, corporations, and individuals, LHOME provides access to financial coaching and entrepreneurial capital to residents and businesses in historically underserved populations and specifically, the Black residents in our city.

LHOME became a certified CDFI in 2018, and in the past five years has provided entrepreneur training and financial coaching to more than 3,700 Louisville/Jefferson County residents and deployed over $4.5MM in affordable, fixed-rate loans primarily to un- and under-banked micro-enterprises and small businesses. In 2022 alone, LHOME provided training and coaching services to over 880 individuals, including 73% who are persons of color and 80% of whom have incomes below 80% of median. Of the nearly $1M in small business loans disbursed in 2022, 99% were made to minority-owned businesses.

Why LHOME:

• 33% of Black-owned stable, healthy employer firms primarily obtain business capital from banks, compared to 54% of White-owned businesses.

• 48% of Black-owned businesses obtain capital from predatory online lenders, compared to only 17% of White-owned businesses.

• 16% of Black-owned businesses are never able to access the capital required to stabilize and grow their companies.

Why LHOME? This is what our customers say:

“LHOME listened to me,” said Ben Jones, owner of Better Days Records and a LHOME client. “Before LHOME, I’ve never been able to talk to anybody to help keep me alive,” he said. Another client, Derrick Ellery, owner of Detailed Property, LLC said, “LHOME gave me all the coaching and resources I needed to increase my level of work. At LHOME they are always looking to assist and help as much as they can. This is an awesome organization for all small business owners. Everyone in Louisville should check them out.”

That is what makes LHOME unique, the financial coaching and technical assistance services along with loan products designed and targeted to underserved minority borrowers and communities. LHOME financial coaches can typically spend anywhere from 20-60 hours and more with our customers before they even fill out a formal loan application.

Black-owned businesses are vital to the economic health of our community; yet they continue to suffer from the negative impacts of systemic racism, disinvestment, and unequal access to flexible and affordable capital. Your intentional investment in Black businesses, through LHOME, is not only beneficial to the Black community, but socio-economic equity will also produce economic gains for all of Louisville. The Federal Reserve reports that economic parity for the Black community in Louisville would increase Black buying power in Louisville by $1.48B. And, that economic gain would be shared across all segments of the Louisville economy. Equity will not reduce the size of the economic pie, but rather, grow the size of the pie for everyone.

No one person and no one entity can address the economic development needs of our Black businesses and communities alone. It, indeed, takes a “village”. Become a part of the “village” of change. Take this opportunity to financially support the important, community and life changing work that LHOME takes on every day. Become a part of team “LHOME”.