Chase donates $1.5M to housing group

A $1.5-million grant will pay to renovate 75 rental units on the city’s South Side during the next five years.

The money from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation is going to Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Families initiative, which will redevelop single-family and duplexes with the nonprofit Community Development for All People. Both groups have been working together to redevelop and build housing on the South Side for years.

Some of the work is already underway, said Jeff Lyttle, JPMorgan Chase managing director. “Our grant is gap financing,” he said.

The homes will be targeted toward people earning 80 percent of the area’s median household income, or $44,044 in Franklin County. The county’s median household income was $56,055 in 2016.

Community Development for All People will own the homes through a limited liability corporation, said John Edgar, the group’s executive director.

Last year, Chase contributed $75,000 to help develop the 58-unit Residences at Career Gateway at 755 E. Whittier St., which also provides residents with workforce training and other services to help them get and keep jobs. The $12 million development is less than a mile from Nationwide Children’s Hospital and was developed by the NRP Group, a Cleveland for-profit developer, and Community Development for All People.

“We really appreciate the collaborative spirit that exists there already,” Lyttle said.