How can we help low-income Mission residents build a more secure economic future for themselves and their families?

This is the question local leaders in the Mission District of San Francisco asked themselves following the commitment of $1 million from Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO.), earmarked from the sale proceeds of its former garment factory in the Mission. So began an intensive community engagement process that eventually led to the creation of the Mission Asset Fund | Fondo Popular de la Misión (MAF).

MAF is a new and innovative entity focused on expanding access to financial services, savings and investment opportunities, i.e. asset-building, as a way for residents of the Mission to build a more secure economic future for themselves, their families and their community.

MISSION DISTRICT PROFILE

The Mission is a vibrant working-class community. The 1.5 square mile neighborhood is home to over 60,000 residents, including 50 percent Latino and 11 percent Asian/Pacific Islander households. Nearly one half of Mission residents are Spanish speakers and more than one in three speaks only Spanish. Forty-five percent of Mission residents are foreign-born. It is a community rich in social networks and one with a long history of active political engagement and strong nonprofit leadership.

With combined incomes at or below 80 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), the majority of Mission households meet the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of low-income. Mission Latinos’ average per capita income is less than one-third that of white households citywide. It is estimated that approximately 4,400 Latino households in the Mission are asset poor—they do not have enough savings to live at the poverty level for more than three months if their income is disrupted. Among Latino adults, roughly half are “unbanked”—they have neither a checking nor a savings account and are thus reliant on high-cost fringe financial services.

MISSION ASSET FUND HISTORY

LS&CO., which is headquartered in San Francisco, has particularly strong ties to the Mission community, having operated a sewing facility there from 1906 until it closed in 2002. In February 2005, LS&CO. announced its intent to sell this factory and donate the sale proceeds to the Levi Strauss Foundation (LSF), with a portion ($1 million) earmarked for a special Mission District economic development fund. This decision was reflective of the company’s long-standing presence in the neighborhood and its commitment to corporate citizenship.

In spring of 2005 a steering committee (the Mission Asset Fund committee) comprised of six community leaders and one LSF representative began a dialogue about the best use of the $1 million corporate pledge. Working on a voluntary basis, they undertook an extensive community outreach process involving a series of individual conversations and community forums to explore what residents saw as critical to building their economic futures. In total, more than 300 people were contacted over a ten-month period. This was the genesis of the Mission Asset Fund.

MISSION AND PROGRAM

As an intermediary organization, MAF will have three core functions: Convener (supporting an ongoing dialogue about asset-building), Connector (linking residents to asset-building opportunities and knowledge) and Catalyst (expanding asset-building resources and services.)
MAF will:

• connect Mission residents to a broad range of existing asset-building programs;
• create new matched savings programs;
• facilitate access to affordable, appropriate financial services;
• introduce financial coaching services;
• leverage capital to pilot cooperative business and home ownership models;
• enhance nonprofit capacity to purchase their facilities;
• build resident leadership to improve asset-building services in the neighborhood;
• advocate for better-informed public policies and more resources; and
• establish a community alliance to build neighborhood capacity to deliver asset-building programs.


MAF will target low-income households, with a particular focus on those who share the historic profile of LS&CO.’s former factory workers. MAF has already been successful in leveraging partnership support, having received planning and implementation grants totaling more than $560,000 from a diverse group of funders including Bank of the West, Citibank, Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, F.B. Heron Foundation, Friedman Family Foundation, Gerbode Foundation, Levi Strauss Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Community Development, United Commercial Bank, United Way of the Bay Area, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and Washington Mutual.

WHY AN ASSET-BUILDING FOCUS

Today thousands of Mission residents are living paycheck to paycheck – many working two or even three jobs. They have no cushion to survive a short-term financial crisis, like a job loss or illness in the family; they cannot afford to invest in their education or improve their job skills; and they are vulnerable to displacement as neighborhood rental prices rise. When these residents face financial crises, it affects their lives, their families and their community. MAF will expand opportunities for these low-income and immigrant households to build their economic security and become vested stakeholders in their community. It will help them to access the resources they need to weather unexpected financial crises, invest in their education and save for a home, business, their children’s education or their own retirement.

While a limited number of asset-building programs are currently serving Mission residents, they operate in isolation from one another. There is no connector organization (such as MAF) that can help people and/or community organizations move along a continuum of programs and services as their financial situations change and evolve over time. MAF will fill this critical niche. It will also incubate new products or services and advocate for sound policies and increased funding in the asset-building field.

ADVANCING THE FIELD

While other programs across the country have elements of MAF, the combination of the following set it apart and will help inform asset-building work both in San Francisco and in other urban centers (particularly those like the Mission that are high-cost/low-income areas).

• Comprehensive approach: To date, most asset-building efforts have focused on enabling households to access individual programs, such as financial services and/or matched savings opportunities; few have addressed savings and investment opportunities in a comprehensive way, at the neighborhood level.

• Population served: MAF is a neighborhood-centered organization with a particular focus on immigrants, regardless of legal status. Very few other asset-building efforts have attempted to work with such a diverse constituency, particularly given the potential legal hurdles involved.

• Accountability structure: MAF will be structured as a membership organization, with membership open to anyone who lives, works or owns a business in the Mission District. This structure will ensure that MAF’s work is always guided by residents’ needs and priorities.

• Community/foundation dynamic: MAF has forged a community/foundation partnership that builds on strengths, leverages contacts and shares decision-making more fully than typical grantmaker/community relationships.

IMPACT

Specific output measures have been established to assess MAF’s effectiveness during its five-year start-up phase. These include, for example, the number of households assisted by MAF programs, the number of affordable homeownership units developed, the number of cooperative businesses established, the dollars saved through fee avoidance and others. Longer term, a participatory evaluation, i.e., one in which success measures are mutually determined by the grantee and the grantor, will test outcomes in four broad areas:

• Individual and family net worth among MAF participants;
• Affordable, cooperative home and business ownership advances (e.g. the number of housing units or cooperative businesses developed and/or under development in the community) and levels of nonprofit ownership of community-serving facilities;
• Public, private and philanthropic investment in asset-building opportunities (e.g. changes in levels of grants and loans to support matched savings, cooperative housing, cooperative businesses and financial services targeting residents); and
• Asset building as a targeted outcome of community development planning (e.g. measures of whether/how asset-building strategies have been included in neighborhood and city-level planning and community organizing efforts).
Ultimately, the long-term vision is that MAF will contribute to the evolution of the Mission as a neighborhood of genuine economic opportunity for all its residents, regardless of income level or immigration status; one in which everyone has a voice and a stake in their community.