Among her many practical innovations are mortgages that have helped nearly 1,000 families facing foreclosure stay in their homes. It’s Cherry’s latest effort to tweak tools that have created wealth for middle- and high-income people to solve problems for low-income communities. The Boston-based community development financial institution this week launched One Percent for America, a portal for simple, unsecured 1% loans to cover the naturalization fees for immigrants eligible to become citizens.
“One way to describe our economy is that it’s about draining every ounce of equity out of the neighborhoods that you possibly can,” says BlueHub Capital’s Elyse Cherry, “while complaining about people who don’t pay.” In contrast, BlueHub’s mission is to build healthy communities by putting equity back into them. Elyse Cherry, BlueHub Capital: Creating equity for healthy communities.
