A little known federal program that steers private funds into projects in overlooked communities is on President Donald Trump’s chopping block.
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A federal program that steers private funds into projects in overlooked communities — like the $20,000 line of credit that a Richmond restaurant used to launch a frozen foods line — is on President Donald Trump’s chopping block.
The program, the Treasury Department‘s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, has helped lenders venture into places like Petersburg, South Richmond, Amherst County and Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore in order to develop housing or offer small businesses the kind of credit, and advice, that can be hard to find through traditional private sector channels.
A March 14 Trump executive order, titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” called on Treasury to justify the fund’s cost. The fund had hoped to generate billions of dollars of private sector investment this year in communities that often miss out by leveraging $348 million in grants.
