Causes: Community & Neighborhood Development, Community Improvement & Capacity Building, Economic Development, Energy Resources Conservation & Development, Environment, Homeless & Housing, Housing Development, Construction & Management

Mission:

At Enterprise, we create opportunity for low- and moderate-income people through fit, affordable housing and diverse, thriving communities. Central to our mission is Enterprise’s fundamental commitment to give people living in poverty an opportunity to move up and out. We believe that these opportunities are best provided in communities with a diverse mix of affordable and market housing options, access to jobs and social supports, and a strong commitment to the environment and civic participation.

Programs:

Enterprise’s vision through Green Communities is to fundamentally transform the way we think about, design and build affordable homes.

Green Communities is the first national green building program developed for affordable housing. We focus on the use of environmentally sustainable materials, reduction of negative environmental impacts and increased energy efficiency. And we emphasize designs and materials that safeguard the health of residents and locations that provide easy access to services and public transportation.

Green Communities is designed to help developers, investors, builders and residents make the transition to a greener future for affordable housing. Created in consultation with some of the nation’s leading environmental, public health and green building experts, we offer grants, loans, tax-credit equity, training and technical assistance to give developers and builders the resources they need to bring green projects to life.

Green Communities Results

In 2004, Enterprise set out to prove that it was possible to bring the
health, economic and environmental benefits of green building to
low-income communities nationwide. Conventional wisdom said it could not be done. But through action, research and wide-ranging partnerships, we exceeded our own ambitious goals to change how America thinks about, designs, preserves and locates affordable housing.

In just five years, the Enterprise Green Communities initiative invested $700 million to build and preserve nearly 16,000 green affordable homes – while transforming local, state and national policies. These policies validate a national commitment to healthier, greener affordable homes in the halls of the U.S. Congress– and in legislative chambers and communities across the United States.

Enterprise will continue to lead and build on this important momentum with the next generation of Enterprise Green Communities for every generation. The next exciting juncture of our award-winning initiative will deliver new tools, services and products that put into practice the findings on the cost-effectiveness of meeting the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria

Enterprise’s response to the foreclosure crisis has been guided by our long and extensive experience with HUD’s Asset Control Area program, returning foreclosed homes to productive use and confronting the destabilizing effects of concentrations of foreclosures. This experience led us to quickly adopt a multi-pronged foreclosure response strategy. We are working at the national level to create policies and partnerships that support local efforts. At the same time, we have joined our longtime national partners to develop and implement community stabilization programs in local markets across the country. Our efforts are symbiotic – local experience informs national policy and partnership efforts, while national policy changes and partnerships provide local programs with the tools and resources to achieve results on the ground.

Enterprise has a two-pronged approach to helping preserve the nation’s affordable housing.

• Keeping Housing Affordable: Enterprise is in partnership with the National House Trust. This program provides funding to purchase and preserve affordable housing that is in danger of being sold and converted into market-rate housing.
• Preserving Expiring-Use Units: Housing built with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits was required to remain affordable to low-income people for 15 years. Our for-profit subsidiary is helping keep these properties affordable past “Year 15.”

The Enterprise Rose Fellowship in Community Architecture creates partnerships between emerging architects and community-based organizations to direct the skills and passions of the architects in the service of low and