Boston Wins JPMorgan Chase’s AdvancingCities Challenge

Thursday Boston was named one of seven winning cities in JPMorgan Chase's AdvancingCities Challenge. The challenge is part of the firm’s $500 million, five-year initiative to advance inclusive recovery and help create greater economic opportunity in cities.

The Boston Opportunity System (BOS) Collaborative will receive a $5 million philanthropic investment to establish neighborhood-based training strategies for 1,100 residents of color, and fund 250 new and preserved affordable housing units in historically underinvested Boston neighborhoods, including Black and Latinx communities.

Thursday's announcement builds on JPMorgan Chase’s new $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity, address key drivers of the racial wealth divide and provide economic opportunity to underserved communities, especially the Black and Latinx communities.

The AdvancingCities Challenge supports collaborative and holistic solutions that tackle pressing needs and systemic challenges to help create more access to capital and opportunity. This year, the competition attracted more than 150 proposals from 78 communities across 35 states and territories.

Boston Medical Center (BMC), the lead organization, joined partners Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Health Resources in Action in teaming up with the City of Boston and four community partners, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, BlueHub Loan Fund, Action for Equity, and Jewish Vocational Services. These partnerships will help strengthen recovery efforts in Boston and address the needs of Black and Latinx communities, which have suffered disproportionately both from the COVID-19 pandemic and generations of disinvestment.

With the support from JPMorgan Chase, the BOS Collaborative will shift how cross-sector anchor institutions approach place-based hiring, purchasing, and investing, to create enduring opportunities for Boston’s Black and Latinx communities. The collaborative will deploy below-market rate capital to create affordable and permanent supportive housing, adopt new hiring and retention policies that connect residents to better paying jobs at the anchor institutions, and promote state and federal policies that help residents, such as increased state rental vouchers for tenants of acquired properties, or expanded Medicaid funding for onsite supportive services.

“Safe, affordable housing and access to well-paying jobs are foundational to thriving communities, yet both are out of reach for many Bostonians,” said Peter Scher, Head of Corporate Responsibility, JPMorgan Chase & Co. “We’re proud to support the Boston Opportunity System Collaborative to help Boston’s underserved communities, particularly Black and Latinx residents, access affordable housing and get better-paying jobs as part of our commitment to drive an inclusive economic recovery and advance racial equity. Collaboration among business, local government, anchor institutions and community leaders is critical to break down barriers of economic mobility and create more opportunity for more people.”

In August 2019, BMC, Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital formed the Innovative Stable Housing Initiative (ISHI), a separate $3 million housing initiative to increase access to and maintain stable housing in Boston. The BOS Collaborative will leverage ISHI’s robust efforts to engage more than 100 housing advocates, health care providers and local residents to help ensure that their efforts align to community needs and vision. Housing construction and rehabilitation is expected to begin in 2021.

The collaborative’s efforts will be concentrated in Boston’s neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.

“I’m proud Boston is one of the cities being recognized as we work to champion equity across our neighborhoods,” said Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “The BOS Collaborative receiving this grant from JPMorgan Chase will support the City’s work in advancing opportunities and creating resources for those who live and work along the Fairmount Corridor."

Over the course of this three-year philanthropic commitment, the collaborative will invest in training 1,100 individuals, and place at least 500 of those individuals into full time employment at living wages in the healthcare, tech, and biotech industries. In affordable housing, the collaborative will create 100 affordable housing units and preserve 150 affordable units. To help achieve these outcomes, the collaborative expects to engage with 500 community residents and work with four city agencies.

“At Boston Medical Center, we see the consequences of unstable housing and a lack of economic opportunity reflected in the health of our patients on a daily basis,” said Kate Walsh, President and CEO of Boston Medical Center Health System. “The COVID-19 pandemic is only making these disparities worse. Through this collaboration between JPMorgan Chase, the City of Boston and community partners, we can bring new vitality to neighborhoods that have suffered through generations of inequity and disinvestment.