JPMorgan Chase announced a national multimillion-dollar commitment for Black neighborhoods in Atlanta during a press conference June 18.
JPMorgan Chase is focusing on tackling heirs property challenges for homeowners across the country, including Georgia, through legal aid assistance, appraisal reform, and estate planning services.
Heirs property occurs when a homeowner dies without a will and several people gain rights to the land, regardless of whether they live on the property or have paid taxes.
Left unaddressed, heirs property creates unstable homeownership, making it difficult for residents to pass on property to the next generation and access disaster assistance programs that help pay for home repairs or property tax relief.
Following the press conference, two panels were held where speakers discussed strategies to address appraisal bias and heirs property, which disproportionately affect low-to-moderate income communities and hinder generational wealth accumulation.
The panelists emphasized the need for cross-sector collaboration, philanthropic investments, and policy engagement to combat these issues. Speakers also highlighted the historical and systemic factors leading to tangled titles and land loss in Black communities, and discussed progress made in enacting the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act.
Overall, the conversation emphasized the importance of a comprehensive approach involving all stakeholders to address these complex issues.
JPMorgan Chase’s Heather Higginbottom, Head of Research Policy & Insights for JPMorgan Chase Corporate Responsibility, said the strength of their business is inextricably linked to the vitality of the communities they serve.
“Business growth is dependent on healthy, strong communities with good paying jobs, with excellent schools and, of course, with safe and affordable housing,” she said. “Home ownership is much more than just where we physically live, but offers critical financial benefits, including the opportunity to secure equity, and it’s a key mechanism for building generational wealth as interest rates and mortgage costs are rising.”
Additionally, she said the path to sustainable homeownership has become increasingly difficult, and for many existing homeowners, including many in Atlanta, high rates of heirs property and appraisal bias have made it challenging to maintain homeownership and benefit from the equity of their property.
“Appraisal bias has serious economic consequences for families and for communities, discriminatory appraisal practices prevent homeowners from accessing home equity to pay for higher education, medical costs, home repairs, and we view heirs property as a similarly challenging and structural barrier that restricts the transfer of wealth across generations,” she said.
Furthermore, Higginbottom said JPMorgan Chase is committed to addressing these barriers, which includes the nine and a half million dollars they’re committing to limit the loss of wealth in underserved communities.
Additionally, the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) and the Center for Community Progress received $1.7 million from JPMorgan Chase to support equitable development in historically Black neighborhoods in Atlanta.
AWBI was awarded $700,000 over two years to develop a first-of-its-kind, data-informed, brick-and-mortar development, and retention strategy for business owners in historically Black neighborhoods throughout Atlanta, like Cascade and the West End, using neighborhood level data and trends.
AWBI’s goal is to focus on filling knowledge gaps regarding the availability of affordable commercial spaces amid rising rents and patterns of business closures. The research will enable decision-makers to create meaningful and equitable change for Black business owners and the communities they serve.
This new place-based research and data will equip AWBI to co-create and promote policy and practice solutions alongside business-serving partners and their small business owner clients. AWBI plans to publish and promote an anti-displacement toolkit and technical assistance for use by leaders in the public and private sectors.
As a national expert in systemic vacancy and community revitalization, the Center for Community Progress is deploying its two-year, $1 million commitment from JPMorgan Chase to catalyze new development partnerships for affordable housing.
The Center for Community Progress plans to host convenings of developers and local land banks to help facilitate the redevelopment of vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties for affordable housing and develop recommendations for the philanthropy, policy, and financing fields to advance housing affordability, energy efficiency, and climate resilience.
The initiative will support diverse, non-profit, and mission-driven for-profit property development firms from Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.
JPMorgan Chase has made more than $14 million in philanthropic contributions to nonprofits organizations in metro Atlanta over the past four years. In addition, this year alone, the firm supported more than 1,800 small businesses in Georgia with the capital they need to grow and thrive and provided them with more than 77,800 hours of advice and support.
For more information, visit https://communityprogress.org or https://www.atlantawealthbuilding.org.