In the wake of a hearing before the House Committee on FinancialServices last week, community development financial institutions,including some credit unions, are trying to build legislativesupport for their agenda.

The CDFI Coalition is circulating an appeal to its memberorganizations to lobby their representatives to sign a letter beingcirculated by Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) in support of the U.S.Treasury's CDFI Fund.

The letter, which has 18 Democratic signers already urges theHouse Financial Services and General Government AppropriationsSubcommittee to appropriate $300 million to the CDFI Fund and tocontinue the current moratorium on requiring CDFI's which get moneyfrom the fund to match grants with funds from private sources.

"At a time when many conventional lenders are pulling back ontheir commercial and business lending, the demand for financingfrom CDFIs is robust," the currently undated letter says. "TheAmerican Recovery and Reinvestment Act not only provided $100million in stimulus dollars to the Fund but also waived theone-to-one private matching funds required of CDFIs applying forfinancial assistance from the Fund. By waiving the match, Congressacknowledged the difficulty that CDFIs face in securing privatesources of matching in a slowing economy," the letter added.