CDFI Funding Still Unclear

ARLINGTON, Va. – The Senate may have passed its enormous Omnibus spending bill, designed to fund the government for the current fiscal year, but it remains unclear how much money has been set aside for the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund. “We do not know how the CDFI Fund will end up in the FY 2003 process,” said Jennifer Vasiloff, director of the Coalition of Community Development Institutions. “We are guessing that with the across the board cut in the Senate, we are somewhere below $73 million in the Senate omnibus that just passed but we have not seen any paper. We have heard that a final bill may not be resolved until after the President’s birthday recess,” she said. The CDFI coalition tracks funding of the CDFI Fund and lobbies in favor of the Fund. The Fund awarded small credit unions $1.07 million last year.