News - 2008
071137
Katrina Fund Makes Final Grant
$39,846.91 Helps Develop Emergency and Transitional Housing for Homeless Veterans in New Orleans
Columbus, OH, November 13, 2007— RED CAPITAL GROUP’s Hurricane Katrina Fund recently made its final grant, bringing to conclusion an effort that started over two years ago. A check for nearly $40,000 was presented to the Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans ("VOA") to help them finance the development of transitional housing with 50 beds and with support services for homeless veterans in the New Orleans area. VOA needed to raise a portion of funds for the new project in order to access critically needed federal dollars. RED’s grant will help them achieve that goal and leverage RED's contribution. VOA previously had 32 emergency and transitional housing units for veterans which were flooded and destroyed by Katrina.
James M. LeBlanc, President/CEO, Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans commented upon learning of the grant, "Affordable housing in post Katrina New Orleans remains difficult to find and extremely costly. This is particularly true for homeless veterans. By the support of RED CAPITAL GROUP and its Katrina Fund, Volunteers of America will be able to leverage additional funds to renovate a facility that will provide housing and support services for up to fifty(50) of our nation’s veterans each and every day."
By way of background, RED’s Katrina Fund, administered by The Columbus Foundation, was established in September 2005 in response to the massive devastation left by Hurricane Katrina and other storms. RED seeded the Fund with an initial $25,000 contribution and contributed mortgage origination fees received from transactions with profit-motivated sponsors undertaken in the hurricane impacted Gulf Coast Areas (primarily Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi). RED also agreed to waive its mortgage origination fee for financing multifamily, seniors housing, assisted living, nursing home and small and rural hospital properties in those impacted areas which were owned by not-for profit entities.
As a result of RED’s Katrina Fund, nearly $90,000 representing six awarded grants was made to not-for-profit groups to aid in their rebuilding efforts. The six grants were made to three affordable housing projects and three community hospitals impacted by the storms. Funding for the hospitals was used towards replacing emergency medical equipment needed to treat the residents of the community and to serve the influx of displaced individuals from New Orleans. Funding for the Single Room Occupancy projects, both of which provide transitional and supportive housing for formerly homeless men and women, was used to provide final furnishings, bedding and appliances for these newly built projects.
RED's contributions were made to the following entities:
• $10,000 Jackson Parish Hospital (Jonesboro, LA)
• $10,000 North Caddo Medical Center (Vivian, LA)
• $10,000 Richland Parish Hospital (Delhi, LA)
• $10,000 Tulane Single Room Occupancy (New Orleans, LA)
• $10,000 Duvernay Single Room Occupancy (New Orleans, LA)
• $39,846 VOA Veteran’s Housing (New Orleans, LA)
