About CIC - Community Investment Corporation

About CIC

Community Investment Corporation (CIC) is the region’s leading lender for affordable rental housing. We build vibrant communities, strengthen local businesses, and provide well maintained homes for families by serving as a one-stop resource for local owner-operators and property managers of affordable rental housing.

Mission

A leading force in affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization.

Community Investment Corporation (CIC) is Chicago’s leading source of financing for the acquisition, rehabilitation, and preservation of affordable rental housing in Chicago neighborhoods and suburban communities.

We fuel the success of local entrepreneurs by providing competitive and flexible loan products, unmatched customer service, and complementary programs and trainings to help our borrowers grow and strengthen their businesses.

As a nonprofit corporation, CIC’s mission is to be a leading force in affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization through innovative financing, programs, and policy leadership. Download our FY 2023 Fact Sheet

CIC is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, and an approved FHA Multifamily lender.

$1.6 billion loaned

2,600 loans financed

66,200 units rehabbed

homes for 166,000 people

What We Do

Flexible financing, property management workshops, direct action on troubled buildings, and innovative policies.

Flexible financing

Flexible financing to buy, rehab, and refinance affordable rental housing

Go to Loans

Workshops

Workshops to support property owners and managers

Property Training

Direct Action

Direct action to preserve troubled buildings

Learn About TBI

Buildings for Sale

Innovation

Policy and program innovation to drive intentional, coordinated strategies that preserve affordable rental housing in Cook County

Preservation Compact

The CIC Difference

Seventy-five percent of low cost rental housing in the United States is unsubsidized and privately owned by local hands-on entrepreneurs.

CIC specializes in working with these entrepreneurs and lending to buy, rehab, and preserve this important source of housing, known as naturally occurring affordable housing – or NOAH.

But we are more than just Chicago’s multifamily rehab lender. Together with our private, nonprofit, government and philanthropic partners, we provide a wide range of programs and policy leadership to build strong communities while helping borrowers grow and strengthen their businesses.

When you work with CIC, you experience a holistic, human-centered, and innovative approach to lending for affordable rental housing.

History

Our foundation

CIC was formed on a simple premise: that by working together, banks and nonprofits can leverage their resources to create strong communities with safe and secure homes by investing in the region’s affordable rental housing.

CIC was established in 1974, three years before the Community Reinvestment Act was passed, as a loan consortium and vehicle through which banks could provide needed rehab financing in the Chicago neighborhoods that needed it most. Ten years later, CIC established its first Note Purchase Agreement (NPA), a unique concept that has guided CIC’s investments and partnerships ever since.

Over the past 35 years, CIC has adapted its lending products and developed complementary programs and services to meet the ever-changing needs of the Chicago region’s neighborhoods and affordable rental housing stock.

Today, CIC provides financing and resources to hundreds of small, local business owners each year who create safe, high quality, affordable housing and who are committed to the communities where they work.

1974: CIC (originally known as Community Services and Research Corporation) is incorporated.

1984: Fourteen Chicago-based banks invest a total of $17 million in CIC’s first Multifamily Note Purchase Agreement. In the first year of its lending program, CIC provided $13 million in loans to local owner-operators. Photo by Philonese Simmons.

1993: The Multifamily Note Purchase Agreement is renewed, making $500 million available to local owner-operators to create and preserve affordable rental units. Investors and community partners are recognized at a celebration with CRA advocate Gale Cincotta and Mayor Richard M. Daley.

1998: CIC begins to offer Property Management Training as a complementary service to its multifamily lending. Photo by Jon Randolph.

2002: CIC establishes Community Initiatives, Inc. (CII) to engage in direct real estate activities and address vacant and distressed buildings plaguing Chicago neighborhoods. Photo by Gordon Walek.

2008: CIC launches Energy Savers, which would become a national model for improving energy efficiency in multifamily buildings.

2011: CIC becomes the convener of The Preservation Compact, a MacArthur Foundation initiative to develop policies to support the preservation of affordable rental housing in Cook County. Photo by Roark Johnson.

2014: Recognizing a growing need to address vacant and distressed single family homes, CIC capitalizes its first 1-4 Unit Note Purchase Agreement. Photo by Gordon Walek.

2015: The Multifamily Note Purchase Agreement is renewed. Investors are recognized at a celebration with Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinckle.

2018: CIC and The Preservation Compact develop and launch the Opportunity Investment Fund to create and preserve affordable rental housing in high cost markets. Photo by Roark Johnson.

2020: Over 45 years later, CIC has loaned more than $1.5 billion to improve and preserve affordable rental housing for over 157,000 low and moderate income people. Photo by Roark Johnson.

Staff

Meet CIC’s dedicated staff.

Stacie Young

President & CEO

Stacie Young is President and CEO of Community Investment Corporation (CIC), a non-profit CDFI lender which provides financing for the acquisition, rehabilitation, and preservation of affordable rental housing in Chicago area neighborhoods, financing $1.5 billion to preserve 63,000 affordable units since 1984.

Prior to her role as CEO, Young was Director of The Preservation Compact, a policy collaborative housed at CIC that drives preservation strategies for unsubsidized, or Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing stock, as well as government assisted stock. Accomplishments include creating a $34 million mezzanine debt fund for high cost markets; convening an intergovernmental group to preserve 6,200 subsidized units; driving building code relief for multifamily rental rehab; creating a $48 million loan pool for 1-4 unit buildings, and a $5 million CDFI partnership to preserve 1-4 unit buildings.

Young also served as Assistant to the Mayor for Affordability in the City of Chicago’s Office of the Mayor, and at Diversity Inc., a fair housing coalition in the south suburbs of Chicago. She currently serves on the boards of BPI and Housing Choice Partners.

She completed her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University, and received her master’s degree from the Harris School at the University of Chicago.