‘It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme’: Jumpstart Philly celebrates 10 years of removing blight

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When Vanessa Latimore’s father died, she inherited a small part of his sizable real estate portfolio in Philadelphia.

The two properties in Logan needed a lot of work, but she was determined to bring them back to life. She just needed to find a lender willing to help a first-time developer.

“I wanted to extend my help towards the veterans because I know how sometimes it can be hard for them,” said Latimore, whose father was awarded the Purple Heart for his service during the Vietnam War.

Enter Jumpstart Philly, a popular training program that offers capital to aspiring real estate developers to help grow the city’s supply of affordable housing.

The citywide effort teaches industry basics, provides mentorship and offers participants acquisition and construction loans with friendly terms, all in service of removing blight from communities.

Since graduating from Jumpstart last year, Latimore has revamped one of her properties and is working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to find tenants for the duplex.

She hopes to finish renovating the second building by the end of the year, and plans to take on new projects after that.

“I came up under a lot of real estate and entrepreneurship and investing, so I feel like it’s kind of in my genes a little,” said Latimore, an engineer with the School District of Philadelphia.

Over the last decade, Jumpstart has become a pipeline for affordable housing developers,  issuing more than $60 million in loans for hundreds of residential and mixed-use projects in the city.

Launched to uplift a single neighborhood, the program is now a model for community development in six states, including communities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

“It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. We take a holistic approach … and focus on reducing gentrification by building wealth locally through slow, steady growth,” said founder Ken Weinstein during a 10th anniversary celebration held Tuesday in Germantown.

Weinstein launched Jumpstart in 2015 after receiving a slew of requests from people who wanted his help getting started in the industry.

By then, he had more than 30 years of experience but not nearly enough room in his schedule to mentor everyone seeking his guidance.

He figured a program could help solve that problem.

After creating a curriculum, Weinstein started hosting training sessions rooted in renovating vacant and blighted properties in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, where he had invested for decades.

These days, the program is geared toward fixing up properties in middle neighborhoods across the city and beyond. These are neighborhoods with reasonably priced real estate that are neither rapidly gentrifying nor “grappling” with concentrated poverty, according to the Reinvestment Fund, which partners with Jumpstart to help provide loans

A majority of Philadelphians live in these communities, including many of the program’s borrowers, who are largely women and people of color with no formal training.

Jumpstart turns 10 as Philadelphia continues to experience an affordable housing crisis, a challenge compounded by historically high rents and a lack of safe and habitable units.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Mayor Cherelle Parker applauded the program for preserving hundreds of homes and empowering hundreds of residents in the process.

“I’m a ‘teach me how to fish’ kind of girl. I would much prefer that you not ever give me anything. But give me access to the tools and skills that I need to empower myself to execute,” Parker said, who has made housing a top priority during her first term.

On Thursday, City Council is expected to give final approval to Parker’s signature housing plan, a multifaceted effort rooted in creating and preserving 30,000 housing units over four years.

Parker said the homes renovated through Jumpstart are undoubtedly part of that $2 billion vision, which brought a smile to Weinstein’s face.