CDFI To Announce New Program Eligibility Criteria

The CDFI Fund plans to update its program eligibility criteria based on recently released data from the 2006-2010 American Community Survey (ACS).

As of March 2012, program eligibility for the CDFI Fund’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), CDFI Financial and Technical Assistance (FA/TA), Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA), and Bank Enterprise Award (BEA) programs remain unchanged and linked to the 2000 Census.

The CDFI Fund is currently analyzing the Census Bureau’s 2006-2010 ACS to update eligible areas for all programs based on new poverty and income data.

The CDFI Fund expects to release new tables showing program eligibility by Census tract based on the following timeline, subject to change:

New Markets Tax Credit Program: May 2012.

CDFI FA/TA and NACA Programs: June 2012.

Bank Enterprise Award Program: September 2012.

Policies governing this transition will be released along with the new eligibility tables.

A contract for developing a new Community Investment Mapping System (CIMS) reflecting new program eligibility is expected to be obligated by the end of September, 2012. This contract will develop a new CIMS which will allow users to locate eligible Census tracts for all programs on a map, and geocode addresses to the new Census tract boundaries.