The St. Louis Fed recently updated its Community Investment Explorer, which aggregates investments into low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. The interactive tool draws on publicly available data from over 500,000 community development transactions through the Community Development Financial Institution, New Markets Tax Credit, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs. The investments support a number of activities, ranging from affordable housing to commercial real estate development, consumer and business lending, and more. Collectively, these programs are responsible for several billion dollars of investment into LMI communities each year.
The tool shows geographic comparisons and trends over time in a way that is easily customizable. Users can select everything from the geographic level, location, purpose of the loan, and range of dates to analyze investments in low- and moderate-income communities. This flexible tool will help users understand trends of community investments across the country.