Nine Baltimore nonprofits will receive a cut of a $4 million commitment from JPMorgan Chase to tackle the city’s vacant housing crisis and form a working group that meets regularly to share ideas.

The Baltimore Housing Innovation Cohort, which will include community developers, builders and public health-focused groups, will concentrate their efforts on property acquisition, rehabilitation and affordable housing development opportunities specifically for legacy residents. Supported by the bank, the group also will receive assistance from the Center for Community Progress and the Urban Institute to create jobs and boost wealth in low-income neighborhoods.

The groups named for the work group are:

• Black Women Build — Baltimore, Inc., which will renovate homes in Upton, Druid Heights, Penn North and Poppleton as well as provide job training and homebuying opportunities.
• City Life-Community Builders Ltd., which restores homes.
• Druid Heights Community Development Corp., which strives to create more housing affordability and improve public safety in the neighborhood.
• Greater Baybrook Alliance, Inc., which seeks to leverage existing resources to stabilize homes in Brooklyn, Curtis Bay and Brooklyn Park in South Baltimore.
• Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Inc., which helps households improve health and energy efficiency where they live.
• North East Housing Initiative, Inc., which will center its acquisition, rehabilitation and home-selling efforts in Northeast Baltimore with a long-term affordability mandate.
• National Community Stabilization Trust — Developing Affordable Starter Homes Fund, which provides low-cost capital to vacant housing developers who can’t access loans and financing from traditional banks.
• ReBuild Metro, Inc., the development arm of BUILD Baltimore, a community advocacy group, that has pursued a “whole block” approach in Northeast Baltimore that prioritizes new and long-term residents.
• Southwest Partnership Inc., which will create a housing plan specifically for Mount Clare, Hollins Roundhouse and Franklin Square neighborhoods.

The $4 million gift is part of a five-year, $20 million investment in Baltimore from JPMorgan Chase, which has considerably expanded its business in the region since 2018. The bank now operates 30 retail branches in the Greater Baltimore region with plans to add more. It also launched a virtual call center last year that it hopes to grow to as many as 125 Baltimore-based employees.

Tim Berry, the firm’s global head of corporate responsibility and chairman of the mid-Atlantic region, said the bank aspires to create more customers in every community where it has a presence.

“We believe deeply that our firm can only be successful if we’re doing work that drives healthy communities,” Berry said last month in an interview.

In a meeting room at the Sagamore Pendry in Fells Point, Berry said on Tuesday that teaming up with grassroots partners also helps the bank establish trust in communities where it knows its presence may not be welcome. He promised the bank’s commitment to Baltimore would be “long-term” and would “laser-focus” on affordable housing and getting more families into decent homes.

Members of the cohort said the work of fixing up badly blighted communities is difficult, expensive and requires a full-court press of this nature.

”There’s a great benefit in forcing us to talk,” said JohnDre Jennings, executive director of the Druid Heights Community Development Corp. She said she looks forward to discussing policy solutions and possible health interventions with her peer leaders.

“It forces us to come out of the silos we’re in,” added Sean Closkey, president of ReBuild Metro. He credited the bank for lending support to a complex financial challenge that he hoped would catalyze even more investment.

After pouring at least $200 million of philanthropic gifts and financing into Detroit since the city declared bankruptcy in 2013, JPMorgan Chase has pledged to expand its blueprint for tackling residential vacancy and jumpstarting the economy into several new communities across the U.S. It directs its investment into four distinct pillars: home lending, workforce development, small businesses and financial wellness.

In Detroit, the firm points to some promising returns on its investment so far, including lowered unemployment, growth in median credit scores and per capita incomes. A Maryland resident, Berry said a bet on Baltimore could yield similar results.

In a Tuesday news release, the firm said the idea for the housing cohort stemmed from lessons learned in Detroit and other cities where it paired financial resources with local, on-the-ground experts who “know their community best.” Outside of the housing cohort, the bank has put money into groups including Innovation Works, which supports social entrepreneurs, and Parity Homes, which is restoring homes in Harlem Park.

Meanwhile, city, state and civic leaders have begun to coalesce around vacant housing as a marquee issue. Last year, Mayor Brandon Scott joined forces with BUILD Baltimore and the Greater Baltimore Committee to set a 15-year, $3 billion target for remediating the problem. Earlier this month, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order enshrining the vacant housing epidemic into an administrative priority, calling to eliminate 5,000 abandoned and blighted homes in five years.

JPMorgan Chase isn’t the only private sector player to heed Baltimore’s vacant housing call-to-action: Last year, the city announced Bloomberg Philanthropies would invest in a team to embed in city government and draft solutions for complex problems. The city’s innovation team, which has offices in City Hall, is zeroing in on vacancy and is conducting listening sessions in neighborhoods across Baltimore.