CARE Access Real Estate

The Care Access Real Estate (CARE) Fund is a new real estate investment trust (REIT) managed by Mission Driven Finance that is focused on supporting in-home and small facility childcare providers in the US. A significant portion of early, pre-K childcare services, particularly in low-income communities, is provided by in-home carers. Often, these providers do not own their property and cannot make upgrades and improvements to grow their businesses. In addition, this is a small business sector that is almost exclusively the domain of women owners. 96.5% of childcare business owners are women and half of them are women of color. The REIT aims to support these care providers by purchasing properties, financing upgrades that allow for business expansion, and operating as a mission-driven landlord with stables leases. In ideal, long-term cases, the REIT could eventually sell properties to care providers. The CARE Fund has the support of a number of state and municipal governments and philanthropic funding from the Hilton Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and others. Ceniarth is the first lender and has provided $2.5M in pilot debt to the initiative as the REIT seeks to raise additional equity and debt.