Former New York City Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen is financing mixed-income housing developments as a way to tackle economic segregation. Her firm, MSquared, has raised $139 million towards its target of $250 million for a fund that aims to finance over $1 billion in mixed-income housing developments using sustainable designs and energy-efficient systems.
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The thesis: Mixed-income developments drive upward mobility for low-income families, and attractive risk-adjusted returns for institutional investors. The fund looks for projects led by female and minority developers to help build a more diverse real estate sector. “We need to build more sustainable, inclusive cities,” Glen says on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast. “I’ve always thought that great neighborhoods and great cities start with where you live. That’s the fundamental building block of any great city, and really the building block of opportunity.”
