Downtown commercial buildings on Howard Street. Photo: Baltimore Heritage from Baltimore, MD, USA, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gov. Wes Moore and Housing Secretary Jake Day on Nov. 5 announced a $4.5 million state loan to the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund to expand lending for Baltimore small businesses.
The official announcement said the money comes through the Division of Business Development’s Loan to Lender Program and will be matched with $4.5 million in private capital, for $9 million in total lending capacity. The partnership is expected to support about four to six loans to Baltimore-based small businesses, each from $1.5 million to $2 million, for the acquisition and renovation of owner-occupied small business properties.
The Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund is a Baltimore-based community development financial institution. The official release said that since 2019 it has closed more than 55 transactions and leveraged more than $800 million for communities. In 2025, the department and the fund collaborated on the first loan in the state’s Own Your Future program, which the release said helped The Cube CoWork buy a 13,000-square-foot building on Harford Road that it had been leasing since 2021.
Mark Kaufman, the fund’s president, said the initiative is meant to help small businesses and nonprofits move from occupancy to ownership. The official release directed businesses seeking state help to the Department of Housing and Community Development.
