The CDFI Fund and the legal concept of CDFIs were established by the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994.
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) authorized CDFIs certified by the CDFI Fund to become members of the Federal Home Loan Banks.
In fiscal year 2016, CDFI program awardees originated $3.6 billion in loans and investments to finance more than 13,000 businesses and 33,000 affordable housing units.
Its holding company ShoreBank Corporation, still exists and promotes its community development mission through affiliates in Oregon and Washington state, and in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Self-Help's home and business lending has provided low-wealth, minority, rural and female borrowers with over $5.24 billion in financing.
[12] Much of this is through Self-Help's national secondary market program, which enables conventional lenders to make more home loans to low-wealth families.
In response to predatory lenders increasingly targeting family wealth in poor and minority communities, Self-Help in 1999 worked with the NAACP, AARP, and other North Carolina groups to form the Coalition for Responsible Lending and help enact one of the United States' first laws to curb predatory mortgage lending.