Beneficial State Bank Focuses on Affordable Housing in 2023, Hires Expert to Lead its Practice and Find Innovative Solutions to Housing Crisis

Beneficial State Bank, a mission-driven community bank serving California, Oregon, and Washington, has hired expert Margie Francia to strengthen its focus on affordable housing; Francia can speak to media about the role the financial industry needs to play in finding innovative solutions to the housing crisis

Feb. 2, 2023, Oakland, Calif. – Beneficial State Bank, which serves a triple bottom line of people, planet, and prosperity for all, is expanding its affordable housing practice in 2023 and has hired longtime expert Margie Francia as Vice President and Team Lead for Affordable Housing to pursue innovative partnerships and solutions to the housing crisis.

“Communities across Beneficial State Bank’s footprint have some of the highest levels of housing insecurity in the nation,” said Randell Leach, CEO of Beneficial State Bank. “Our mission includes helping communities thrive, and affordable housing has risen to crisis level in communities across the nation, and certainly the West Coast. We’re grateful to have Margie join our team, and we know her expertise in affordable housing financing and cross-sector partnerships will help us grow our practice and help more people.”

Francia joins Beneficial State Bank with over 20 years of experience in affordable housing lending and development. Over her career, she has helped create and preserve approximately 6,000 units of affordable housing by developing, managing, and financing projects in cooperation with public and privately-owned entities.

“As a Community Development Financial Institution and top-rated B Corp with a nonprofit ownership model, Beneficial State Bank is uniquely positioned to be a transformative player in the affordable housing space that can bridge public, private, and nonprofit efforts,” Francia said. “I’m excited to look at innovative partnerships, like many did during the Covid-19 pandemic, to see how we can all join forces to fix this problem. No one bank or city or government entity is going to be able to fix it alone. We need to work together to find solutions. Having an affordable home is such a fundamental aspect of having thriving families and communities.”

As of December 2021, Beneficial State Bank had $286 million in outstanding loan balances to mission-aligned affordable housing. As a result, the bank supported over 8,733 affordable housing units.

Francia was previously the Senior Director of Capital Solutions & Partnerships at Enterprise Community Partners, where she helped design an emergency pilot program at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic focused on keeping low-income renters housed, while simultaneously preventing foreclosures of small, BIPOC-owned, naturally occurring affordable housing buildings in Los Angeles.