The Greater Mississippi Delta needs over 650,000 units of affordable rental housing for very low-income and extremely low-income families. The lack of affordable housing has placed an estimated 26% of renters in our region as “rent-burdened” (30% or more of wages going to rent), preventing savings and sustaining the cycle of poverty. A major challenge to addressing the affordable rental housing need is the lack of predevelopment funding for developers. Financing at this stage of development has historically been challenging for traditional lenders and is often fulfilled by high-rate mezzanine debt providers, private investors or self-funded. This is difficult financing for developers to access and most needed for the creation and preservation of workforce and affordable housing in Culleywood’s service area, with few mezzanine funds regionally present and little-to-no organized private credit/equity funds serving the housing sector locally.

Culleywood Capital serves low-income people and communities in the four-state Greater Mississippi Delta (“the GMD”) – Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Mississippi. By almost every measure (poverty, income, and unemployment), the GMD ranks as one of the most economically distressed regions of the US:

Over 25% of the nation’s poorest counties and parishes are in the GMD
The GMD’s poverty rate is nearly double the national average
The GMD’s median income is approximately 77% of the US median income
Unemployment in the GMD is nearly triple the national rate

Culleywood directly serves the deeply distressed communities and populations within the GMD by providing below-market, flexible small businesses loans. It is well documented that small businesses play a crucial role in community development and the creation of resilient local economies, contributing to economic growth, local employment (over 45% of private sector employment), employment opportunities (63% of job growth in the US since 1995 has come from small businesses), attracting investment, providing goods and services that meet local needs,

Coming soon

Culleywood provides tailored, senior and subordinate working capital and inventory loans to healthy food producers and retailers in Mississippi and the Greater Mississippi Delta. Our region is the poorest and least healthy in the country, and the need for improved health outcomes and healthy foods is evident. Mississippi faces significant challenges related to access to healthy food, contributing to poor health indicators within the state. The prevalence of food deserts is a pressing issue, with 143 of the 664 census tracts in Mississippi designated as Food Deserts.

These areas lack access to adequate nutritional foods, leading to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and high blood pressure when compared to areas with grocery stores and readily available healthy foods. Mississippi consistently ranks among the highest in obesity and heart disease rates in the United States. Culleywood aims to address this pressing need by providing businesses with the flexible growth capital necessary to increase production capacity, inventories and availability of healthy foods in MS Food Deserts.