OZ Webinar Series | Investing in Severely Distressed Opportunity Zones

On November 16, the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) hosted a webinar to discuss investment activity occurring in the Opportunity Zones (OZ) where capital is most needed. Guest speakers shared details on two recent OZ investments that are illustrative of broader efforts to direct capital to distressed communities.

The OZ policy has increased access to capital for a wide array of uses in eligible low-income communities. More than half of the country’s concentrated persistent poverty census tracts were selected by governors for the OZ designation, and approximately 70 percent of all OZ census tracts qualify as severely distressed. While there is no official registry of OZ investments, efforts to map this activity demonstrate that financing has been deployed broadly throughout the nation and into the deepest pockets of capital-starved communities.