Cherokee has a strong tradition and ingrained corporate culture of community involvement. We focus our charitable activities in the areas of affordable housing, and protecting women and children from domestic violence.

15% Back to the Community
Approximately fifteen (15%) percent of our profits are contributed to community development and affordable housing activities in New Jersey.

Affordable Housing
Members of the Cherokee family have years of experience developing affordable housing. We have relationships with some key players in the New Jersey affordable housing community.

We understand the dynamics of the complex social, political and economic issues associated with affordable housing, and the sometimes conflicting interactions between these issues. We also have practical, hands-on experience with having developed and managed affordable housing rental properties.

We try to make all of this experience, and our financial resources, available for the benefit of affordable housing advocacies.

Cherokee supports several New Jersey chapters of the Habitat For Humanity®, with financial assistance, material contributions, and land acquisition and technical support.

Senior Citizens
Fixed income senior citizens, who have already spent their lives contributing to our society, are often provided decent housing, but not much more. Holidays are often emotionally difficult for many low income seniors, who are isolated from their families, and have no discretionary income for the niceties that the rest of us take for granted.

In 2004, in partnership with Bed Bath & Beyond®, a major national retailer of home products, and one of New Jersey’s finest local housing authorities, Cherokee was proud to donate over $60,000 worth of household items to the Long Branch Housing Authority, for distribution to senior citizen occupants of that city’s affordable housing.

Members of the Long Branch Housing Authority and its Section 8 Program volunteered their own time over a weekend to sort a large truckload of household and seasonal holiday items, creating hundreds of “baskets” that they then distributed to low income senior citizens just a few weeks before Christmas. Many of these items were not “necessities”, but they helped make a “house” into a “home”. They demonstrated to the recipients that someone cared about them in a way that went beyond just “a program”.

The tears and smiles were priceless. The gratification was enormous. Our commitment was renewed. We’re now accumulating materials for another donation.

We again thank the corporate management of Bed, Bath & Beyond for their generous support of Cherokee's ongoing community development efforts, and encourage visitors to our web site to patronage this socially-conscious retailer.

Hardship Causes of Non-Performing Debt
Cherokee’s commitment to helping extends to our clients, of course.

We acquire non-performing mortgage loans from financial institutions nationwide. Most of these institutions are heavily regulated, and they have very little discretion when it comes to crafting forbearance programs for individual borrowers. This would create an administrative nightmare, and might create the misperception of favoritism. Cherokee, as a private company trading in the secondary market is under no such restrictions.

So, for example, when we encounter instances where a family has experienced significant hardships that are clearly not their fault, such as illness or accidents, we are amenable to working with these borrowers in a compassionate and productive manner to restructure the debt in a way that reduces the hardship on them, and allows them to rehabilitate their lives, emotionally and financially.

"Making Non-Performers Work" often means asking borrowers to honor their commitments and pay off debts.  But this does not mean that we can't be fair and compassionate at the same time.  When we believe that a borrower is earnestly interested in acknowledging and resolving their debts, we will move mountains to cooperate with these efforts.  This is simply another manifestation of Cherokee's commitment to making our communities better places, for everyone.

Cherokee ... We Make Non-Performers Work, For Everyone.