When policymakers want to help people with low incomes get a mortgage, they typically offer some kind of subsidy or boost the flexibility of the underwriting guidelines. This week, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco will pioneer a radically different approach: It will try to turn more Americans into homeowners—not by giving them a break but, instead, by catalyzing the creation of high-quality jobs in their communities.

At the center of it all is a Quality Jobs Fund, which the bank established after years of research and rumination by donating $100 million to the New World Foundation.New World will disburse money from the fund to nonprofit and for-profit “intermediaries” that promise to spur employment in areas that badly need it. The foundation will identify and select these organizations.

It isn’t easy to be part of this grand experiment. The jobs eventually generated can’t be like those held by many millions of workers today, with lousy pay, no healthcare coverage or retirement security, and no prospect for advancement. Indeed, the “Quality” in the fund’s name is not some empty adjective. Using criteria from the Aspen Institute, recipients must rigorously track whether the jobs produced come with wages of at least $15 an hour, decent benefits, and the chance to climb a career ladder.

Of course, even with $100 million to spend, the Quality Jobs Fund won’t be able to affect very much in the scheme of things. In the context of an economy where states and cities alone spend some $50 billion a year on job creation—albeit, not always efficiently or effectively—the bank’s effort is tiny. But for those at the bank, New World, and the Aspen Institute, the real point is to prove—with hard data—that you can’t strengthen homeownership and form stable  communities over the long run without supplying an ingredient that is now missing in far too many places: good jobs

Read the full article about the how one bank can create quality jobs growth by Rick Wartzman at Fast Company.