History Home » About : History In 1982, Jim and Patty Rouse founded Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. (then named The Enterprise Foundation), with this mission: to see that all low-income people in the United States have the opportunity for fit and affordable housing and to move up and out of poverty into the mainstream of American life. On March 7, 1984, Rouse, the renowned master developer and champion for affordable housing, formed the financing arm of Enterprise now known as Enterprise Community Investment, Inc. (then named The Enterprise Social Investment Corporation, or ESIC), a socially motivated for-profit company. The financing arm’s primary purpose was to fund Enterprise’s affordable housing initiatives through the syndication of tax shelter benefits to for-profit corporations, a process Rouse pioneered based on his belief in the power of private initiative and the free enterprise system to promote social good.