Our magnificent E*TRADE Emergency Housing Fund has allowed us to pay rents and mortgages all these years when elderly musicians fell ill, and when Katrina struck. Because of this fund we have never lost anyone to homelessness or eviction in the past 8 years!  What ETRADE did for us all these years was amazing but we have just been told that they can no longer support our program going forward. Without their contribution our Emergency Fund is now at an all time low.  

Jazz musicians in the United States almost never have pensions and seldom get health insurance through employers (I bet that’s the case for most American rap, rock, pop, polka, folk, country and probably the majority of classical musicians, too). At the JFA’s Great Night In Harlem fundraiser held August 29, 2001, R. Jarrett Lilien, then Chief Operating Officer of E*Trade Financial and now President of the Jazz Foundation, announced the establishment of a standing fund to provide assistance to musicians in need. The JFA claims that since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, more than 3500 musicians have been helped with these monies. With E*Trade bowing out, the JFA seeks a new $150,000 sponsor for its housing fund.