Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places

We envision a future where widespread vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration no longer exist

The Center for Community Progress is the only national nonprofit dedicated to comprehensively tackling vacant properties. Since 2010, our team has delivered customized, expert guidance to leaders in over 300 communities and provided hundreds of hours of free educational resources as well as leadership programming to help policymakers, practitioners, and community members return properties to productive use.

Get Help for Your Community

If you’re ready to take a comprehensive approach to ending systemic vacancy in your community, we can help

In addition to free tools and resources, we offer high-impact consultation services for government officials and decision makers tailored to your community needs. Our team combines decades of legal, planning, and strategic expertise to assess the state of vacant property in your community, craft recommendations for policy and practice changes, and forges lasting relationships to make sure you have ongoing support to succeed.

Recent News

Man taking a photo of an abandoned boarded up home

What is Code Enforcement?

March 6, 2024

Code enforcement from A to Z: when it works, when it doesn’t, and how local governments can make code enforcement systems more fair for all.

The Interwoven Mills industrial site in Martinsburg, West Virginia

What’s the deal with rural land banks? A Q&A with West Virginia Land Stewardship Corporation Executive Director Taylor Bennett

February 27, 2024

Land banks can help rural communities deal with vacant, abandoned, and dilapidated properties.

illegal dumping on the curb in front of a vacant property

How to Prevent and Reduce Illegal Dumping

February 5, 2024

Cities spend millions each year cleaning up illegal dumping. What if they tried to make vacant lots less appealing to dumping in the first place?

Equity Commitment

As leaders in our field, it is our responsibility to uncover and disrupt the systems that perpetuate inequity – in the communities we serve and within our organization. Systemic racism is a root cause of vacant, abandoned, deteriorated properties and an immense barrier to achieving our mission. Therefore, we must ingrain the pursuit of racial equity in our programs, partnerships, and people. We do this by embedding racial equity into our programming; dedicating time and resources toward implementing an annual Equity Action Plan; and providing racial equity training and education opportunities to staff and board.

Our Programs

Leadership & Education

We educate grassroots leaders who want to strengthen their neighborhoods, uplift successes and best practices, and bring champions of community revitalization together. Learn More »

Technical Assistance

We deliver customized, expert guidance to help communities prevent and reduce entrenched vacancy and build relationships to make sure local partners are set up to accomplish lasting change. Learn More »

Policy & Research

We advocate for equitable policy change to help local, state, and federal leaders understand and reform the systems that perpetuate vacancy and deterioration. Learn More »

National Land Bank Network

We support the growing community of land bank leaders across the country by connecting these dedicated professionals to the tools they need to revitalize their neighborhoods and each other. Learn More »