Understanding Neighborhood Dynamics and Using Market-Based Data
Strategic resource allocation and investment requires that practitioners have a clear picture of regional, city and neighborhood dynamics. To develop that clear picture, it is essential to collect, use and share accurate data. This training session will delve into the ways a number of communities have built their data systems and deployed initiatives to transform their communities. Learn ways to increase your capacity to gather, analyze, present, share and use data to support stabilization activities and investment decisions. Speakers from different cities will talk about how they are maximizing results by analyzing market trends, building new partnerships, collecting and evaluating data and disseminating information. You’ll then have an opportunity to brainstorm ways to incorporate these lessons back home.
Speakers: Eleanore Eveleth, Data Driven Detroit; Quincy Jones, Osborn Neighborhood Alliance; Justin Kray, City of New Orleans; David Lessinger, New Orleans Redevelopment Authority; Alan Mallach, Center for Community Progress and the Brookings Institution; Mike Schramm, Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation; Jason Stopa, Beacon of Hope Resource Center
Data-Driven Strategies for Targeting Resources to Address Foreclosure and Vacancy
The foreclosure crisis is sufficiently extensive and persistent in most American cities such that municipalities and their partners cannot tend to every property that goes into – or is affected by – foreclosure. To meaningfully address foreclosures, as well as vacant, distressed buildings, with limited resources, data-driven tools are being developed at both the national and local levels to effectively target city services and funding. This session will offer perspectives on a national census tract-level analysis of neighborhood market conditions as well as local examples from the cities of Boston and Minneapolis. The tools discussed will include measures to help in foreclosure prevention, vacant property identification and maintenance, as well as a comprehensive look at housing markets and recovery strategies.
Speakers: Laura Delgado, City of Boston; Jeff Matson, University of Minnesota – Center for Urban and Regional Affairs; Jacob Wascalus, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; Francisca Winston, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Local Efforts to Combat Blight: Foreclosure and Vacancy Ordinances
Researchers and practitioners will discuss the ways different housing markets are responding to residential foreclosure, vacancy and blight. Particular attention will be given to how communities are using local ordinances and what the impact of those ordinances has been.
Speakers: Lavea Brachman, Greater Ohio; Thomas Fitzpatrick, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland; Adam Gross, BPI Chicago; Alan Mallach, Center for Community Progress and the Brookings Institution; Lisa Nelson, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
The Legacy of NSP for Public and Nonprofit Institutions
The Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) has been a lifeline for many communities. With the program and funding coming to an end, the question is: what next? What are the lessons learned from NSP that can be used for the future? What worked and what didn’t? How are communities using the systems and resources created or garnered during the program for future efforts? Presenters will discuss how state and local governments, land banks and community development organizations used NSP to improve delivery systems and pioneer social enterprise models. The session will feature the $223 million Michigan NSP2 consortium, and innovative models from Housing Partnership Network members – the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and the 180° Properties workforce development enterprise of Mercy Housing Lakefront in Chicago.
Speakers: Sarah Berke, Neighborhood Stabilization Housing Partnership Network; Jeremey Newberg, Capital Access, Inc.; William Towns, Mercy Portfolio Services
Redeveloping Neighborhoods and Revitalizing Housing Markets: A Tale of Two Cities — Baltimore and
New Bedford
Challenged with abandoned housing and neighborhood disinvestment, Baltimore, Maryland and New Bedford, Massachusetts are using creative approaches to encourage reinvestment in their neighborhoods. The City of New Bedford, working with non-profit partner TRI, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and Massachusetts Housing Partnership, is using a number of tools including receivership to address troubled properties and to create new ownership and rental opportunities. “Vacants to Value” is Baltimore’s Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s market-driven, block-focused initiative that utilizes the private market to maximize rehabilitation of blighted properties. Strategies that include streamlined code enforcement, enhanced marketing and homebuyers’ incentives are applied depending on a block’s housing market to rehabilitate houses, revitalize markets and rebuild communities. Attendees will learn about innovations, challenges and strategies to consider in their approaches to eliminating blight.
Speakers: Michael Braverman, Baltimore Housing; Julie Day, Baltimore Housing; Rita Farrell, Massachusetts Housing Partnership; Michael Galasso, The Resource, Inc.
Growing the Job Market through Property Maintenance and Retrofits
While effectively transforming vacant and abandoned properties is most often considered as a solution to blight, these activities also contribute to a sustainable jobs/workforce system. Initiatives range from property maintenance to greening vacant lots to responsible deconstruction. This session will focus on two areas that are emerging as potential mechanisms to lead the un- and under-employed back to work.
Speakers: Rob Grossinger, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.; Robert Klein, Safeguard Properties; John Mello, Civic Works; Chris Rintz, 180 Degree Properties
Matching Stabilization Strategies to Changing Market Conditions: What Does it Mean for Neighborhoods?
This session provides a scan of the impact foreclosures and vacancy have on strong, transitional and distressed housing markets across the country, and what it means for neighborhoods. Participants will engage in a discussion of viable solutions, as panelists explore how employment, investor activity and credit availability among other issues have impacted recovery and shaped local stabilization efforts. From trends in mortgage lending and homeownership to the challenges and opportunities in scattered site rental, panelists will discuss what is being done to address today’s challenges, who the critical players are and what is and isn’t working to create stable and healthy neighborhoods. Melding research and practice, this session is intended to provide an evidence-based examination of current conditions, viable solutions and what it means for neighborhoods undergoing profound changes.
Speakers: Phillip Bush, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.; Gina Govoni, Massachusetts Housing Partnership; Karen Leone de Nie, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta – Community and Economic Development Department; Abigail Mack, Homeport by Columbus Housing Partnership; Ascala Sisk, NeighborWorks® America
Purchasing Paper for Scalable Intervention: Using Non-Performing Note Purchases to Fuel Comprehensive Neighborhood Stabilization Strategies
New and bold initiatives by some of the nation’s leading non-profits are working to directly attack the root of neighborhood instability and increase the scalability and impact of community stabilization efforts. In collaboration with the federal and various state governments, Mercy Housing, Enterprise Community Partners, National Council of La Raza, National Community Stabilization Trust and the Housing Partnership Network are forging new socially-motivated and geographically-focused systems to buy non-performing mortgages, with the goal of helping homeowners keep their homes through modifications or ensuring there is a safety net to responsibly renew and reuse properties in the community. This session will create an open dialogue among local practitioners on the opportunities and challenges this new strategy creates in communities, and will provide an inside look at non-performing note purchase programs with non-profit organizations at the helm.
Speakers: Annie Carvalho, National Community Stabillization Trust; Danny Gardner, National Community Stabilization Trust; William Goldsmith, Mercy Portfolio Services; Matthew Perrenod, Housing Partnership Network
