Community Development & District Engagement
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The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles
With the demographic shifts already underway in California and across the nation, recognizing and understanding wealth disparities is a step toward building financial stability and net worth among all communities, including communities of color.
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Economic Opportunity + a National Culture of Health: Did You Miss a Game-changer?
If you missed the speeches by Williams and Lavizzo-Mourey that closed out the National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference (NICRC) in Los Angeles, you missed a game changer.
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Stemming the Tide of Displacement: The Highlight Reel
An unsolved challenge–particularly in fast growing places like the Bay Area–is ensuring that economic growth, investment in new transit and infrastructure, and changing residential preferences do not lead to displacement of low-income households. Can data and research help shed light on pathways to more equitable and sustainable metropolitan areas? Bay Area researchers and practitioners believe so.
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CDFIs as Economic Shock Absorbers
The Great Recession sent shock waves through the world economy. Few lenders emerged unscathed, and the economic consequences for their investors and borrowers were often catastrophic. Community development financial institution (CDFI) loan funds, however, acted as economic shock absorbers for low-income and minority communities hit especially hard during the downturn.
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Consumer Complaints against Banks: A Look at the Numbers
Consumer input has long been an important part of the free market system. It allows businesses to change and adapt products and services based on what individuals want and need at the time. With this in mind, the federal bank regulators set up a consumer help center where individuals can file complaints against banks if they feel that they have been mistreated in any way. How does it work and what have we learned?
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How Can Native American Veterans Gain Access to a Benefit They Earned?
A federal program exists to provide more homeownership opportunities for Native Americans veterans on Indian reservations, yet less than one in six of the over 570 federally-recognized tribes have accessed the program. This is a program that Native American Veterans have earned but relatively few are able to enjoy the benefit.
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Building a Cross-Sector Coalition: Sustainable Communities for All and CA’s Cap-and-Trade Program
Why should community developers care about cap-and-trade and what do carbon emissions have to do with low-income households? As it turns out, the fields of environmental sustainability and community development have significant overlap, particularly in the area of transit-oriented development, where issues of affordability, equity, and displacement converge with concerns such as vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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Data Use is Key to Improving Communities: New Book Challenges Policymakers, Funders, and Those Seeking to Broaden Opportunity to Work More Strategically
With 90 percent of the world’s data generated in just the past two years, a new book released today challenges policymakers, funders, and practitioners across sectors to seize this new opportunity to revolutionize our approaches to improve lives in low-income communities. What Counts: Harnessing Data for America’s Communities from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Urban Institute provides a roadmap for the strategic use of data to reduce poverty, improve health, expand access to quality education, increase employment, and build stronger and more resilient communities.
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The Rise of Single-Family Rentals in Arizona, California and Nevada
The geographies that were hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis are now struggling with the rise of investor-owned single-family homes. This tenure shift from ownership to rental was most pronounced in those areas that experienced severe price depreciation and offered an abundant supply of distressed property. This trend of growing absentee ownership raises important community development questions around the issues of neighborhood stabilization, rental costs, property maintenance, and lost asset building opportunities for potential first-time homebuyers.
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Using Pay-For-Success To Increase Investment In The Nonmedical Determinants Of Health
Pay for Success is a new financial and contracting tool that pays investor-funded nonprofits for delivering measurable social outcomes. This approach, while still new, increases investment in evidence-based programs and creates investable opportunities for impact investors and potentially CRA-motivated banks as well. One particularly ripe opportunity for Pay for Success is in health improvement. “Using Pay-For-Success To Increase Investment In The Nonmedical Determinants Of Health,” written by Federal Reserve researcher Ian Galloway for the health policy journal Health Affairs, explores how Pay for Success could be used to increase investment in illness prevention, save health care costs, improve patient outcomes, and create a market that values health, not just health care.