SF Fed Blog
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What Happens in Vegas… Lessons on Cross-Sector Community Development
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Sin City’s slogan may be appropriate for thrill-seeking visitors, but the people who live here have an important story that needs to be told. Beyond the spectacle and extravagance of the Strip, Nevada struggles with the nation’s highest unemployment rate, one of the lowest high school graduation rates, the lowest share of young children enrolled in early childhood education, and the highest violent crime rate.
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Five Reasons Why Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Poverty Remains Invisible
Josh Ishimatsu from the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development highlights five reasons why AAPI poverty remains invisible, even though AAPIs have had the fastest growing poverty population of any racial/ethnic group since the onset of the Recession.
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Health and Wealth Inequities across Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Stations
For many people living in the Bay Area, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system is an integral part of everyday life (just ask anyone affected by the recent BART strike). A casual ride on any BART line reveals the economic disparity that exists between an affluent suburb, such as Pleasanton or Fremont, and the urban core of Downtown Oakland, but a little data can reveal how much deeper this disparity goes. Consider this: a short ride between BART stations can mean an 11-year difference in life expectancy.
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An Uneven Housing Recovery: Implications for Community Development
After years of gloomy housing reports, we’ve been seeing some promising signs of a national housing market recovery. However, these encouraging indicators mask the realities of what’s happening on the ground in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities that were disproportionately affected by the housing crisis. Complicating matters is the unprecedented role of investors in the housing recovery and the changing nature of local housing markets.
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Beyond the Hype: The Promise and Pitfalls of Pay for Success
Interest in Pay for Success (PFS) financing tools, like the social impact bond, has been growing steadily since 2010. Many governments are exploring PFS solutions, including the State of California, which recently convened an informational legislative hearing to discuss the idea.
In his testimony to the Select Committee on Procurement and the Business, Professions & Economic Development Committee, Ian Galloway highlights four potential benefits and pitfalls, based on the most recent issue of the Community Development Investment Review, which explored PFS in depth.
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New Role for Health Care Providers: “Hot-Spotting” Unhealthy Communities?
In his now legendary approach to urban medicine, physician and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantee Jeffrey Brenner, MD, pioneered the technique of hot spotting—making block-by-block maps of Camden, N.J., examining residents’ hospital costs and identifying the handful of patients who cycled in and out of those institutions and racked up stratospheric medical bills.
What if America’s hospitals and health systems used similar techniques to identify the nation’s poorest and least healthy communities—and then teamed up with local community development organizations to set them on a path to better health?
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An Overview of the San Diego Labor Market and Economy
At the aggregate level, the regional economy is experiencing recovery, but low- and moderate-income communities continue to face workforce challenges.
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Investing in What Works for America’s Communities: Essays on People, Place, and Purpose
One in six Americans lives in poverty, and where a person lives remains one of the most powerful influences of their life chances. Investing in What Works for America’s Communities: Essays on People, Place, and Purpose highlights entrepreneurial solutions for addressing poverty.
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Suburbanization of Poverty in the Bay Area
The shifting geography of poverty compels the community development field to reevaluate how we do our work because it signals important changes in the communities we care about. It remains to be seen if suburbanization will increase or diminish access to opportunity, but we can identify several challenges that the suburbanization of poverty presents, as well as possible ways to address these challenges.