Community Development Innovation Review

In this issue of the Review, we explore how both business enterprises and investment decisions can be infused with community goals—providing for those who are less capable of providing for themselves, promoting better health and stronger community fabric, and respecting the environment.

The collapse of the housing market has devastated neighborhoods and balance sheets alike. Millions of homeowners have defaulted on their mortgages and holders of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) have suffered massive write-downs. Banks and servicers have been increasingly called upon to renegotiate payment terms and reduce mortgage principle to slow the tide of foreclosures and stabilize the housing market. Despite such attempts to “work out” troubled mortgages, however, the foreclosure rate continues to rise at a steady pace.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), enacted in 1977, has fostered access to financial services for low- and moderate-income communities across the country. Together with other antidiscrimination, consumer protection, and disclosure laws, the CRA remains today a key element of the regulatory framework, encouraging the provision of mortgage, small business, and other credit, investments, and financial services in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

This issue of the Community Development Investment Review explores how better data and technology can direct more capital to low-income areas. Better data on community development investments can turn uncertainty into quantifiable risk. In other words, better data transforms community development investments from being considered exotic, one-offs, public relations or philanthropy deals into regular assets with known risk parameters.

Taken together, the articles in this issue of the Review provide a contemporary look at this discussion of undervalued markets.

This issue of the Review wrestles with how rural entrepreneurs can find the financing they need to release the energy of their local communities.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System held a special, invitation-only conference in Washington, DC on September 6 and 7, 2006, on the secondary market for community development loans.

The mission of the Center for Community Development Investments is to enhance access to capital in low-income communities.

This issue will focus on the New Markets Tax Credit program, which was enacted in 2000 to increase the flow of capital to communities that had been left out of the tremendous economic growth of the nation’s longest economic expansion.