Restoring Markets. Reimagining Possibilities.

Reinvestment Fund is inviting applications for financial and technical assistance through the 2020 round of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Targeted Small Grants Program. Funding for the HFFI Targeted Small Grants Program is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), authorized by the Farm Bill. Reinvestment Fund serves as the national fund manager for the HFFI program at USDA. The 2020 HFFI round significantly increases the available funding compared to the previous round, offering $3 million in grant funds for food retail and food enterprises working to improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, to create and preserve quality jobs, and to revitalize low-income communities.

“A resilient food system is essential to ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they live or how much they make, can get the food they need to keep their families healthy,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to sustain a robust food system that serves all communities. We hope that these HFFI investments can seed improved access to healthy food in underserved communities and also fundamentally strengthen local food economies.”

Philadelphia Landlord-Tenant Court processes approximately 20,000 filings each year. Many of those cases are not contested by the tenant and the landlord is given legal authority to take possession of their unit back. However, nearly half of the remaining cases settle with a Judgment by Agreement (JBA) – a process designed to facilitate a resolution of the dispute between the landlord and tenant.

Reinvestment Fund’s research has identified a number of positive and negative attributes to the process and resulting agreements. In this Brief, Reinvestment Fund reviews the learnings from an analysis of JBAs as well as interviews with tenants and landlords (and their respective attorneys) and court observation.

When Philadelphia Landlord-Tenant court reopens after the COVID-19 closure, there will undoubtedly be a backlog of cases that landlords will have been waiting to file. In this moment, when stable housing is more than ever a critical part of public health strategy and landlords need stabilized incomes to provide that housing, it is the time to make significant decisions around court processes and resources to ensure that the eviction process operates in a way that is both fair and efficient.