Reinvestment Fund and its partners – the City of Philadelphia Office of Children and Families, Public Health Management Corporation and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey – surveyed parents who have used or intend to use childcare in Philadelphia.
The purpose of the survey was to gain an understanding of what parents were doing for childcare before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, how that has changed, and what their priorities are as they contemplate returning their children to childcare. Findings from this survey will inform policymakers’ and childcare providers’ plans and processes for reopening childcare facilities.
A research brief by Reinvestment Fund and the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP) that examines the experiences and perspectives of residential rental property owners and managers in Philadelphia. The brief examines challenges that landlords faced—including how they dealt with evictions—prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; new or increased difficulties stemming from the pandemic; and landlords’ engagement with and attitudes towards programs aimed at stabilizing tenants in rental housing. The brief also presents considerations for policymakers as they contemplate both short-term and long-term strategies to reduce housing instability.
In 2019, the city of Mount Vernon partnered with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Tolemi, and Reinvestment Fund through the Cities for Responsible Investment and Strategic Enforcement initiative (Cities RISE) to begin implementing a strategic code enforcement system guided by robust data and market analytics. The lessons offered in this case study of Mount Vernon can help inform other communities looking to leverage data into meaningful operational and policy changes.
Reinvestment Fund completed a study of the City of Cleveland’s residential tax abatement program. The study examined 15 years of abatement activity to identify patterns of where abatement activity has been most concentrated, to understand the fiscal impacts the abatement has had on local tax revenues, and to identify opportunities to update the program in response to contemporary market conditions in the city. The recommendations presented in the report provide a range of viable paths for the City to consider in making adjustments to the tax abatement program – adjustments that will help support the equitable development goals within the City’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.
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.
Beginning in 2014, with support from The William Penn Foundation, Reinvestment Fund conducted an initial analysis of the supply of and demand for child care in Philadelphia to identify areas of the city where targeted investments could help address shortages of high-quality child care.
Having developed the analysis over multiple years, Reinvestment Fund’s childcare analytics provide an annual market snapshot that helps track change over time in the supply of, demand for, and shortages in child care.
Across the country, 17.3 million rural U.S. residents lack equitable access to supermarkets. Reinvestment Fund’s new Rural Food Access Investment Area (RFAIA) analysis, uses 2012-2106 Census data to determine 11.3 million underserved rural residents live in areas that could support new or expanded food retail options. Despite the need for improved access to fresh and healthy foods in rural areas, many analyses of food access—and many investments to improve food access—have focused on urban areas.
The RFAIA analysis identified 1,472 Investment Areas containing 11.3 million rural U.S. residents living in households underserved by supermarkets and that likely have market support for investments in new and existing place-based food retail.
The full results, including the location and other information about individual Investment Areas, are available to the public at no cost on PolicyMap, www.PolicyMap.com.
In 2014, with support from The William Penn Foundation, Reinvestment Fund conducted an initial analysis of the supply of and demand for child care in Philadelphia to identify areas of the city where targeted investments could help address shortages of high-quality child care. Now in its sixth update, Reinvestment Fund’s 2019 childcare analysis provides updated estimates to track the change over time in the supply of, demand for, and shortages in child care.
Each year, the federal government releases a comprehensive database on mortgage lending activities across the US based on activity reported by lending institutions under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). This year, there were a number of changes to the database; some changes from 2015 revisions expanded what we can know about mortgage applications (e.g., the age of borrowers) and other 2017-era changes limited that knowledge (e.g., suppressing applicant credit information). Read the report to see what the data reveals about mortgage lending activity in Philadelphia.
A newly released study by Reinvestment Fund details the volume and geographic distribution of eviction filings in the city of Philadelphia. The study updates our 2017 Evictions in Philadelphia research brief.