The latest perspectives, news, success stories and resources from around the organization.
Throughout its history, the Pennsylvania’s HEMAP has received great acclaim for its design and impact. HEMAP is a program that was designed to provide temporary assistance to families who, through not fault of their own, were seriously delinquent with their home mortgage. Reinvestment Fund released a Research Brief titled “What if Pennsylvania Had Not Had HEMAP?” in 2012. At the time, Pennsylvania, like much of the United States, was climbing out of the throes of one of the most significant recessions in our nation’s history.
With support from the Vanguard Strong Start for Kids Program™, Reinvestment Fund conducted a first-of-its-kind study to estimate the supply of and demand for care specifically for the infant and toddler sector in Philadelphia. Combining a citywide provider survey and focus groups with providers from center- and home-based settings, this study sought to estimate the shortage of infant and toddler care across the city and to learn more about the providers offering infant and toddler care as well as the barriers that prevent other providers from entering the infant and toddler care market.
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. Reinvestment Fund’s 2018 childcare analysis provides estimates to track the change over time in the supply of, demand for, and shortages in child care.
In 2017, Reinvestment Fund conducted an initial analysis of the supply of and demand for child care in the five-county metro Atlanta region (Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties), to identify areas where targeted investments could help address shortages of high-quality child care. In addition, an interactive web-based tool, the ATL ACCESS Map: Atlanta Child Care and Early Learning Supply, was created to present the results of this analysis.
This report, developed with support from the Richard W. Goldman Family Foundation, presents the results of descriptive and spatial analyses of the child care landscape in the five-county region in 2018 and includes analysis of changes observed since the initial 2017 study.
Across the United States, communities are struggling with the challenges associated with neighborhood decline. Practitioners and policymakers are beginning to realize that the task is oftentimes more difficult when the communities facing these challenges are in older suburban areas where: (a) poverty is an increasingly prevalent issue; and (b) the resources and expertise to manage issues associated with poverty and disinvestment that exists in cities are less prevalent.
Despite gains over the past decade, limited access to healthy food continues to affect urban and rural communities across the United States. Financing the construction of new supermarkets and the expansion of existing stores is one of the primary strategies to increase access to sources of healthy food in underserved communities. Reinvestment Fund’s Limited Supermarket Access (LSA) analysis is a tool to help investors and policymakers identify areas across the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia that have both inadequate and inequitable access to healthy food and sufficient market demand for new or expanded food retail operations.
From 2009 through 2016, Philadelphia was one of the most active reverse mortgage lending markets in the nation. With support from the City of Philadelphia, Reinvestment Fund collected and analyzed data on the frequency, terms and geographic distribution of reverse mortgages. This lending analysis was supplemented with in-depth interviews conducted with Philadelphia homeowners, and their heirs, who obtained a reverse mortgage and subsequently experienced a foreclosure – something they never thought possible. Interviews focused on borrowers’ experiences, from the moment they first contemplated a reverse mortgage through the point that they experienced a foreclosure filing, and then through the resolution of that foreclosure process. This work is part of a larger investigation into the potential fair housing implications of reverse mortgage lending in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
High-quality early care and learning supports positive development and helps prepare children for success in school and beyond. Quality child care is also critical for families, as it allows parents to maintain employment. With support from the Richard W. Goldman Family Foundation and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Reinvestment Fund conducted a study of the supply of and demand for child care in the five-county metro Atlanta region (Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties).
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 third update, Reinvestment Fund’s 2017 childcare analysis provides updated estimates to track the change over time in the supply of, demand for, and shortages in child care. This report presents the results of descriptive and spatial analyses of the child care landscape in Philadelphia in 2017. It details both short- and long-term changes in the supply of, demand for, and gaps in care; the year-to-year changes from 2016 to 2017, as well as shifts since the first analyses were conducted in 2014.
Each year, lending institutions across the country report their mortgage lending activity under a law known as the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Enacted by Congress in 1975 and amended several times since, HMDA data are a critical resource to understand how dollars flow into communities to support home purchasing, refinancing mortgages, or making home improvements. Regulators use HMDA for various purposes, which include assessments of lenders’ community reinvestment obligations and adherence to civil rights laws.
The 2016 HMDA data were recently released providing an opportunity to look at the local mortgage lending environment – trends in loan volume, the kinds of loans being made, where loans are made, how efficiently different groups can access credit, what entities purchase the home loans once made, and what lenders are originating mortgages in Philadelphia.
Since 2014, Reinvestment Fund has conducted an annual analysis of the gap between the supply of and demand for high-quality child care in Philadelphia. In June 2017 Pennsylvania’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), Keystone STARS, initiated changes to the standards for childcare providers across the state.
On June 20, 2017 Pennsylvania’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), Keystone STARS, initiated changes to the standards for childcare providers across the state. Keystone STARS ratings serve as the primary indicator of center quality used by local stakeholders. At this early stage, it is unclear exactly how the changes to the Keystone STARS system will impact the number of rated facilities and the number of ‘high-quality’ centers in Philadelphia, but some changes to the number of centers rated high-quality seems likely.
For families, schools play an important role in residential decisions. This study examined the relationship between home values and school performance to measure the way schools contribute to home prices in Pennsylvania.
In 2016, Reinvestment Fund conducted a study of the supply of and demand for early childhood education (ECE) in Passaic County, NJ. Adapting a methodology developed for a 2014 study of child care in Philadelphia, the study results for Passaic County, NJ suggest that over half of all ECE (57%) is provided in state licensed childcare centers, and 27% is provided in high-quality centers. With support from the Nicholson Foundation and Taub Foundation, Reinvestment Fund created an interactive web-based tool to present the results of this analysis, accessible at www.passaiccountychildcaremap.org.
Middle neighborhoods are neither the poorest nor the wealthiest neighborhoods in a city, typically experiencing neither precipitous decline nor rapid appreciation. In many cities, they account for a significant share of residents and are reasonably affordable to middle income households. This research brief examines conditions and trends in Philadelphia’s middle neighborhoods differentiated by their racial, ethnic, and national origin makeup. A deeper understanding of the dynamics at play in different types of middle neighborhoods can help guide policy and investment approaches to shore up the inherent strength in these areas, and also head off decline that could potentially diminish not only residents’ financial health and neighborhood quality of life, but also Philadelphia’s overall wellbeing.
Fund for Quality (FFQ) helps providers of high-quality early childhood education in Philadelphia reach more families. In 2015, Reinvestment Fund and PHMC created a survey to be administered for each new seat created through FFQ. This white paper presents preliminary findings related to the increased capacity of FFQ-supported providers, along with select survey responses from parents.
In 2014, 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 highquality child care. Reinvestment Fund’s 2016 childcare analysis provides estimates to track the change over time in the supply of, demand for, and shortages in child care. The 2016 analysis was the third in the series of analysis by Reinvestment Fund.
The goal of Reinvestment Fund’s ReFresh initiative is to increase the capacity of the community development financial institution (CDFI) industry to fund healthy food projects by creating tools and resources, offering technical assistance, and helping peer organizations learn together. ReFresh has been an important partner as Colorado Enterprise Fund (CEF), headquartered in Denver, Colorado, has grown its portfolio of healthy food lending. In 2016, Reinvestment Fund and CEF collaborated to take a closer look at some of the ways that ReFresh has helped CEF grow its food lending capacity.
In 2016, Matthew Desmond published his truly extraordinary study of evictions in Milwaukee, WI titled Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Inspired by Desmond’s work we at Reinvestment Fund decided to examine the eviction issue in Philadelphia, PA. This brief includes an overview of select housing market data in Philadelphia followed by a summary of the eviction filings: rates, patterns and areas for further inquiry into the eviction issue in the city of Philadelphia. Eviction filing records for this brief cover the period 2010-2015, inclusive, and originate with Philadelphia’s Landlord-Tenant Court (LTC).
In 2016, Reinvestment Fund conducted the Supply Chain Matrix (SCM) analysis for the red meat industry in New England. Reinvestment Fund originally developed the Supply Chain Matrix (SCM) in 2013 to better understand the food production system and identify opportunities at multiple stages in the food supply chain to promote access to healthy, sustainable food.
Across the country, food banks are looking at their mission through a number of new lenses: health, education and technical assistance, farming, economic and workforce development, business enterprise, and community empowerment and advocacy. Feeding the Line, Or Ending the Line? Innovations among Food Banks in the United States, a new report by Reinvestment Fund and Bank of America looks at how food banks are adopting a variety of approaches within each of these categories to feed the hungry and permanently end food insecurity.
A study by Reinvestment Fund and May 8 consulting to understand how the scattered site rehabilitation of more than 1,100 affordable housing units has impacted the West Philadelphia neighborhoods in which they are located, and determine whether the approach offers cost efficiencies or revitalizing impacts that differ from developments that produced a similar number of affordable units on a single site.
Reinvestment Fund contributed to a new book titled On the Edge: America’s Middle Neighborhoods. Published by The American Assembly, a collection of authors present new evidence indicating that a category of neighborhoods exists in many cities and surrounding areas that planners and policymakers have neglected. These “middle neighborhoods” are generally affordable neighborhoods with acceptable levels of public safety and schools, but they are in danger of falling into decline if left to market forces.
This paper examines the growing range of development models from projects that integrate two or more sectors. Integrated projects are increasingly a strategy used to deliver deeper impact to low-income communities by connecting a range of critical components from mixed-income housing to health centers to grocery stores.
High-quality early learning experiences support positive child development and help prepare children for success in school and beyond. Quality child care is also critical for families, as it allows parents to maintain employment. To better understand gaps in the supply of child care, and high-quality care in particular, Reinvestment Fund conducted a study of the supply and demand for child care in Newark to identify underserved areas. Findings from the analysis are provided in this report.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents.
Artists value the process of remaking space and help reveal the potential for recovery inherent in many urban neighborhoods. In both the redevelopment of discrete buildings and incremental renewal of large districts, they provide entrepreneurial energy to the task of preserving something old through the development of something new.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents.
Reinvestment Fund’s ChildCare Map provides information about the location, size, and quality of early childcare centers operating in Philadelphia. When ChildCare Map launched in 2014 researchers identified a large number of “uncertified providers”—childcare centers operating in Philadelphia, but not listed in the state’s OCDEL database.
In 2014, the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation engaged Reinvestment Fund and Success Measures at NeighborWorks America to jointly evaluate the impact of its grantmaking and related programs from 2003 to 2013, to determine if practices in its approach could be transferred to other regions, and to assess its influence in the field. The Wells Fargo Regional Foundation has a well-established continuum of grantmaking and technical-assistance programs designed to improve the quality of life for children and families living in low-income communities in eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. The evaluation examined lessons from 140 grants, totaling $41.69 million, that enabled hundreds of projects in the region and leveraged $231.5 million in direct and indirect neighborhood investment.
While many census tracts in Camden were eligible for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP2), the City of Camden elected to focus its investment activities on a few target areas. Working with The Reinvestment Fund, the City of Camden sought to first understand market conditions and, depending on the causes of market stress, deploy specific strategies to address the issues plaguing its neighborhoods.
A summary overview of Reinvestment Fund’s 2014 analysis of Limited Supermarket Access (LSA). The analysis offers a look at the national landscape of access to healthy food as of 2014 and changes in the underserved population since 2005. The analysis is part of Reinvestment Fund’s extensive efforts to address the inadequate and inequitable access to healthy foods in communities across the country.
Six years after the Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program’s inception, Philadelphia homeowners continue to face many challenges. Unemployment remains elevated, and the incomes for middle class households, in real terms, have fallen. The rise of mortgage products like the reverse mortgage has the potential to threaten homeownership and equity for vulnerable populations. The Diversion Program remains one of the central protections for all Philadelphia homeowners—especially for the vulnerable populations.
In Philadelphia, the Department of Licenses and Inspections has engaged in a novel and geographically targeted enforcement effort utilizing a 2010 Pennsylvania law (PA Act 90) combined with the city’s property and maintenance code.
In Maryland, limited access to nutritious food is a statewide issue that affects both urban neighborhoods and rural communities. In low- and moderate-income communities in particular, the absence of supermarkets results in limited access to healthy food options. The following are results from a study by The Reinvestment Fund aimed at understanding the inequity of access in Maryland and providing a framework for the State as it works to address the issue.
This report examines programs that aim to influence individual food choices, provides context to understand the related issues and presents a summary of evidence-based strategies that encourage healthy shopping and eating habits in populations for whom the issue of access has been resolved. Through a review of the relevant literature this document summarizes research findings, offers recommendations for further research—with particular focus on intervention strategies within the personal food environment—and highlights programs that, based on the literature, we think have promise. This research was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation under its Civic Sites initiative.
Presentation by Ira Goldstein at the Center for Community Progress 2013 conference on Reclaiming Vacant Properties. Dr. Goldstein presented on a panel titled “Filling out the Tool Box: Market-Smart Approaches for Dealing with Vacant Houses.”
This report seeks to identify new areas for lending and technical assistance that would have a direct impact on how a local industry sources its products. More specifically, this report provides tables and graphic illustrations of the potential geographic and economic flow of meat products, as they move through the supply chain. The model does not represent the actual flow of products through the supply chain, but rather identifies economic relationships that would minimize the distance that meat travels from farms to processors (at multiple stages) before it is distributed to wholesale and retail outlets.
Presentation made to the Campbell’s Soup Food Advisory Committee as part of Reinvestment Fund’s research on Camden, New Jersey’s food economy. Topics include an overview of Reinvestment Fund’s food-related work in Camden, an analysis of Camden’s socioeconomic characteristics relative to peer cities, and an economic base analysis of Camden, with particular attention to food-related industries and strategies for increasing economic output.
Reinvestment Fund’s Ira Goldstein presented data on the 5-year accomplishments of Philadelphia’s Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program at the anniversary celebration on June 12, 2013. Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, headlined the event alongside a homeowner in foreclosure whose home was saved by the program. The event was attended by several hundred people and was covered by numerous media outlets including ABC News and Philly.com.
Part of training materials prepared for the CDFI Fund and the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) for the Financing Healthy Food Options initiative. The initiative was designed to build the CDFI industry’s capacity to finance projects that increase healthy food options in underserved communities. Based on Reinvestment Fund’s healthy food financing experience, we developed a curriculum for training workshops and created an implementation handbook advising CDFIs how to underwrite supermarkets and capitalize such initiatives.
Part of training materials prepared for the CDFI Fund and the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) for the Financing Healthy Food Options initiative. The initiative was designed to build the CDFI industry’s capacity to finance projects that increase healthy food options in underserved communities. Based on Reinvestment Fund’s healthy food financing experience, we developed a curriculum for training workshops and created an implementation handbook advising CDFIs how to underwrite supermarkets and capitalize such initiatives.
Part of training materials prepared for the CDFI Fund and the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) for the Financing Healthy Food Options initiative. The initiative was designed to build the CDFI industry’s capacity to finance projects that increase healthy food options in underserved communities. Based on Reinvestment Fund’s healthy food financing experience, we developed a curriculum for training workshops and created an implementation handbook advising CDFIs how to underwrite supermarkets and capitalize such initiatives.
Part of training materials prepared for the CDFI Fund and the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) for the Financing Healthy Food Options initiative. The initiative was designed to build the CDFI industry’s capacity to finance projects that increase healthy food options in underserved communities. Based on Reinvestment Fund’s healthy food financing experience, we developed a curriculum for training workshops and created an implementation handbook advising CDFIs how to underwrite supermarkets and capitalize such initiatives.
Reinvestment Fund analyzed Pennsylvania’s Homeowner’s Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (HEMAP) with support from the William Penn Foundation. The summary findings include that from 2008 to 2010, HEMAP saved more than 6,100 Pennsylvania homeowners from foreclosure. The number of homes saved from foreclosure by HEMAP amounted to between 4.6% and 5.1% of the total inventory of homes in foreclosure. The report also found that the program averted a combined $480 million in financial impact of foreclosures.