The latest perspectives, news, success stories and resources from around the organization.
With grants from the Open Society Institute and the William Penn Foundation, Reinvestment Fund assessed the outcomes and impacts of the Philadelphia Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program. As part of the study, we reviewed Court Orders on nearly 16,000 cases handled by the Diversion Program from inception through March of 2011 and conducted interviews with homeowners as well as experts.
Reinvestment Fund’s 2011 Limited Supermarket Access (LSA) analysis estimates that 24.6 million Americans live in areas with inadequate access to supermarkets. This analysis was conducted with support from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund), as part of its Financing Healthy Food Options Track, in partnership with Opportunity Finance Network. Read the summary report to understand the analysis and read highlights or download the full report.
Courts and advocates across the country have dedicated significant resources to the development of diversion/mediation processes designed to facilitate homeowner participation in the foreclosure process. With funding from the Open Society Institute and the William Penn Foundation, Reinvestment Fund has sought to help answer the question: what is the effect of this work – does mediation make a difference? This paper was shared during an interactive webinar hosted by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC).
Chapter by Reinvestment Fund’s Ira Goldstein for the book REO & Vacant Properties: Strategies for Neighborhood Stabilization, a joint publication of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and Cleveland and the Federal Reserve Board. Dr. Goldstein’s chapter discusses using the MVA as a means to strategize the targeting of resources under the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
The Redevelopment and Housing Authorities of the County of Cumberland (RHACC) contracted with Reinvestment Fund to gather and analyze housing and economic data descriptive of Cumberland and Perry counties. The data is tabulated and mapped / charted in this presentation. A summary of the report is also available.
A study funded by the William Penn Foundation, that measures school quality in Philadelphia and quantifies its impact on the value of Philadelphia residential real estate. Findings indicate that elementary school test scores play a significant role in the prediction of sales price, even after controlling for neighborhood and individual home conditions.
Findings of a study conducted for the School District of Philadelphia designed to estimate the percent of Philadelphia public school students who are income-qualified for free or reduced price lunches. Eligibility was based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s “Income Eligibility Guidelines.” Both the report and a summary version can be found here.
Presentation by Reinvestment Fund’s Ira Goldstein as part of Picking Up the Pieces: Partnering with Faith-based Organizations to Respond to the Housing Crisis presented to the Homeownership Counseling Association of Delaware Valley, the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporation, and the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
Reinvestment Fund helped DCED develop its NSP plans by devising a data-driven method for prioritizing where funds should be spent within each county to increase the likelihood of market stability. This presentation shows how to use this in-depth analysis as well as the host of GIS data in www.policymap.com to better understand foreclosure and market dynamics. Presented at the 2009 PA Chapter of American Planning Association Annual Conference, “Investing in a Sustainable Future” by Ira Goldstein and Elizabeth Nash.
Commissioned by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh (FHLB) and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, Reinvestment Fund studied the impact of changes in the housing and mortgage markets on Hispanics in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The analysis focuses in Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Northampton and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania and New Castle County in Delaware. Together these counties are home to more than 60% of the Hispanics in the region. Also included in this study was a review of the available housing counseling resources, and counseling specifically available to those persons for whom Spanish is their primarily language. Reinvestment Fund’s research partner on this project is the National Council of La Raza.
Analysis of Baltimore’s commercial real estate markets conducted with the City of Baltimore as part of its efforts to develop a citywide Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). Reinvestment Fund helped create a method for indexing all of Baltimore’s commercial corridors to provide the public and private sectors an analytic tool to understand the nature and strengths of each.
Resulting from Reinvestment Fund’s collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) and the Rockefeller Foundation, this report demonstrates that the intrinsic value of arts and culture can be a key ingredient in neighborhood revitalization by nurturing a wide range of local assets, building social capital and promoting entrepreneurial and civic growth. The publication calls for investing in community-based creative activity to enhance its place-making role and potential, and offers investment ideas for three specific areas: creativity, development and knowledge.
Resulting from Reinvestment Fund’s collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) and the Rockefeller Foundation, this publication provides a summary of the report on Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment.
Paper commissioned by Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity that explores the civil rights aspect of foreclosures. The paper draws from Reinvestment Fund’s work in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and looks at the role deregulation and the lack of federal law enforcement played in creating the subprime lending and mortgage foreclosure crisis.
Study of mortgage foreclosure filings in Newark, NJ for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. This report distills recent trends in mortgage origination, delinquency and foreclosures in Newark from a variety of data sources. It provides a context of changes in the local real estate market to assist policymakers design an appropriate set of responses to counter the adverse impacts of foreclosures in Newark.
Presentation by Ira Goldstein about the Market Value Analysis (MVA). The presentation was part of a session at the Federal Reserve Board of Philadelphia’s 2008 Conference, “Reinventing Older Communities: How Does Place Matter?”
An increase in the delinquency rate for all mortgages in the District of Columbia over 2007 have resulted in more home foreclosures. Foreclosures can have a negative imact on neighborhoods and the entire city. This study offers an overview of subprime lending; a look at subprime lending in DC; and recommendations for how DC can help current and future borrowers. The study was conducted for the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking.
Study of mortgage foreclosures in New Jersey for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and the Ford Foundation. Our singular purpose was to add a measure of systematic and objective data analysis to the mortgage foreclosure problem facing New Jersey. As is often the case, by the time the study is complete, the problem is not what it was when the study began. That is uniquely true in this instance. The overall magnitude of the mortgage foreclosure problem, nationally and in New Jersey, has increased substantially over the last 18 months.
Detailed local case study of predatory lending that includes the analysis of complete mortgage and sale histories for 15,500 properties in the city of Philadelphia from 2000 to 2003 as well as interviews with a broad range of subject experts.
Study of the Free Tax Assistance program Reinvestment Fund offered employees of its portfolio companies. In addition to tax preparation, the program helped low-income wage earners claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) they were eligible for. This study examines the effectiveness of the program.
Study for Housing Opportunities, Inc., with funding from The Heinz Endowments. This report seeks to answer critical questions regarding the low rates of African American homeownership in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
A report by the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia that proposes ten fixes to improve and streamline the development process in Philadelphia. The report aims to eliminate or change steps in the process that unnecessarily add to the cost of a home and otherwise deter developers from building or rehabilitating houses in the city.
This report argues that Pennsylvania needs a comprehensive performance management approach to its workforce programs so that they can be effectively evaluated and improved. The report proposes an evaluation framework and a model for an Annual Report on Pennsylvania’s Workforce Investment System.
Metropolitan Philadelphia is a place with extraordinary assets. It should be a region of choice, but it’s not. Our region has seen minimal population growth and alarmingly low job growth. What’s growing most rapidly is sprawl, and it’s hurting our region. It’s time to think differently and make some big, positive changes.
This report provides quantitative and qualitative data to forecast employer hiring needs in information technology and customer service occupations. It concludes that both these occupations cut across all industries and that the demand for these workers would continue based on favorable economic growth.
A discussion of the social and economic trends that influence poverty alleviation policies and strategies, the result of these trends, the argument that community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can be one source from which regional civic intermediaries can be created, and examples of CDFI regional intermediary roles.
This article was first to be called “Cities Forgotten by Their Regional Economies,” but as the authors reflected more on the competitive position of distressed central cities, they realized that the title was wrong.