Insights

The Montgomery County Government commissioned Reinvestment Fund’s Policy Solutions team to study the early childhood education landscape across Montgomery County, Maryland.

The Renters’ Access Act (RAA) articulated what the City of Philadelphia defines as uniform tenant screening criteria, creates a right to dispute a landlord’s decision to decline an application from a prospective tenant, and right to a next available unit should the dispute produce evidence that the prospective tenant was a qualified applicant.

In 2020, Reinvestment Fund partnered with the Build from Within Alliance (BfWA) and University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) to participate in an Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Knowledge Challenge to explore the place-based work of BfWA members.

Philadelphia, like many large cities, directs a considerable amount of money each year to meet its residents’ needs for quality affordable housing and related services. Over three recent fiscal years (2021-2023), local public sector entities expended nearly $2.3 billion on housing.

Over the past quarter century, social scientists have taken a renewed interest in neighborhood ecology. The term ecometrics describes the empirical investigation of neighborhood effects. We take an “ecometric” approach to examine two contemporary phenomena—involuntary residential movement (household eviction) and the concentration of cultural assets within neighborhoods—to examine how they might influence individual dimensions of social wellbeing and patterns of social wellbeing across Philadelphia.

Today, Councilwoman and Majority Leader Cherelle L. Parker (9^th District), along with Dr. Ira Goldstein, President of Policy Solutions at Reinvestment Fund, and all the members of the Philadelphia Home Appraisal Bias Task Force, issued its Final Report and Recommendations.

This article first appeared in the April 2022 issue of the Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits.

An analysis of six strategies to stabilize neighborhoods, this report examines policy interventions used to stabilize or revitalize housing markets in low- and middle-income neighborhoods.

March 2020 was a precarious time for childcare businesses in Pennsylvania and across the US. In response to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus. This report provides an overview of the Philadelphia Emergency Fund for the Stabilization of Early Education (PEFSEE) program and its accomplishments to-date. The report highlights how emergency resources administered through PEFSEE helped stabilize provider.

The release of 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data provide 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, and how key features of originated mortgages vary across different racial groups in Philadelphia.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the affordable housing landscape in New Orleans, and how can policymakers respond? This  report by Reinvestment Fund reviews demographic, economic, and housing market data prior to and immediately following the start of the pandemic, as well as interviews with local experts and stakeholders. The report concludes with a set of geographically targeted policy recommendations.