Insights

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.

Since April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the evictions moratorium have drastically reduced Landlord-Tenant court activity, allowing Philadelphia renters to stay in their homes during a period when an eviction would subject them to risk of contracting and spreading the virus.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Reinvestment Fund announced today the release of a pathbreaking research brief that proposes the use of fair housing law to work toward the end of segregation.

This brief describes Child Care Works (CCW) usage across Philadelphia and the impact of COVID-19 on program participation.

Fair housing law is an essential tool to achieving racial and economic integration and realizing the attendant benefits for all types of communities. This brief draws on structured interviews conducted by Reinvestment Fund and the University of Pennsylvania with former officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), local housing officials in New Orleans, Houston, Kansas City (MO), Indianapolis, and Philadelphia, and fair housing experts and advocates.

Reinvestment Fund conducted analysis of Philadelphia Municipal Court records for debt collection cases that were filed in Small Claims court between January 2016 and April 2020. In total, 90,809 case records were obtained for analysis.

Since 2014, Reinvestment Fund’s Fund for Quality (FFQ) and Early Childhood Education Loan Fund (ECE-LF) have been making investments to support the expansion of high-quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) opportunities throughout Philadelphia. From 2014 to 2019, the FFQ and ECE-LF have supported 51 projects at 46 unique centers, which have created or preserved 3,246 ECE high-quality seats across the city. These seats serve a diverse population of high-need families across the city.

Reinvestment Fund’s research report provides new insight into how many Black and Hispanic renters in Philadelphia face an eviction filing compared to other racial and ethnic groups. While previous research has documented the persistent, statistically significant effect of Census tract-level racial composition on filing volume, this is the first look at the racial and ethnic characteristics of the universe of residential eviction defendants.

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.

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.

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.

In 2019 Policy Solutions partnered with Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) to conduct a study of historical patterns of homeownership rates for different racial/ethnic groups throughout the 21st century. The study findings highlight the ongoing persistence of gaps in White and non-White homeownership throughout Pennsylvania.