Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places

We envision a future where widespread vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration no longer exist

The Center for Community Progress is the only national nonprofit dedicated to comprehensively tackling vacant properties. Since 2010, our team has delivered customized, expert guidance to leaders in over 300 communities and provided hundreds of hours of free educational resources as well as leadership programming to help policymakers, practitioners, and community members return properties to productive use.

Get Help for Your Community

If you’re ready to take a comprehensive approach to ending systemic vacancy in your community, we can help

In addition to free tools and resources, we offer high-impact consultation services for government officials and decision makers tailored to your community needs. Our team combines decades of legal, planning, and strategic expertise to assess the state of vacant property in your community, craft recommendations for policy and practice changes, and forges lasting relationships to make sure you have ongoing support to succeed.

Recent News

A street in Raton, New Mexico (Creative Commons / pxfuel).

Challenges—and Opportunities—to Addressing Vacant Properties in Raton, New Mexico

September 20, 2023

A snapshot of Raton, New Mexico and how the city can tackle vacant and abandoned properties.

Looking Back at the 2020-21 Community Revitalization Fellowship: Creative Placemaking by Community Leaders from Three Cities

September 13, 2023

Learn about creative placemaking projects by residents of Birmingham, Alabama; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Kat Guillaume-Delemar sits, smiling, in a white dress in front of Howard University.

Meet Kat Guillaume-Delemar, President & CEO of Community Progress

September 5, 2023

For Kat Guillaume-Delemar, community revitalization is a deeply personal journey.

Equity Commitment

As leaders in our field, it is our responsibility to uncover and disrupt the systems that perpetuate inequity – in the communities we serve and within our organization. Systemic racism is a root cause of vacant, abandoned, deteriorated properties and an immense barrier to achieving our mission. Therefore, we must ingrain the pursuit of racial equity in our programs, partnerships, and people. We do this by embedding racial equity into our programming; dedicating time and resources toward implementing an annual Equity Action Plan; and providing racial equity training and education opportunities to staff and board.

Our Programs

Leadership & Education

We educate grassroots leaders who want to strengthen their neighborhoods, uplift successes and best practices, and bring champions of community revitalization together. Learn More »

Technical Assistance

We deliver customized, expert guidance to help communities prevent and reduce entrenched vacancy and build relationships to make sure local partners are set up to accomplish lasting change. Learn More »

Policy & Research

We advocate for equitable policy change to help local, state, and federal leaders understand and reform the systems that perpetuate vacancy and deterioration. Learn More »

National Land Bank Network

We support the growing community of land bank leaders across the country by connecting these dedicated professionals to the tools they need to revitalize their neighborhoods and each other. Learn More »