Posts by Charles Linton
Delinquent Property Tax Enforcement Could Be the Missing Piece in Fighting Vacant Properties
A well-designed delinquent tax enforcement system can help communities return properties to productive use.
Read MoreThe Community-led Effort to Address Vacant and Abandoned Properties in St. Louis County, Missouri
St. Louis County needed a county-wide land bank to work with local communities and partners to help return vacant and abandoned properties to productive use. But breaking the cycle of vacancy requires a comprehensive approach.
Read MoreLeaders in Land Banking: A Conversation with Adam Zaranko at the Albany County Land Bank
We spoke with the Albany County Land Bank Corporation’s Executive Director Adam Zaranko about affordable housing initiatives, the importance of diversified partnerships, and what’s coming up for the land bank in 2023. The Albany County Land Bank recently launched an innovative program to turn vacant properties into affordable housing opportunities. Can you give our readers…
Read MoreFrom Harm to Home: Replicating Detroit’s Make it Home Program
The City of Detroit’s innovative Make it Home program harnesses the power of the traditionally harmful property tax foreclosure process and uses it to increase affordable homeownership, improve housing conditions, and stabilize neighborhoods.
Read MoreResident Engagement in Vacant Lot Greening: Empowering Communities for Neighborhood Revitalization
This is an excerpt of Chapter 11 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web. In this chapter, Laney A.…
Read MoreOver Forty National, Local, and Land Bank Stakeholders Join Community Progress in Asking Bank Regulators to Strengthen the CRA
On August 5th, 2022, Community Progress and forty-three supporting organizations across the country submitted a public comment calling for the modernized Community Reinvestment Act to center racial equity and embed land banking strategies. You can read our comment here. Passed in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (“CRA”) is one of the most important pieces of…
Read MoreBuilding Resilience: Leveraging Innovative Partnerships and Low Cost Capital to Meet Affordable Single-Family Housing Needs
This is an excerpt of Chapter 10 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web. In this chapter, John O’Callaghan,…
Read MoreLand Banks and Community Land Trusts: Emerging Partners for a Resilient and Equitable Recovery
This is an excerpt of Chapter 9 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web. In this chapter, Kim Graziani,…
Read MoreRead President/CEO Dr. Akilah Watkins’ US House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee Affordable Housing Testimony
On July 13, Community Progress CEO and President Dr. Akilah Watkins spoke before the The US House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee in a hearing called “Nowhere to Live: Profits, Disinvestment, and The American Housing Crisis.” The hearing discussed factors driving up housing costs, the effects of these costs on low- and middle-income households and marginalized…
Read MoreLessons from 2022 VAD Academy
On June 15, more than 900 people joined us for the 2022 VAD Academy—a day-long virtual bootcamp for professionals and community partners whose work and communities are impacted by vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) property challenges. Throughout the day, experts from Community Progress led trainings on the causes of systemic vacancy, the basics of land…
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