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Code Enforcement System

Community Progress Announces Upcoming Webinars Focused on Preventing Post-COVID-19 Vacancy

Over the last 30-days we’ve watched the COVID-19 health crisis forever change the fabric of this country. The lives of millions of Americans have been impacted and the need for equity will grow exponentially. As communities are grappling with the immediate health, social, and economic impacts of this unprecedented pandemic,…

How to stop predatory land contracts and rent-to-own scams: require habitability

Any views or opinions represented in this blog post belong solely to the guest blog author. By: Sarah B. Mancini and Margot Saunders, National Consumer Law Center The historical abuse of “contract for deed” transactions to drain communities of color of home equity is well documented. In these land contracts, the…

Learning from Baltimore’s Vacants to Value: Part III

One can learn a lot about tackling abandoned properties from Baltimore’s Vacants to Value. However successful it’s been, at getting abandoned properties back into use, though, there are real risks in overselling that achievement. The core element of that program, simply stated, is an effective means of getting developers to…

Learning from Baltimore’s Vacants to Value: Part II

In my first post on this theme, I wrote about the thinking behind Baltimore’s highly successful effort to get private developers and property owners to rehabilitate vacant properties and put them back to use. As I noted, the key element in the strategy is creating a predictable pipeline of vacant properties…

Learning from Baltimore’s Vacants to Value: Part I

In 2010, the City of Baltimore kicked off an ambitious effort to address its vacant property challenges, an effort it called Vacants to Value (V2V). After five years, the city decided to commission an in-depth evaluation of the program, and after a competitive process, retained the Center for Community Progress,…

New report analyzes New Orleans’ rising rental costs

New Orleans has undergone many transformations in the 10+ years since Katrina. Today, with over half of New Orleans’ residents living in rental housing, and rents rising sharply in many neighborhoods across the city, affordability is becoming an acute problem. These are the findings of a new independent assessment conducted by the Center…

Communities aim to stabilize neighborhoods through effective rental registration and certification programs

Code enforcement is an important tool for addressing blighted property conditions and stabilizing neighborhoods. When we talk about that, however, we often focus on vacant, blighted property, and less so on occupied, blighted property. Many City and land bank-led initiatives have programs to demolish and rehab vacant, abandoned properties,…

Treasury announces final allocation of $1B in Hardest Hit Funds

Thirteen of the 19 participating Hardest Hit Fund states will receive additional dollars allocated through a competitive application process that required state Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs) to demonstrate an ongoing need for additional funding to prevent foreclosure and stabilize markets. According to Treasury, states receiving additional funds under the final…

The REAL rental housing issue

Originally posted on the National Housing Institute’s Rooflines blog We know a few things about the majority of very low-income renters: They live in private market housing, not tax credit projects or public housing. They receive no housing subsidies. They are paying far more than they can afford for what…

What is the cost of blight? What new research from Atlanta tells us

What is the cost of blight? We know that vacant properties cost cities through lost property tax revenue, and that they also bring down the property values of surrounding homes in the neighborhood. We know that cities have to spend considerable funds on activities like mowing lots or boarding up…

Why Home Repair Programs Are Essential for Preventing Property Vacancy and Abandonment

Home repair is a core strategy to stop properties from becoming vacant in the first place.

Our Commitment to Code Enforcement: 2024 Recap

In 2024, Community Progress doubled down on its commitment to helping local governments use code enforcement to address VAD properties.

Celebrating Legislative Wins to Combat Vacancy in Missouri and Alabama

Effective legislation is a vital piece of equipping state and local governments to effectively address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties (VAD). Through our Land Bank Incubator Scholarship Program, over the last three years Community Progress has been honored to support local efforts to craft and advance these pieces of legislation….

The Problem with Calling Neighborhoods with Vacant Properties “Blighted”

Blight is a shorthand term many people use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect Communities

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties—referred to by some as “blighted properties”—pose significant costs to public health, property values, local taxpayers, and more.

What is Code Enforcement?

Code enforcement from A to Z: when it works, when it doesn’t, and how local governments can make code enforcement systems more fair for all.

From 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.

What does equitable code enforcement look like? How Louisville is taking steps to use its code enforcement process to advance racial equity

With technical assistance support from Community Progress, Louisville is reforming their housing and building code enforcement with equity in mind.

Approaches to Rural Property Vacancy in Law and Policy

This is an excerpt of Chapter 8 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….

A History of Ohio Land Banking 2009–2021: From Legislation to Operation

This is an excerpt of Chapter 7 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….