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Equitable Revitalization

Filling the Gaps: Helping Struggling Property Owners Connect to Rehab and Repair Resources

Today, property owners – homeowners, landlords and businesses – feeling the active COVID-19 impacts are also bracing for a possible larger real estate market downturn and more unknowns. These influences, especially when combined with job loss or other challenges, leave many owners finding it difficult to invest in necessary maintenance…

Download Alan Mallach’s “Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst: Addressing the Aftermath Of The COVID-19 Pandemic In America’s Struggling Neighborhoods”

“We don’t know what will happen – there are far too many unknowns at this point – but we can already anticipate many of the risks, and what to expect after the pandemic is behind us.“ – Alan Mallach As the United States is gripped by the most severe pandemic…

Preventing Post-COVID-19 Vacancy: 6 Interventions Local Governments Should be Thinking About Now

We are still many months away from fully understanding the public health and economic fallout from COVID-19. However, history can provide some foresight into how this crisis may impact community stability and what actions local governments could examine now to mitigate these impacts. Discriminatory and unjust policies have exposed individuals…

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,…

Community Development Is Crucial in This Moment

The pandemic is highlighting the crucial necessity of community developers’ work. Here’s what the field will need to play its part in the recovery. One month ago, when I began the first draft of this article, the world was drastically different. Well before we became part of this new reality,…

Dorothy Mae Richardson: Honoring the Woman That Helped Shape Community Development

Women’s History Month, which began in 1987, is a month-long celebration of women’s contributions to society, whether in the arts, sports, politics, or music. This month offers us the opportunity to reflect and remember those, often overlooked and underacknowledged, trailblazers who created new paths for past, present, and future generations…

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…

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…

Can Detroit’s vacant factories become community assets?

Cross-posted from Next City, this article is one of a ten-part series inspired by the 2015 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. Heading east along I-94 from Detroit’s resurgent Midtown area, two massive structures loom on the horizon. For passing drivers, they’re awe-inducing symbols of both the city’s former industrial might and the dismaying scale of…

The Next Frontier in Neighborhood Stabilization – The ReClaim Project

By Craig Nickerson, National Community Stabilization Trust and Rebecca Regan, Housing Partnership Network In numerous communities today, REO inventories are declining and overall foreclosure rates are at five-year lows; however, the importance of continuing the work of stabilizing hard hit neighborhoods is far from over. Many neighborhoods, often low- to moderate-income…

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RVP 2024: Philanthropy and Community Revitalization

With the 2024 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference (RVP) kicking off in St. Louis this week, Community Progress took a moment to ask three of our top sponsors—JPMorganChase, Missouri Foundation for Health, and Wells Fargo Foundation—what they were looking forward to at the event, and how philanthropy plays a critical role…

FHA Updates 203(k) Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance Program to Increase Accessibility

Revisions to the 203(k) Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance Program aim to make it more accessible and effective and increase the number of 203(k) consultants.

Why Heirs’ Property is a Problem for Vacancy and Abandonment

To address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties, local governments must first identify what types of VAD properties exist in the community. Some properties are abandoned with no mortgage and near tax foreclosure. Some fall into disrepair during a long mortgage foreclosure process. In other cases, a property owner may…

What is the Neighborhood Revitalization and Land Banking Act?

The bipartisan bill is an important step in giving rural, urban, and suburban communities the tools to address “blighted” properties. The key focus of the bill is providing support to land banks, a tool many communities are adopting to support economic and neighborhood revitalization.

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 Can Neighbors Do about Vacant Buildings and Lots?

When neighbors come together, they can be a powerful voice for community revitalization.

Answering Big Questions Following Tyler v. Hennepin County

Answering the most common and important questions we’ve heard about property tax foreclosure in the wake of Tyler v. Hennepin County.

Explaining the Cycle of Systemic Vacancy

Systemic vacancy is the community experience of widespread property vacancy caused by the combined actions of people, policies, and processes.

Lessons from 2023 VAD Academy: Systemic Racism is a Root Cause of Vacant Properties

The key lesson from this year’s VAD Academy: systemic racism is a root cause of vacant, abandoned, deteriorated properties.