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Equitable Revitalization

The Problem with Calling Neighborhoods with Vacant Properties “Blighted” 
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.

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How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect the Community
How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect the Community

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.

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What Can Neighbors Do about Vacant Buildings and Lots?
What Can Neighbors Do about Vacant Buildings and Lots?

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

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Answering Big Questions Following Tyler v. Hennepin County
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.

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Explaining the Cycle of Systemic Vacancy
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.

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

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Community Progress Calls on FHA to Improve Access to Rehab Mortgages
Community Progress Calls on FHA to Improve Access to Rehab Mortgages

On April 17, 2023, the Center for Community Progress submitted a response to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)’s Request for Information (RFI) Regarding Rehabilitation Mortgages. A rehabilitation mortgage, often called a rehab mortgage, is designed to help homeowners improve their existing home or buy a home needing repair or renovation….

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How the Tri-COG Land Bank is Transforming Vacant Properties in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
How the Tri-COG Land Bank is Transforming Vacant Properties in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Representing Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the Tri-COG land bank has had enormous success in its first five years of operation.

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From Harm to Home: Replicating Detroit’s Make it Home Program
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.  

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

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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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After the last bell rings, cities explore options for vacant school buildings

Urban school districts are seeing schools close due to population declines, the buildings’ age, and other factors. The trend is particularly pronounced in cities that have faced the decline of large industry and subsequent hard times. Elaborate, sometimes multi-structure facilities once cherished as neighborhood centers – built to provide thousands…

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Do Urban Neighborhoods Need Homeowners?

Originally posted on the National Housing Institute’s Rooflines blog At a conference I attended last week, one of the speakers, a colleague whose judgment and knowledge I respect, offered his take on the future of urban single family neighborhoods. The lower income families who have the credit and can get…

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Flint’s framework for the future

This article was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of Breaking Ground, our quarterly newsletter. To receive Breaking Ground in your inbox, please join our email list. It might go without saying, but the City of Flint in 2014 is very different from the Flint of 1960. Decades of…

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Breaking down deconstruction: What Detroit gained from dismantling instead of destroying

It might not be immediately obvious, but in the rubble and decay of vacant, dilapidated properties — those that are so far deteriorated, they’ve been slated for demolition — there is much value to be found. That’s where deconstruction comes into the picture. Deconstruction is the process of salvaging the…

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