Blog

July 26, 2024

How Community Partners and Local Governments Collaborate to Address Heirs’ Property

Residents who live near vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties acutely understand their negative physical, mental, and financial impacts. But each VAD property has a unique story—and…

July 22, 2024

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…

July 3, 2024

Driving Change: A Mid-Year Reflection from Community Progress

A letter from our CEO & President about our work in the first six months of 2024.

April 25, 2024

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.

April 11, 2024

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.

April 10, 2024

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.

March 28, 2024

What Can Neighbors Do About Vacant Buildings and Lots?

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

March 6, 2024

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.

February 27, 2024

What’s the Deal with Rural Land Banks? A Q&A with West Virginia Land Stewardship Corporation Executive Director Taylor Bennett

Land banks can help rural communities deal with vacant, abandoned, and dilapidated properties.

February 5, 2024

How to Prevent and Reduce Illegal Dumping

Cities spend millions each year cleaning up illegal dumping. What if they tried to make vacant lots less appealing to dumping in the first place?

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

What data sources you should be looking at if you’re interested in understanding, tracking, and solving property vacancy in your community.

How to write a session proposal for the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference that will get noticed.

Learn how Newark, New Jersey is leveraging an underutilized HCV provision to make homeownership a reality for low-income residents.

Examples of how philanthropic partnerships have helped land banks launch new programs to revitalize communities.

Examples of live-work unit projects that are transforming their neighborhoods through creative placemaking.

Talking about community revitalization is hard. Here’s some ways to explain vacancy when people don’t understand your work.

Examples of how land banks are transforming vacant land into climate resilience assets through flood mitigation, greening, and partnerships.

The NLBN Summit is your chance to better understand how land banks work and how they can support your goals around developing housing, reusing vacant land, and helping neighborhoods bounce back from economic decline.

Brownfield redevelopment reclaims the potential of underutilized properties, improves a neighborhood’s health and wellbeing, and can spark community revitalization.

Filter by Date

Topics