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2010 charter school facility finance landscape
The 2010 Charter School Facility Finance Landscape is an updated mapping survey of private nonprofit and public financing programs for charter school facilities across the nation, including for the first time, information on charter school access to the tax-exempt bond market. The 2010 Landscape includes descriptions of private philanthropies and nonprofit organizations active in the sector and detailed data on all related charter school bond issuances through 2009. The report includes all available website and statutory references, with active links in the electronic version.
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Meeting the challenge of distressed investors in america's neighborhoods
By Alan Mallach
Cities across the country, from New Haven to Pheonix, are grappling with a new reality, investors buying large numbers of REO and other distressed properties and renting them out. While responsible landlords can help provide much-needed rental housing, poorly maintained housing and irresponsible owners often trigger seriously destabilizing effects on the blocks and neighborhoods where their properties are located. While exploring this reality, Alan Mallach, Senior Fellow at the Center for Community Progress, offers concrete suggestions for how local governments, CDCs and others can encourage responsible investor and landlord behavior.
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9 steps toward Green development
A Green Development Center Publication
Introducing sustainability to affordable housing on a limited budget. This simple, step-by-step guide covers a series of basic, low cost green retrofit measures for affordable housing. It is intended as a starting point for property managers and affordable housing professionals looking to integrate sustainability into their projects without breaking the bank, covering those investments from which nearly all buildings can benefit.
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New Approaches to comprehensive neighborhood change:
Replicating and Adapting LISC’s Building Sustainable Communities Program
By Chris Walker, Sarah Rankin, Francisca Winston – LISC Research & Assessment
Building Sustainable Communities is proving to be a powerful framework for driving lasting change in distressed areas. It is now in 63 low-income neighborhoods across the country. Building Sustainable Communities creates systemic framework for developing cohesive plans, leveraging new funds and implementing projects that help raise standards of living among low-income residents and fuel sustainable, positive change in their communities.
This publication is a compelling first look at Building Sustainable Communities in action. It is part of an ongoing assessment effort designed to identify best practices that will inform this work going forward. It demonstrates that Building Sustainable Communities is successfully being tailored to the needs of a broad range of communities and providing the fuel for the economic and social resurgence of places too often written off as lost.
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2004 METLIFE AWARDS
West Side Community Collaborative
By LISC's CSI
This publication provides a snapshot of the public and nonprofit financing programs for charter school facilities across the nation. Based on extensive research and interviews, the publication includes descriptions of financing products and geographic markets for 25 private nonprofit providers active in the sector. It also details public initiatives for charter school facilities at both the federal and state levels, including descriptions of grant programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education and federal programs administered by federal agencies, as well as a listing of state-level grant, loan and credit enhancement programs in jurisdictions with a charter law.
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Blueprint buffalo:
Regional Strategies and Local Tools for Reclaiming Vacant Properties in the City and Suburbs of Buffalo – Policy Brief
LISC Buffalo NVPC Buffalo assessment project
This report, released before supportive regional and local officials, business leaders, and civic
groups, sets forth four leadership and four policy actions to prevent, abate, reclaim, and reuse vacant and abandoned properties within Buffalo and its surrounding first-tier suburbs. Blueprint Buffalo offers local leaders a roadmap of strategies and tools to address the intractable blight and decay of vacant properties that have plagued many neighborhoods for decades.
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Blueprint buffalo:
Regional Strategies and Local Tools for Reclaiming Vacant Properties in the City and Suburbs of Buffalo – Action Plan
LISC Buffalo NVPC Buffalo assessment project
The four-step action plan includes the following steps:
- Launching a citywide vacant properties initiative led by City of Buffalo Mayor and office of Strategic Planning
- Development of a suburban vacant property agenda spearheaded by local elected officials and civic and business leaders
- Creation of an Erie-Buffalo Vacant Properties Coordinating Council for regional problem solving, ongoing communication-information sharing, and to develop institutional capacities and partnerships
- Establishment of Buffalo-Niagara as the nation’s first Living Laboratory for Vacant Property Reclamation – through a series of innovative policy initiatives driven by the Governor, State Legislature, and elected Federal officials and managed by the University at Buffalo.
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Buffalo as the Nation’s first living Laboratory
for Reclaiming Vacant Properties
By Joseph Schilling
Blueprint Buffalo calls for the designation of Buffalo-Erie County as the nation’s first Living Laboratory for Vacant Property Reclamation. It envisions the Living Lab as a collective model to test new plans and innovative designs for reclaiming vacant properties and revitalizing neighborhoods. This paper presents a vision of what the Living Lab would look like and how it could provide older industrial communities a new paradigm for addressing the intractable blight and decay caused by vacant properties.
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Building a better urban future:
New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities
By Alan Mallach
There are few tasks more important and more necessary in American society today than the regeneration of weak market cities. This paper outlines an extensive list of housing strategies for change in these cities as part of their revitalization efforts. It is intended to help CDCs, government agencies, lenders, community members, and foundations assess the effectiveness of current revitalization strategies and priorities in weak market cities; develop new, effective goals and strategies; and prioritize the allotment of resources to best achieve these goals.
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Economic impacts of residential property abandonment
and the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan
By Nigel G. Griswold, Patricia E. Norris
According to Economic Impacts of Residential Property Abandonment and the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan, while abandoned housing decreases the values of nearby houses, Genesee County Land Bank programs have mitigated some of the adverse effects. This study, funded by the Land Policy Institute, Michigan State University Department of Agricultural Economics, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, People and Land and the Genesee Institute documents work by the Genesee County Land Bank to alleviate the burden of abandoned and tax-foreclosed properties in Flint, Michigan.
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FINANCE GAP: Charter schools and their facilities
An EFFC Publication
The study examines the experiences of charter schools in 14 states and the District of Columbia, where 75% of the nation’s charter schools are located due to a high need for public school facilities caused by student growth and/or facilities repair needs. Over 100 interviews conducted over 9-months with representatives from charter school, education, real estate, and finance communities illustrate the decade long experience of charter schools with innovative financing mechanisms, private sector involvement in facilities financing, and the use of instructional revenue for the repayment of debt.
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Food, markets and healthy Communities
How food stores accelerate local development and enrich residents’ lives
By Tony Proscio
This report discusses how food markets can affect low-income neighborhoods and provides several strong case studies that illustrate their significant impact. The presence of a high-quality food market is a critical component to a community’s physical and economic health. Without such a local resource, residents are often forced to travel far and pay more for groceries or settle for what is nearby: fast food restaurants or the low-nutrient food prevalent in convenient stores. In more and more communities, LISC has supported efforts by community development corporations to build supermarkets, grocery stores, and farmers markets. And these food markets have done more than just provide access to better food; they also provide much needed jobs and spur other forms of economic investment in surrounding neighborhoods.
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Joint ventures with for-profit developers
A Guide for Community Development Corporations
An ODI Publication
Joint ventures between a community development corporation ("CDC") and a for-profit partner present tremendous opportunities for a CDC to build its skills and complete projects that are larger in scale and/or beyond its core competencies. However, there are a host of business issues raised by the prospect of a CDC co-owning or working closely with a for-profit on a project. Many issues need to be carefully negotiated for the CDC to protect its financial integrity and credibility. This guide is structured to assist CDCs in becoming educated consumers as they think about, plan and become partners in joint ventures with for-profit developers.
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LAND BANK Authorities
A Guide for the Creation and Operation of Local Land Banks
By Frank S. Alexander
Land Banks are public authorities created to efficiently acquire, hold, manage, and develop tax-foreclosed property. In this guidebook, Emory University Law Professor Frank Alexander explores the development of land banks in St. Louis, Cleveland, Louisville, Atlanta, and Genesee County, Mich., addressing the conditions, history, and legal structures of each. In comparing and contrasting the legal approaches and policies of these five examples, it offers public officials and community leaders important findings derived from the work and experiences of the nation's first land banks. This guide can serve as a roadmap for cities and counties across America that are attempting to rediscover the value of urban land.
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Leveraging code enforcement for neighborhood safety
Insights for Community Developers
By LISC and the Metlife Foundation
Drawing on the best-practice strategies employed by winners of the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards over the last five years, this paper is part of a series examining innovative approaches to community safety partnerships.
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Managing Neighborhood Change
A Framework for Sustainable and Equitable Revitalization
By Alan Mallach
This publication offers CDCs, local institutions, businesses, and community leaders a new way to look at managing neighborhood change. In particular, it addresses how to know when to pursue which strategy or combination of strategies, in order to bring about sustainable and equitable neighborhood revitalization. It is based on a simple idea: The most powerful push for neighborhood change is change in the demand for neighborhood housing. Change in the residential real-estate market can lead to a stronger, healthier neighborhood. At the same time, market change can take problematic forms, leading to undesirable outcomes. It can be driven by speculation, triggering little or no improvement in quality of life, or disrupt established communities by displacing long-time residents.
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Mayor’s Resource guide
To Vacant and Abandoned Properties
By Alan Mallach
Implementing a strategy to restore a community's abandoned properties to productive use is a long-term process, involving many different governmental agencies, city businesses and institutions, residents, and neighborhood organizations. This publication addresses why a mayor's role is the central role in tackling vacant properties.
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Renewing public assets for community development
By Frank S. Alexander
Key to community development is the realization that each parcel of land is a potential resource to the revitalization of a community. Land which is presently used in a manner consistent with the strategic growth plan of a community, whether as residences, retail facilities, or open public parks, serves and an anchor for stability and further development. This report provides a concise description of the nature of tax liens, the ways in which most municipalities deal with tax delinquent and publicly owned properties, and specific reforms which can help convert these properties into productive and performing community assets. It is designed to assist community development practitioners and local government officials to understand the relevant basic concepts and to enable them to analyze and reform the applicable laws of their cities and counties.
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the ripple effect
Economic Impacts of Targeted Community Investments
An Overview of the City of Richmond’s Neighborhood In Bloom Initiative
LISC/ Richmond, Virginia
This publication illustrates how to create neighborhoods of choice and opportunity, when resources are limited and maximum results are desired. It summarizes the results of a Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond study, examining the Neighborhoods in Bloom program in Richmond. Only five years after the program was initiated, the study reports some significant economic impacts of the policy, including increased home values. By targeting public and foundation resources to specific distressed neighborhoods, Richmond was able to attract the much-needed market capital. This targeted strategy premised on process, political will, and partnerships, enabled Richmond to transform some of its most disinvested neighborhoods.
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Safe streets, sound communities
By Tony Proscio
This is a guidebook that explores LISC's role in promoting community safety through partnerships between police and community organizations . Highlighting the work and lessons from the Community Safety Initiative as well as other LISC supported, community based safety efforts, the report profiles three communites -- the Olneyville neighborhood in Providence, Columbia City in Seattle, and Franklin Avenue in Southeast Minneapolis.
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smart communities: curbing sprawl at its core
Exploring the relationship between community development and Smart Growth
By Tony Proscio
This report explores the relationship between community development and Smart Growth, and examines the ways in which these two movements -- community development and smart growth -- are components of the very same effort to promote comprehensive planning for efficient and equitable development. It also highlights concrete examples from cities around the country of how neighborhood revitalization efforts are helping to reverse sprawl.
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West side community collaborative
Progress Report
A LISC Buffalo Publication
In late 2000, LISC Buffalo asked members of the West Side community to begin a unique dialogue among neighborhood organizations and individuals. Once all interests were at the table, it did not take long for the group to decide that in order to accomplish what each intended individually, they would have to work collectively. Developing an overall community revitalization plan would be imperative to the success of their work going forward. The group became known as the West Side Community Collaborative (WSCC) and with financial support from LISC, the firm of Flynn Battaglia Architects was contracted to oversee a comprehensive community visioning and planning process. This publication provides a summary of the outstanding ongoing work of our partners in the WSCC, an innovative initiative bringing about resident-led neighborhood change in Buffalo, NY. |
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