Sustainability and the City: New Kensington CDC's Sustainable 19125 Initiative

New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC), an organization long dedicated to revitalizing the East Kensington, Fishtown, and Port Richmond neighborhoods of Philadelphia, launched an urban sustainability initiative in 2009 called "Sustainable 19125." The initiative's goal is to make the 19125 ZIP code the most sustainable ZIP code in the city

The Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative Housing Market Study

The Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative is a collaborative effort between the City of Syracuse, local and national non-profit organizations, and private sector leaders. This partnership was created in response to an urgent challenge issued by Congressman James Walsh (R-Syracuse) in the summer of 1999 -- a challenge to revitalize distressed neighborhoods in Syracuse and reclaim those of the city's 1,031 vacant buildings that are having the greatest blighting impact on these neighborhoods. The Initiative is a city-wide effort, but is focused on revitalizing seven central-city neighborhoods that have suffered a wave of disinvestment and bear much of the burden of the city's abandoned housing stock.Viable strategies to address the problem of neighborhood decline in Syracuse must reflect an understanding of local housing market dynamics. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation undertook this market study to help identify the challenges and opportunities that distressed neighborhoods face in today's housing market, and to suggest a course of action that makes sense given current housing market conditions. To accomplish these goals, the study utilized an extensive mix of secondary data sources, as well as primary data generated through a series of interviews with local informants and a survey of over 6,000 households in seven central city neighborhoods that the City of Syracuse has designated as "revitalization areas" for the Neighborhood Initiative

Scaling U.S. Community Investing: The Investor Product Interface

"Community investing" is investment that seeks to deliver social benefits to low-income or marginalized communities while also generating a financial return. This report provides an overview of the U.S. Community Investing (USCI) field: the types of intermediary organizations raising investments and deploying them in underserved communities, the range of investment products that are available, and the types of investors active in the space. In so doing, this study surfaces several key barriers and opportunities for scaling private investment in the USCI space

Snapshots of the Nepali-Speaking Community in New York City: Demographics and Challenges

As a relatively new community, Nepalis have often been overlooked by service providers or researchers working with and studying Asian or South Asian populations. There has been little comprehensive research done on Nepalis in any regional or national capacity within the United States. This lack of information poses a significant challenge to understanding and meeting the needs of this emergent and highly diverse community.Therefore, the Jankari Research Project was created to initiate a systematic collection of information on the demographics and other issues of importance to the Nepali-speaking communities, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Jankari means knowledge and information in Nepali, and the Jankari Research Project is a participatory action research project to help Adhikaar understand how we can best serve the needs of the Nepali-speaking community in New York City, and also inform other organizations and decision-makers. We sought to understand the reasons for the increase in migration of Nepalis to the New York City area in the past decade, the economic, political and social activities of Nepalis here, and the challenges that they face, especially with regards to work, social services, and health care

Impacts of Homeownership Education and Counseling on Homebuyer Purchasing Power: Summary of Findings

In addition to reducing defaults and foreclosures, homeownership education and counseling is often claimed to help families achieve homeownership in the first place by helping them to navigate the homebuying process, improve their credit, and access favorable financing products. This study tests an approach to quantifying this benefit by estimating the amount of increased purchasing power that results from homeownership education and counseling. While the results are preliminary, they provide early suggestive evidence that high-performing homeownership education and counseling agencies may provide quantifiable benefits that exceed their costs of assistance. The study also makes recommendations for how data could be collected on a more systematic basis to track and assess these benefits

CDFIs Stepping into the Breach: An Impact Evaluation—Summary Report

This report summarizes research undertaken by the Carsey School of Public Policy to evaluate impacts of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund on CDFIs and of the CDFI industry on the people and communities it serves. In summary, we find a variety of evidence indicating that CDFIs are advancing the statutory purposes of the CDFI Fund to promote economic revitalization and community development through the provision of credit, capital and financial services to underserved populations and communities in the United State

CDFIs and Online Business Lending: A Review of Recent Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

The report, authored by Jack Northrup, Eric Hangen, and Michael Swack, looks at some of the issues CDFIs face as the fintech industry (technology companies involved in lending) grows and begins to target markets served by CDFIs