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Journal Article
Massachusetts’ efforts to address foreclosed properties
Massachusetts has been ahead of the curve in combating neighborhood deterioration as real-estate-owned (lender-owned) foreclosed properties increase. Affordable housing developers, community groups, municipal and state officials, and nonprofits have created a Foreclosed Property Task Force and an online database that is accessible by all the partners. The database is already improving decision making about where resources would have the most impact.
Journal Article
Promoting banking services among low-income customers
Many low-income people rely on payday lenders, check cashers, and other alternative financial service providers to get by. But the high costs make it hard for families to save. A 2008 Brookings Institution report highlights the reasons that the so-called unbanked turn to such services. It also suggests solutions-including both expanded bank offerings and increased access to government programs that stabilize incomes and reduce the need for emergency, high-cost credit.
Journal Article
The Elm City resident card: New Haven reaches out to immigrants
Cities with sizable immigrant populations are responding to the issue of illegal immigration in different ways. In 2004, the City of New Haven began to actively collaborate with its immigrant population for the purpose of finding ways to increase public safety and integrate immigrant residents into the civic life of the community. This article describes some of the policy choices made by the city in recent years.
Journal Article
Maintaining diversity in America's transit-rich neighborhoods: tools for equitable neighborhood change
In some newly transit-rich neighborhoods (TRNs), a new station can set in motion a cycle of unintended consequences in which core transit users?such as renters and low-income households?are priced out of the neighborhood in favor of higher-income, car-owning residents who are less likely to use public transit. The authors describe these patterns and present policy tools for shaping equitable neighborhood change.
Journal Article
An overview of the CDFI industry
The community development financial institutions (CDFI) industry is at a crossroads in terms of identifying strategies for increasing overall sustainability and scale, and ultimately, impact. This article presents an overview of the CDFI industry in the United States and New England and identifies the changes and challenges facing CDFIs and what they indicate for the sector?s future.
Journal Article
Venture capital in New England secondary cities
Over the past two decades, venture capital has been one of the major drivers of the U.S. economy. This article examines venture capital investment in secondary cities, cities outside of the 40 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), including New England secondary cities, and identifies factors that may explain how certain smaller cities attract venture capital.
Journal Article
The changing faces of America's children and youth
Recent U.S. Census Bureau projections indicate that by the middle of this century, non-Hispanic whites will cease to be a majority of the American population. In this article we document how for America's youngest residents, the future is already here. America's rapidly changing racial and ethnic composition has important implications for intergroup relations, ethnic identities, and electoral politics.
Journal Article
The marriage of green and affordable
Developers are beginning to apply green design to affordable housing. The budding practice has the potential to provide significant benefits to lower-income families, who pay proportionately more for energy and are disproportionately affected by poor air quality. This article discusses the case for uniting green and affordable and highlights the first national design and construction criteria for green affordable homes.
Journal Article
Servicer performance in processing HAMP loan modifications: a survey of Massachusetts-based counseling agencies
The Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) attempts to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by compensating servicers that allow borrowers to modify the terms of their mortgages. To understand the seemingly troubled HAMP process, the Community Development unit of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank of Boston administered surveys to loan-modification counselors. The results indicate that the process takes much longer than the guidelines indicate and that servicers frequently claim the applications are incomplete. The surveys were run twice to assess any improvements.
Journal Article
New ideas for old REOs: a disposition framework for marketing REOs for rental properties
The unprecedented accumulation of foreclosed properties in recent years has presented a challenge to communities, banks, and policymakers. This article outlines a potential disposition framework for government-sponsored and private enterprises to identify which foreclosed properties would be most appropriate for rental and which would remain most appropriate for homeownership. This disposition framework is then applied to the existing stock of foreclosed properties in Massachusetts, and the authors explore the possible utility of this analytic technique as a policy tool.