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Journal Article
What Makes Cities Resilient?
How older industrial cities can become resilient cities was the focus of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia?s fifth biennial Reinventing Older Communities conference, which was attended by over 430 community development leaders from nonprofits, banks, foundations, government agencies, and businesses from 24 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Journal Article
Training for Jobs in the Emerging Energy-Efficiency Industry
The nonprofit Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA) of Philadelphia, Inc. has trained about 2,000 low- and moderate-income adults and teenagers during the past 18 months for jobs in the energy-efficiency field and is simultaneously taking steps to help develop this emerging industry.
Journal Article
New CDFI Community Investment Fund
The Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) and Woodforest National Bank (NB), based near Houston, TX, created a new fund in early 2017 to provide equity-equivalent investments to community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in Woodforest NB?s 17-state region, which includes Pennsylvania
Journal Article
Pennsylvania Legislation Enables Municipalities to Create Land Banks
Pennsylvania municipalities have a new tool to acquire, manage, and dispose of vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties to facilitate their redevelopment and reuse. Legislation effective in December 2012 states that land banks may be created in Pennsylvania by a city, county, borough, township, or an incorporated town with a population of more than 10,000 residents, or two or more municipalities with populations of less than 10,000 residents that enter into an intergovernmental cooperation agreement (ICA). School districts may be part of an ICA.
Journal Article
How Will Affordable Rental Housing Be Preserved?
Affordable rental housing for low- and moderate-income individuals and families is increasingly scarce. Housing finance agencies, nonprofits, and policymakers agree that existing affordable rental housing must be preserved despite formidable complex obstacles in achieving this goal. This article focuses on challenges in rental housing preservation and discusses the programs and perspectives of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA), the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA), and the Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA).
Journal Article
Workforce Development: Engaging Employers
Leaders of a community college, the YouthBuild charter school, and a public career and technical institute speaking on a Reinventing Our Communities conference panel addressed the need to forge stronger connections between high school and postsecondary education or employment, especially for ?opportunity youth? who are neither employed nor in school
Journal Article
Nonprofit Focuses on Employment Training and Business and Community Development
Impact Services Corporation, located in Philadelphia?s Kensington neighborhood, is one of the largest nonprofit providers of employment and training services in Pennsylvania. However, Impact is unusual among nonprofits in this field because it works closely with area businesses and creates jobs through community development projects and Impact-owned businesses
Journal Article
Lessons from the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiatives
One of the nation?s only programs that uses individual development accounts (IDAs)1 to build the assets of young people is overseen by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, a private foundation in St. Louis, MO. The IDAs are part of a program called Opportunity Passport that was developed for young people who are ?aging out? of foster care. Started in 2001, Opportunity Passport is being implemented in 18 states by 13 nonprofits, four public agencies, and one university.
Journal Article
Reinventing Older Communities: Bridging Growth & Opportunity
How can economic growth create better job, education, and housing opportunities for low-income people and communities? The sixth biennial Reinventing Older Communities conference probed strategies to create opportunities in education, employment, revitalization, and other areas. Recurring themes were the importance of collaboration and partnership with different sectors and of ongoing data collection and analysis to identify issues and measure progress in addressing them
Journal Article
Breakthroughs in CDFI Capital Access
For a long time, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) have wanted to raise larger amounts of capital in order to make more loans and have greater social impact. A significant step in that quest was two California CDFIs being issued Standard and Poor?s (S&P) ratings in April 2015. Two other important moves to raise capital are seven CDFI intermediaries raising $525 million through the CDFI Fund?s CDFI Bond Guarantee Program (BGP) and 35 nondepository CDFIs becoming members of the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system. This article explores each of these developments.