Strategies for Responding to Gentrification

by Joe Kriesberg
MACDC

As more and more communities across the country experience gentrification—and others fear its imminent arrival—community developers are struggling to find ways to respond. At a minimum, we seek to slow, or mitigate the process to diminish the disruption to the lives of current residents. Ideally, we would find ways to create inclusive neighborhoods that welcome newcomers while enabling long-time residents to stay and benefit from new jobs, services, amenities, and maybe even better schools. Indeed, our best hope for reducing racial segregation in our country is to achieve such a result.

Not surprisingly, these issues are frequent topics of conversations I've had with members of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), as well as with our allies and partners. I don't presume to have answers, but I do want to offer a few ideas that I've been thinking about as those conversations have unfolded:

• New affordable housing units (inclusionary or government-subsidized) may help retain the income mix of the neighborhood, but those units may or may not prevent displacement of existing residents because the people who move in could be from outside the neighborhood. To increase their efficacy as anti-displacement tools, we would need to offer a neighborhood preference for new tenants. Current fair housing rules, however, often prevent or severely limit such preferences.
• Given this reality, I believe that key actors in the affordable housing system need to overcome their reluctance to acquire existing apartments and preserve their affordability before it is too late. This is the only way to truly prevent displacement of current residents since they live in buildings that already exist—not ones yet to be built. Several CDCs in Boston and nearby Somerville have begun to do this effectively. We have many brilliant affordable housing professionals in Massachusetts and we should be able to develop scalable models for doing more of this. I'm confident it can be done for less money than we now spend on new affordable housing developments.
• The affordable housing system also needs to shift more of its resources to promoting homeownership as a stabilizing mechanism in gentrifying neighborhoods. Right now, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts spends 100 percent of its affordable housing development dollars on rental housing. Shifting 5 to 10 percent to homeownership could help stabilize our communities. Indeed, we need a full-scale effort to address the vast racial homeownership gap not only in our state, but in the rest of the country as well.
• While housing displacement gets most of the attention, I am increasingly concerned about cultural and economic displacement. When longstanding, locally-owned small businesses are forced to move (or worse, close), it impacts not only the business owner, but the entire community. Similarly, as the demographics of a place change, many residents feel the loss of their cultural community and home. Advocates are now fighting to help local businesses stay open. CDCs and others are increasingly using the arts and creative place-making (and place-keeping) to claim (and retain) their communities' historic and cultural narratives. The good news is that, compared to housing development, these interventions are relatively inexpensive. The bad news is that there is little public funding to support such programs. This needs to change.

The biggest point of controversy, both among our members and in the broader community, is whether new housing development helps or hurts. Some argue that we must build new housing in gentrifying neighborhoods to take pressure off the market and to accommodate rising demand. Many urban planners promote greater density and large-scale development as a solution to gentrification. At the same time, others blame these very developments for accelerating the process of gentrification. They believe high-end units attract upper-income people to the neighborhood, bring higher-end retail, and begin to change the character of the place, even if they include a significant percentage of affordable units, which often are occupied by lower-income newcomers—not longstanding residents.

I agree with both sides. New development might very well speed up the gentrification process, but stopping development will also speed up gentrification, as pressure will continue to build on the housing stock in changing neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the intensity of this debate can itself become an impediment to progress because it can undermine trust among otherwise allied partners.

On balance, I'm generally inclined to support new development, but only if it is done wisely. I think we need to mitigate the impact of new development with more than just inclusionary units. Fighting over 15, 20, or even 25 percent affordability levels does not confront the core issue of neighborhood change. Instead, we should use some of the resources generated by new development to attack displacement more directly through measures such as acquiring existing properties, providing financial assistance to current homeowners and tenants, supporting locally-owned businesses, and making cultural investments that preserve a community's history and culture. We should also push for more three-bedroom units in new buildings because those units would allow more families to move into changing neighborhoods. Those families, in turn, not only might enroll children in local school,s, but they also are likely to press for improved schools, which would benefit all of the neighborhood's families.

I make these suggestions knowing there are no easy answers and no complete answers. Neighborhoods are always changing and demographics continually evolve. Sadly, in a society with vast and growing income and wealth inequity, these dynamics are going to continue. Perhaps the only long-term and scalable solution to gentrification and displacement is to restructure our economy in ways that will make it more fair and equitable.

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This post is a response to the Panel 6 papers that were presented at our A Shared Future symposium in 2017. These papers are available on the JCHS website. 

Winner of 2018 Best Paper on Housing Prize Focuses on Philadelphia's Efforts to Address Climate Change and Affordable Housing

by David Luberoff,
Deputy Director

The Philadelphia Energy Campaign (PEC) is an unlikely success story of a municipal climate initiative prioritizing the needs of its marginalized residents by preserving affordable housing through energy policy, according to Caroline Lauer, a recent graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, whose thesis on PEC received the 2018 Joint Center for Housing Studies Best Paper on Housing Prize.

In "A Pathway to Preservation? Planning Processes at The Intersection of Climate Change and Affordable Housing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania", Lauer, who received a Master of Urban Planning, provides a detailed case study on PEC's history and goals, and links that history to literature on both planning and public policymaking.

Credit: Philadelphia Energy Authority/Jordan Baumgarten

PEC has an ambitious set of goals, writes Lauer. It aims to create jobs, strengthen communities, cut energy bills, and reduce Philadelphia's carbon footprint by leveraging $1 billion of public and private investment over ten years. This effort, she explains, is especially notable because, while cities across the United States have been actively planning for climate change for at least two decades, equity considerations, such as the impact of climate investments on disadvantaged communities, have often been overlooked or ignored when those plans have been prepared and implemented.

According to Lauer, the Philadelphia Energy Authority, which was created in 2010, became a notable exception largely because of the values and skills of Emily Schapira, who launched the PEC campaign not long after she became the authority's executive director in 2016. Lauer observes that, while the typical focal point of an energy initiative is the fastest or most efficient way to reduce energy consumption, the focus of the PEC has been the residents who will benefit the most from the energy reduction today. She adds that by "inextricably linking equity and energy, the PEC prioritizes the needs and interests of the many low-income and minority residents" in Philadelphia, which not only has the highest poverty rate of the ten largest American cities but has relatively old, poorly-maintained, energy-inefficient housing stock. Moreover, she notes that Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, has had to do much of this work without significant support from the state legislature, which was overwhelmingly Republican when the campaign got underway.

Succeeding in this complex milieu, she notes, has required skilled and committed leadership that not only is attuned to equity and energy issues but also is cognizant of, and responsive to, political considerations. Combining these approaches can be difficult, writes Lauer, who observes that "community development efforts to preserve affordable housing through energy efficiency are rare." However, she adds, "PEC demonstrates that merging both objectives into one program is a viable policy option."

The Fair Housing Act at 50

by David Luberoff
Deputy Director

Fair housing can and should be a centerpiece of efforts to expand economic opportunity, asserted Dr. Raphael Bostic, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who gave the 18th Annual John T. Dunlop Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design on Tuesday, April 10 (watch video).  His talk, on the past, present, and future of the Fair Housing Act, was given one day before the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the measure.

Bostic, who also served as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 2009 until 2012, explained that decades of research show the strong positive impacts that neighborhoods can have on children's education and future earnings. Given this, he noted, it is in everyone's interest to support efforts to expand opportunities for all families. "Fair housing is a key to economic mobility," he explained. "It is an economic development issue as well as a community and personal development issue."

Bostic went on to discuss the two main strategies for achieving the law's ambitious (and, in many cases, unfilled) goals. One approach has been enforcement of the fair housing act’s prohibition on discriminatory treatment in the housing market– including actions brought by HUD against communities, and sometimes brought against HUD by activists and non-profit groups. The other strategy derives from the act’s mandate that federal grantees also have an obligation to affirmatively further fair housing, taking steps to promote integration and not just combat discrimination. During his HUD tenure, Bostic was instrumental in developing a new approach to structuring how HUD-funded communities should go about identifying and implementing such affirmative steps.

While the former approach can achieve some success, it can ultimately produce only limited results, he observed. However, if carefully designed, the latter strategy has significant potential, asserted Bostic, as plans designed by the communities themselves with input from local stakeholders have a greater chance of being actively embraced. Given the current administration's efforts to slow and roll back some of those efforts, in the short run, enforcement efforts are likely to be the primary way in which supporters of fair housing will achieve their goals, he said. However, in the long run, people and communities will come to adopt more proactive approaches if only because an increasing number of them understand that America's long-standing history of upward economic mobility is at risk and that fair housing can be part of a solution to making sure that the next generation (and the ones that follow) continue to have access to the American Dream.

Furthering Fair Housing: It’s Not Too Late to Follow New Orleans’ Lead

by Cashauna Hill
Greater New Orleans Fair
Housing Action Center

Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced that state and local entities will have more time to detail their plans to affirmatively further fair housing, some localities are moving forward. These include the City of New Orleans, which in October 2016 became the country’s first jurisdiction to submit a legally required Assessment of Fair Housing plan (AFH).

New Orleans’ AFH, which was submitted jointly by the city government and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), not only represents a shift in the way that jurisdictions report on the state of housing access in their communities but also could serve as a model for other jurisdictions around the country. Most notably, in accordance with guidance provided by HUD in 2015, the New Orleans AFH was prepared with significant community input. 

Specifically, at the outset of the process, the city and HANO partnered with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC), which I lead, to ensure that the AFH reflected the concerns of community leaders and community-based organizations. To make this happen, GNOHFAC designed and implemented a community engagement strategy that aimed to organize, educate, and engage with community stakeholders—particularly leaders of color and organizations that represented communities of color. In addition to facilitating a robust community engagement process, the city and HANO welcomed GNOFHAC’s assistance in analyzing relevant data that was included in the AFH plan. Finally, GNOFHAC helped provide both context and data on public and private acts of discrimination that affect housing choices in the New Orleans market.

Taken as a whole, these activities created a process that reflected an unprecedented level of community engagement in planning the city’s fair housing efforts. This engagement led to several notable recommendations in the AFH, such as a framework for improving the access that Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) participants have to low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods, particularly areas connected job centers via dependable public transit services. Community leaders also helped develop other important recommendations, such as developing and implementing a “strategic plan to address environmental hazards, including lead in water and housing.” The AFH’s recommendation to address substandard housing in New Orleans by establishing a rental registry also was a direct result of engagement with community members who often accept substandard conditions when seeking affordable rental housing.

As noted above, in January 2018 HUD announced that it intends to delay required submission of AFH plans from jurisdictions that have yet to submit them. For persons in communities without a commitment from city leadership, or where the AFH will not be submitted in the near future as planned, this change could make it harder for people of color and lower-income households to access higher-quality housing, and programs designed to support existing homeowners.

However, despite that change in HUD’s policies, implementation of New Orleans’ AFH’s recommendations is expected to continue without interruption. We commend policymakers and leaders in New Orleans for continuing to support equal access to housing and the positive life outcomes that flow from access to better housing. Further, we hope that even with the delays, other jurisdictions follow New Orleans’ lead and work with affected communities to develop meaningful efforts to achieve the Fair Housing Act’s long-standing goal of “affirmatively furthering fair housing” throughout the United States.

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This post is a response to the Panel 4 papers that were presented at our A Shared Future symposium in 2017. These papers are available on the JCHS website. 

Assessing Fair Housing: HUD's Delay and the Dilemma this Poses for Jurisdictions

by Katherine M. O'Regan,
NYU

How should the numerous jurisdictions poised to start their Assessments of Fair Housing (or those who are already mid-process) proceed in the wake of an announcement that the federal government planned to push back deadlines for using this specific form of assessment as part of their legally-required planning process?

That's the question facing thousands of entities after the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced in January that it was delaying a previously issued final rule requiring that jurisdictions receiving HUD funding conduct an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) to meet, in part, their obligation to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act's requirement that they "affirmatively further fair housing" (AFFH).

HUD's notice extended the AFH deadline for one cycle for jurisdictions that had not yet had an AFH accepted and whose AFH deadline date fell before October 31, 2020. These jurisdictions, the announcement emphasized, must still meet their AFFH obligations. During the delay, they must conduct an Analysis of Impediments (AI) to fair housing choice (as they had prior to HUD's final AFFH rule) and take appropriate actions to overcome impediments identified by the analysis. However, unlike an AFH, there is no standardized form or specific content required for an AI, it need not be submitted to HUD, and HUD will not review it. (While the notice specified that the delay would be applicable as of the day it was issued, public comments on the notice can be submitted through March 6, 2018.)

When the delay was announced, many jurisdictions were in the final stages of conducting their AFHs; hundreds more were about to start. This raises two related questions that this blog tries to briefly answer. First, what does this delay mean for these jurisdictions? Second, how should they proceed?

Returning to the Flawed Analysis of Impediments (AI) Process

The notice calls for jurisdictions to return to a process that both the GAO and HUD itself deemed to be highly flawed. A 2010 GAO study reported that only 64 percent of program participants appeared to have AIs that were current, and questioned the usefulness of many of the AIs that did exist. It concluded that "[a]bsent any changes in the AI process, they will likely continue to add limited value going forward in terms of eliminating potential impediments to fair housing that may exist across the country." HUD's own internal analysis in 2009 came to the same conclusion, finding that about half of the AIs it collected for the study were outdated. incomplete, or otherwise of unacceptable quality.

To address some of the concerns raised in the GAO's report, HUD requires that AFHs be conducted with a standardized assessment tool and that jurisdictions provide measurable goals with a timeline for achieving them. As part of its justification for AFH postponement, HUD noted that 35 percent of the first AFHs submitted to HUD were initially not accepted. The AFH process, however, requires that HUD give feedback on AFHs that are not accepted. HUD provided such feedback and worked with jurisdictions to resolve deficiencies in the submissions. Ultimately, almost all of the 49 first submissions were accepted. In contrast, with AIs, there is no review or feedback from HUD. Notably, HUD's 2009 internal report found no evidence that jurisdictions were improving their AIs over time.

The combination of tighter standards, a better assessment tool, and a feedback loop seems to have produced stronger plans, according to MIT's Justin Steil and Nicholas Kelly, who compared the first 29 AFHs (as modified in response to HUD's comments on initial submissions) to the AIs previously conducted by those same jurisdictions. They found that compared to the earlier AIs, the final AFHs included more quantifiable goals as well as more specific policies and programs meant to achieve those goals. Such results, they noted, suggest the rule is working. "[T]he non-acceptances provided participants with the opportunity to respond to HUD feedback and to strengthen their final AFHs so as to meet their fair housing obligations. In short, the non-acceptances should be seen as strengths of the new rule not a failure."

What is HUD's Advice for a Good AI? Conduct an AFH?

For jurisdictions that have already begun their AFH, HUD's notice states that jurisdictions may continue to do so, as "the AFFH rule may provide program participants with a useful framework for complying with their AFFH obligations." HUD encouraged all participants to use the data and mapping tools as well as the AFH Assessment Tool in conducting their AIs, and to collaborate with other submitters in their region. But this vague guidance puts jurisdictions in the precarious position of identifying which elements of the AFH tool and process are necessary to meet its AFFH obligations.

Will Legal Challenges Reinstate the AFH?

The Trump administration has been aggressive in its use of delays to forestall the implementation of rules, temporarily or indefinitely. Many of these delays have been successfully challenged in the courts under the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs most federal rulemaking. For example, in December 2017, the US District Court for the District of Columbia enjoined HUD's two-year delay of its Small Area Fair Market Rent (FMR) rule, which would have required 24 metropolitan areas to use ZIP-code-level FMRs in setting rent payment standards for voucher recipients. HUD has since dropped its plans for delay, and advised more than 200 affected public housing authorities they must implement the new process within three months.

While no lawsuit has yet been filed against HUD's AFH delay, it is likely to come. (In theory, HUD could also modify its announcement in response to public comments, which, as noted above, must be submitted by March 6.) This suggests that jurisdictions should carefully weigh the risk that the delay will be reversed, and their duty to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing, as they determine how to conduct their new AIs. HUD's AFFH framework and assessment tool seem the best place to start. Notably, officials in some jurisdictions, such as New York City, have made public statements that they will move forward with a process that is true to the principles of the AFH.

However, whether jurisdictions will stay true to key advantages of the AFH, including robust public engagement and an open and transparent drafting process, remains to be seen. As Michael Allen notes in his contribution to the Joint Center's panel "What would it take for the HUD AFFH rule to meaningfully increase inclusion?," that may depend on whether a broad set of constituents come together to mobilize a strong ground game. Meanwhile, until the uncertainty created by HUD's decision is resolved, the AFH process and assessment tool may provide the safest and clearest path forward for jurisdictions.

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Papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. 

A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality

by Jonathan Spader and
Shannon Rieger

Almost 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, what would it take to meaningfully reduce residential segregation and/or mitigate its negative consequences in the United States?

Over the next several months, the Joint Center for Housing Studies will publish working papers on various aspects of this question written by a diverse set of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. The papers will be available on our website and will also be collected into an edited volume to be published next year. The papers were presented at a two-day symposium, A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, that was convened by the Joint Center earlier this year.

At the symposium's seven thematically-focused panels, the authors took stock of the changing patterns of residential segregation by race/ethnicity and income, and examined concrete steps that could achieve meaningful improvements within the next 10-to-15 years. On a monthly basis from this fall until next summer, we will publish those papers on a panel-by-panel basis, along with a series of blogs, many of them by others who attended the symposium, that further engage with the event's central question.

This process begins today with the publication of our framing paper for the symposium, which summarizes existing evidence on three topics: the current patterns of residential segregation by race/ethnicity and income, the causes of residential segregation in the United States, and the consequences for individuals and society. The paper also examines the rationale for government action in these areas as well as the key levers that policymakers could use to change the current situation. Because each of these topics is the subject of a larger and longstanding research literature, our summary is not exhaustive. Rather, we seek to provide a concise overview of existing research, so that the papers which follow can focus on potential solutions.

Our discussion of these topics is a reminder of both what has been accomplished since the passage of the Fair Housing Act (technically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) half a century ago and also how far the US remains from the aspirations put forth when it became law. In particular, we note that while the extent and nature of discrimination have changed int he last five decades, the legacies of historical segregation and exclusion by government, private institutions, and individuals have continued to produce stark and stubborn patterns of racial segregation in US metropolitan areas.

At the same time, we note that changes in demography, income distribution, and the geography of American communities are changing the patterns of residential segregation by income and race/ethnicity. The bursting of the housing bubble and the Great Recession exacerbated distress among poor communities—particularly poor communities of color. In many metropolitan regions, job growth in central cities, improved neighborhood amenities, and increased demand for urban living have also fostered rapid increases in housing costs in longstanding low-income and minority communities located in or near those regions' urban cores. While gentrification has been one of the most visible signs of these changes, the suburbanization of lower-income households and the growing self-segregation of high-income households into wealthy enclaves are equally consequential.

The framing paper also documents the severe costs of this separation for all members of society, as well as the disproportionate burdens imposed on residents of neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. Residents of such neighborhoods—who are most often members of minority racial and ethnic groups—face elevated risks to their health, safety, and economic mobility. Moreover, at a national scale, there is compelling evidence that these individual costs constrain the economy from reaching its full potential while also increasing levels of prejudice and mistrust within the populace and impairing the functioning of our democracy. These costs, along with the potential benefits of greater integration, highlight the need for continued attention and innovation to these challenges.

The symposium papers, which will be released over the next few months, will present multiple perspectives about how we might address these challenges. Our hope is that they will raise questions, spur discussions, and ultimately contribute to forward progress.

Panel Discussions Focus on Housing Policy in the Next Administration

by Shannon Rieger
Research Assistant

From tax reform to fair housing, the incoming Trump administration and new Congress are likely to adopt policies that could greatly affect housing, particularly affordable subsidized housing, noted speakers at a conference held in Boston last week. Organized by The New England Housing Network, a broad coalition of housing and community development organizations from the six New England states, the December 16th event focused on what the new administration and Congress will “do about the unmet need for affordable housing in our country” and what advocates can do to encourage a robust federal affordable housing agenda in 2017.

Speakers, including national experts, state officials, and leading advocates from throughout New England, touched on a variety of issues, including tax reform, the future of Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), infrastructure initiatives, anti-poverty programs, and fair housing policies. Everyone noted that many current programs and initiatives are threatened and that much of the discussion is speculative because there is tremendous uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s plans, as well as the likelihood that Congress may not support the new administration’s policies. Nevertheless, panelists discussed several potential strategies for bringing together an effective coalition to advocate for affordable housing at a particularly challenging time.

(Photo courtesy of Asian Community Development Corporation)

In opening remarks, several panelists warned that the incoming Trump administration’s stated focus on increasing defense spending while cutting corporate taxes from 35 to 15 percent will shrink the non-defense discretionary budget. With new capital investment therefore unlikely to materialize, several panelists noted that it will be tempting – and perhaps necessary – to go into “preserve and protect” mode to maintain existing affordable housing programs.  However, discussants went on to emphasize the importance of pushing back against proposed spending cuts instead of focusing on potential losses. The panelists agreed that agencies and advocates must join forces to fight for the common goal of increasing overall non-defense spending, and pointed out that squabbling over the pieces of a shrinking pie would likely only undermine critical potential alliances.

Identifying and fostering cross-sector alliances and interdependencies emerged as a central theme throughout the forum. The panelists suggested that lifting up housing’s strong ties to health and to economic opportunity, in particular, will be critical in order to keep housing on the agenda. Barbara Fields, Executive Director of Rhode Island Housing, a state entity that works with developers and non-profit groups, illustrated how this might be accomplished by referencing an oft-cited quote from Rakesh Mohan, Deputy Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of India, who in 2007 said, “Because housing is where jobs go to sleep at night, the quantity, quality, availability and affordability of housing is a key component in national economic competitiveness.”

Similarly, Chris Estes, President and CEO of the National Housing Conference, recalled Megan Sandel’s description of housing as a “vaccine” that can improve health.  Chrystal Kornegay, Undersecretary of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, added that we should think of housing as a beginning rather than an end, highlighting housing’s potential to bring together a variety of groups that ordinarily might not collaborate.

Turning to specifics, panelists noted that tax reform could dramatically affect both the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and Private Activity Bonds. Panelists referenced a House bill that would eliminate Private Activity Bonds but keep LIHTC, while a Senate bill introduced in May 2016 would expand the LIHTC program by 50 percent. They also discussed House Speaker Paul Ryan’s June 2016 tax plan which, by greatly increasing the standard deduction, would substantially reduce use of the mortgage interest deduction. Although it is far from certain that this proposal will become law, panelists suggested that if reforms do happen, housing advocates should insist that any revenue generated by the changes be re-invested in housing on measures such as a renters’ tax credit and not used for other purposes.

Discussants also noted that Treasury Secretary designate Steven Mnuchin and key members of Congress appear to significantly disagree on GSE reform. Mnuchin has said he is interested in seeing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are taken out of “government ownership,” restructured, and privatized.  However, Congress has not demonstrated support for a “recap and release” of the GSEs. These disagreements may impede any efforts to reform GSEs, noted several panelists.

The conflicting perspectives about both issues within the Republican Party will make it hard to substantially change the tax code or restructure the GSEs, said Benson “Buzz” Roberts, President and CEO of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders. He also noted that “inertia is the most powerful third party in the United States”, and may slow down or even block substantial changes in tax policy or GSE reform in the next several years.

Several panelists pointed out that President-Elect Donald Trump’s plan to substantially increase spending on infrastructure explicitly includes roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railroads, ports and waterways, and pipelines. However, they added, it is unclear whether or not housing will (or could) be part of this spending package.  Including housing in those programs, panelists noted, might be an effective way to fund housing in coming years. In thinking about how to effectively communicate the role of housing as an economic engine, Fields suggested that investments in the skilled labor needed to build housing (along with the other forms of infrastructure explicitly mentioned in the Trump administration’s plan) may help to mitigate existing labor shortages and grow the economy.

Turning to anti-poverty, mobility, and fair housing policies under the incoming Trump administration, the discussants agreed that the AFFH (Affordably Furthering Fair Housing) initiative will certainly be under threat from a Republican-majority Congress and from incoming HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who last year wrote an op-ed denouncing the rule. The future of anti-poverty policies is less certain. Speaker Ryan’s “welfare reform 2.0” plans are the most concrete indication of how the Trump Administration might approach “anti-poverty” policy. Ultimately, panelists concluded that while there is little concrete information about how the Trump administration will proceed in this arena, the strong focus of the Trump campaign on economic opportunity and mobility for all Americans may present some opportunities. For example, by highlighting housing’s role in advancing mobility, housing advocates could align a housing agenda with other Trump administration priorities.

Taken together, the upshot of the discussions was that while many existing programs and initiatives could be under threat, the future of housing policy in a Trump administration is very uncertain.  Opportunities may arise from uncertainty, though, such as the potential to insist that housing be included as a part of infrastructure investment. The panelists added that recognizing such opportunities, and starting today to proactively build strong, cross-sector coalitions able to take advantage of potential openings, will be critical to advancing an affordable housing agenda in coming years. 

CDFI Cluster Demonstration Project

Alexander Von Hoffman
Senior Research Fellow

In December 2013 the JPMorgan Chase Global Philanthropy Foundation issued a call for proposals for groups of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to coordinate financial programs to alleviate problems facing low- and moderate-income communities, small businesses, and individuals. In January 2014 the foundation announced awards, totaling $33 million over a three-year period, to seven CDFI collaboratives. At the request of JPMorgan Chase Global Philanthropy, Alexander von Hoffman profiled the characteristics, objectives, methods, and achievements of each of the CDFI collaboratives in the first phases of their work. 

Purpose and Problems of CDFIs

In working- and lower-class neighborhoods in the United States, stability, let alone opportunity, is hard to come by. It can be difficult to get a loan on fair terms to buy a house or expand a business, particularly where African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and immigrants live. In such areas, there is often no transportation to school, jobs, and shops. In some places a store with the necessity of life – food – is nowhere to be found.

Yet conventional banks are often reluctant to make loans for such specialized and sometimes risky purposes. Fortunately, in recent years, federally funded nonprofit lending organizations – known officially as community development financial institutions or CDFIs – have moved in to fill the gap in credit for these needs.

CDFIs are engaged in a demanding business. Their customers may be inexperienced in formal banking or have challenging circumstances – such as a recent home foreclosure, the launch of a new and untested business venture, or even the lack of legal citizenship status.

To provide credit in such situations requires that CDFI officers learn about their clients’ situation and craft appropriate solutions. They might have to customize a loan product or provide personal technical assistance. In more extreme cases, CDFI officers may have to seek out and educate people about the benefits of proper credit.

Given the nature of CDFIs’ business, many of them find it difficult to provide credit on a scale large enough to make a visible impact on low-income communities. Low balance-sheets, lack of operating capital, and insufficient revenue streams can prevent CDFIs from increasing lending activities or expanding their service areas geographically.

Successful CDFIs have found that one of the best ways to overcome these obstacles is to collaborate with other CDFIs.

The First Round of PRO Neighborhoods Awards

To jumpstart collaborations among CDFIs, in January 2014 JP Morgan Chase Global Philanthropy Foundation awarded seven CDFI collaborative clusters, including twenty-seven CDFIs doing widely different work in diverse locales. In the first phase of the foundation’s PRO Neighborhoods program (Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods) these grants totaled $33 million over a three-year period.

Although the grant period has more than a year to run, our initial evaluation shows the awards have had a striking effect both on the ground and on the CDFIs themselves.

The award capital and its leveraged investment have helped CDFIs strengthen their balance sheets immensely. The seven collaborative clusters have so far raised more than $226 million, or almost seven times the original amount, to carry out their community development programs.

CDFI members of the clusters have ramped up scale of production and expanded their reach across new geographies and types of customers. They have also devised new methods of communication and lending practices suited to the oft-neglected needs of low-income clients.

The CDFI clusters have undertaken a remarkably wide variety of endeavors, including lending to small businesses that are minority-owned or in low-income neighborhoods, helping mobile-home owners purchase and manage their communities, increasing the provision of fresh healthy food, aiding and financing the minority and immigrant owners of low-rent apartment buildings in Chicago, and generating equitable transit-oriented development in the poor and working-class Latino neighborhoods of Phoenix.

The process of collaborating itself helped boost the participating CDFIs. By meeting, discussing, and coordinating with one another, leaders and staff members learned about obstacles in the field, ways to mesh business cultures, and best practices to achieve their desired results.

Having made a great impact on low-income communities and numerous CDFIs that serve such communities, the first round of the PRO Neighborhoods awards has demonstrated that funding CDFI collaborations can be an effective way to support a wide array of underserved populations. Furthermore, the awards is project has helped to lay the foundations for the growth of these CDFIs that will allow them to expand their programs into the future.