Pathfinder Services evolves in surprising directions to meet Indiana’s changing needs

Of all of the organizations we have researched for this anniversary series, Pathfinder Services of Huntington, IN, has evolved the most dramatically over its 47-year history (the last five as a charter member of NeighborWorks America). And it is among the most diverse as it reaches across sectors – housing, education and job creation to name just a few – to serve its community and fund its programs. Its story is a tale of flexibility, nimbleness and a willingness to take calculated risks.

The roots of the organizations extend back to 1966, when it began as a local affiliate of the Indiana Association for Retarded Children. At the time, a movement was sweeping the country to de-institutionalize people with developmental disabilities – allowing them to live at home, instead of being warehoused in “asylums.” A group of parents in Huntington recruited supporters and funding, then opened a school (“mainstreaming” had not yet arrived to public education) and a sheltered workshop that offered training and employment.

The organization grew rapidly in the following years, including its first foray into housing, when it opened a halfway house for individuals transitioning to independence. But it wasn’t until the early ‘80s that the organization began to widen its focus to serve the community at large – first, persons with all types of disabilities, and then the broader “collective.”

Transitioning from a focus on disability to broader community development 

John Niederman (light green jacket) mixes with local residents.

“The change in orientation began when the ‘movement’ (for disability rights) began focusing more on integration,” explains John Niederman, who has served as president of the organization since 1985. “Inclusion became a core value, and research showed that too often, people in the community thought of us as ‘that place down the street.’ One of the best ways to integrate is to develop assets – to plug ‘service gaps,’ if you will – that benefit the community as a whole.”

Just before Niederman’s arrival, the organization changed its name to Pathfinder Services, reflecting that broader mission. “We see ourselves as providing the pathways to improve residents’ lives,” he explains. Today, its services include:

• Affordable child care.

• Employment generation, including interview coaching, job training and placement assistance.  In fact, through its “outsource manufacturing” division, individuals with disabilities and others in need of a stable working environment provide businesses with services ranging from assembly to packaging. It’s a win-win-win for all involved: Businesses receive quality work at reasonable cost, Pathfinder earns revenue that funds its programs and employees are able to support themselves while gaining valuable skills. (Pathfinder is a bit of a trailblazer when it comes to creatively leveraging its core competencies to generate income – including product sales and consulting. A future blog post will focus on this topic; sign up in the field to the right of this feature to receive articles in your inbox!)

• Training in personal financial management, including educational courses and assistance in setting up individual development accounts (IDAs) to encourage savings. Reflecting its highly responsive organizational culture, it offers a tailored version of its IDA program customized for newly re-settled refugees, to help them buy a home, start a business or go to school. (Surprisingly, nearby Fort Wayne is thought to have the largest number of Burmese refugees in the United States!)

• Housing-related services ranging from development of low-income housing, homebuyer training (including a recent session offered in Burmese) and assistance with home rehab.

Niederman is proud of the fact that in 1996, Pathfinder became the first and only organization in Indiana to receive funding for its housing initiatives from the newly established rural component of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and is one of the USDA’s highest-volume partners when it comes to assisting low- to moderate-income individuals apply for rural-oriented "502 direct mortgage loans."

Building social connectedness

A sign promotes one of the
block parties organized by
Pathfinder staff

One of Pathfinder’s more recent community-development initiatives is an outreach program to foster “social connectedness” in targeted neighborhoods. The organization started in an urban neighborhood of Fort Wayne, with the help of a grant from the Indiana Association for Community Economic Development, funded by JP Morgan Chase Bank.

Pathfinder focused on one particular zip code with a population of 17,000, where residents broke into small groups to identify quality-of-life goals on which they most wanted to focus; those that attracted the most support were selected. A strategic plan was drafted to guide the democratically chosen steering committee, which meets every other week. The committee decided that it will not run its own activities, but will instead support and promote existing neighborhood groups and associations through mini-grants and a Facebook page that keeps everyone informed, connected and involved. Pathfinder provides staff to help coordinate the effort and acts as a fiscal agent, working to help identify funding sources.

With “aging in place” a growing trend for older communities, the organization is now moving into the Drover Town neighborhood of rural Huntington, with the encouragement of the town's mayor..

“We received a planning grant from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority to develop ‘communities for a lifetime,’ which means making it possible for residents to stay there as long as they want, regardless of age or disability,” explains Jan Baumgartner, community connections director and recipient of a professional certificate in neighborhood revitalization from NeighborWorks America. Increasingly, research is showing that resiliency through social connections is as important as factors such as affordable housing when it comes to the feasibility of aging in place. Consider, for example, a new study from the University of Michigan that found that people who felt connected to their neighbors suffered significantly fewer strokes.

Each community must be approached differently, says Baumgartner, with residents choosing what to focus on and how to operate.

“We’re a facilitator…an enabler,” says Baumgartner. “We’re here to help the people who live in our service areas tap into the resources they need to fully exploit their own strengths.”

Written by Pam Bailey, communications writer for NeighborWorks America. She would love for you to post your own stories and comments!

NY organization helps families ‘fill the gaps’ when other assistance stops

When a tornado, hurricane or other disaster strikes, there is typically a rush of media attention and emergency assistance. But then, the spotlight shifts and families are left to struggle to fill the “gaps” that remain, on their own.

That’s what happened when Tropical Storm Irene hit the Eastern Coast on Aug. 29, 2011, and flood waters poured out of the Adirondack Mountains through the tiny town of Keene, in northern New York. The area was declared a disaster zone, and even after federal funds and private donations poured in, many families and businesses were still fighting to “stay afloat” months later. Fortunately, Housing Assistance Program of Essex County (HAPEC), which is celebrating its 10th year as a member of the NeighborWorks network, considers filling gaps to be its core mission.

Consider the story of Russ and Angie. The flood waters seriously damaged the stone foundation and first floor of the front section of their modest home, and the back addition with the bedrooms for their two preschool-aged children was destroyed.

The family of four moved temporarily onto the grounds of a local summer camp, while they began repairs using funds from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), community donations and their own retirement savings. However, although they were able to move back into their home in March of 2012, they didn’t have enough money to rebuild their children’s bedrooms, forcing the family to “double-up” in cramped quarters. Government assistance had dried up, and “donor fatigue” had set in, even among their friends. “Our family is at the end of our rope emotionally,” Russ wrote in one email to HAPEC, describing their plight.

A team from Habitat for Humanity joined HAPEC to help
re-build the family home of Russ and Angie.

That’s when HAPEC stepped in. With the help of a NeighborWorks America emergency-assistance grant, the organization helped the family pay off its outstanding loans, prepped the site for the re-build and recruited a Habitat for Humanity team to construct the new shell. Russ and Angie finished the walls and flooring. The finishing touch, again provided by HAPEC, was a wood-pellet stove for heating.

“Given what they had been through, and the exhaustion of their personal savings, Russ and Angie would not have been able to complete this work on their own for quite some time,” says Bruce Misarski, community development director for HAPEC. “Now, their house is ‘whole’ again, and they have bedrooms for their kids.”

HAPEC was founded in 1976 as the first local organization qualified to receive and administer HUD Section 8 rental assistance, which had just been authorized by Congress two years before. Today, HAPEC defines its focus much more broadly: to “alleviate economic distress, enhance personal dignity and cultivate self-reliance” in a rural county where employment mostly depends on low-wage, seasonal tourism and the household median income is 18 percent below the national average.

HAPEC services range from assistance with homebuyer education, to home repairs, to partnerships for the development of affordable multi-family housing. An impact assessment conducted for HAPEC and published in 2011 found that in one year, the organization:

• Created nearly 92 jobs – one of every 200 jobs in Essex County alone.
• Assisted 35 families in purchasing their first home.
• Helped 57 homeowners rehab their existing houses.
• Issued 650 rental-assistance vouchers.
• Managed 25 apartments for senior citizens.
• Provided foreclosure counseling for 44 families.

Alan Hipps, executive director, points to two keys that are instrumental to his organization’s success: effective fundraising – more than $2.5 million a year – and creative partnerships with other institutions, such as Habitat for Humanity and NeighborWorks America. “Our mission is simple, but ambitious: We strive to recognize community development and housing needs, advocate change and respond to opportunities.”

Enterprise Rose Fellowship Redefines Community Design at NeighborWorks Organizations

Blog by Kat Miller, NeighborWorks Rural Initiative
Miller is an AmeriCorps VISTA and recent graduate of Smith College, where she studied architecture.

The Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, is a highly competitive and innovative program that places some of the nation’s finest early career architects in underserved communities across the country to team up with community development host organizations. The program is headed by Enterprise Community Partners’ National Design Initiatives, which offers a variety of programs that help build capacity for design leadership across the community development field.

The Rural Initiative and NeighborWorks America staff with
Rose Fellow Mark Matel (left) at the Bartlett bus yards 

NeighborWorks America is proud to have two Enterprise Rose Fellows currently working at NeighborWorks organizations: Geoffrey Barton at Mountain Housing Opportunities in Asheville, North Carolina and Mark Matel at Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

By bringing designers directly into the communities in which they are working, the Rose Fellowship boosts an organization’s capacity to create affordable, sustainable, and well designed communities. We often think about design as being strictly aesthetic. Good design, however, must be measured more three dimensionally; as something that transforms not only appearance, but also performance. To achieve this, the Rose Fellowship boasts a bottom-up approach towards design. This approach rests upon three core principles:  design excellence, sustainability, and first and foremost, community engagement.
 
Mark has certainly embraced this bottom-up approach as Project Manager for Bartlett Place, Nuestra Comunidad’s new mixed-use development that is transforming a vacant eight acre bus yard into a “creative village”. Tapping into Roxbury’s rich artists’ population, Bartlett Place will offer a variety of public spaces, commercial storefronts, and housing types to both provide new opportunities for current neighborhood residents and attract new populations.

As Project Manager, Mark is involved with overseeing all aspects of the project ranging from site planning to real estate development to contracting, etc.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Bartlett Place, however, has emerged in between the planning and construction phases of the project. As a liaison between the production team and Bartlett’s primary client, the Roxbury community, Mark has facilitated “Bartlett Events,” as a platform to raise excitement and engage the community in the months leading up to construction. An of example of this is MuralFest, Bartlett’s kickoff event  where local artists came together to beautify the site with murals and sculpture, transforming the old Bartlett bus yards from a drab vacant field of asphalt into a vibrant arts/events space. This new space will be used throughout the summer to keep Bartlett alive until construction starts next fall.  

In addition to providing interim programming for the site, Bartlett Events is also being used as a way to test ideas that can be re-integrated into Bartlett Place permanently. In this way, Bartlett’s design process is fundamentally rooted in the community. 

Our visit to Nuestra Comunidad and the Bartlett Yards demonstrated that good community-based design is as much about dealing with social issues as it is about dealing with architecture and building issues. This concept is certainly evident in the community-based design work that Mark is doing at Bartlett, and is echoed across the country, where a legacy of other Rose Fellows tackle similar design issues in underserved communities. 

Take a look at what Rose Fellow, Geoffrey Barton, is working on at Mountain Housing Opportunities  (one of our newest additions to the NeighborWorks Rural Initiative!) and visit the Enterprise National Design Initiatives website to learn more about the fellowship and their other programs. Applications for the Enterprise Pre-Development Design Grant are now open and close on July 10.  

Homebuyer Education Critical, Especially in Rural Communities

This blog is reposted from CFED's website. Erica Bradley works with the NeighborWorks America Rural Initiative.

For years, community development professionals were advocates for financial education. Not many lenders, and certainly not customers, took financial education seriously, until the housing bubble burst in 2008. In rural markets, homebuyers typically do not have the same access to services, like homebuyer education. For many rural organizations, expanding their services to include online financial education courses has allowed them to reach more customers.

Tammy Hyman, homeownership program administrator at PathStone, always knew how important homeownership counseling is. PathStone, she said, had offered it since the late ‘90’s. “If they would have done (homeownership counseling) back then, we wouldn’t be having these issues now,” she said of the lenders.

PathStone, which is headquartered in Rochester, serves New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and parts of Puerto Rico. Many of the markets they serve are rural, and homeownership counseling is offered in Indiana, New York and Pennsylvania.

Hyman said clients have the option of taking an in-person training, which consists of an eight-hour course, or they can take an online course from eHome America. eHome America is a certified provider of online homebuyer education.

For the in-person class, the requirement is an eight- to ten-hour day. Hyman said she tries to include guest speakers, such as real estate agents or lenders. The course is held every other month or sometimes quarterly, depending on the demand for it. Hyman estimates there are 8-18 students in each class.
If the client chooses to take the online course, Hyman said, a staff person schedules a one-on-one call to discuss the course material and answer any questions the client has. Hyman said the benefit to the eHome course is it allows people to take the course at a convenient time for them.
Like PathStone, Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of Richland County also offers an in-person homebuyer education course as well as the eHome course. NHS of Richland County covers several counties in Southwest Wisconsin, including an area where homebuyer education was not offered.

Linda Smith, NHS of Richland County homeownership center coordinator, said they offer in-person courses, and they attempted to offer distance learning classes. The distance courses were broadcast from the main Richland Center site to remote sites, typically high school classrooms, in neighboring counties. Smith said because broadcasting the course was too staff-intensive, and there were technology problems, the remote course was cancelled. They are now using eHome America for their customers who cannot attend the course in Richland Center, which has gotten a great response. “eHome, because we are rural, is a good fit. It fits the needs for many of our households, especially the younger households who cannot attend classes at night or on the weekends,” she said.

Like PathStone, NHS requires customers who have taken the eHome course to have a phone conference with a staff person.

Gary Throckmorton, eHome senior executive vice president, said eHome’s model is a network of local agencies. “We want the customer to be connected to a local agency. Follow-up is key,” he said. eHome has had steady growth, he said, and approximately 250 agencies are registered with over 36,000 clients served since 2009. Throckmorton expects growth to continue, especially since online education has become more accepted. eHome is currently offered in English and Spanish, but Throckmorton said adding additional languages would be considered if there was a demand.

eHome America was started in May 2009 by Community Ventures Corporation (CVC), a Kentucky-based non-profit. It is endorsed by NeighborWorks America.

Mountain Housing Opportunities: Building Homes as a Community

This blog is part of our 35th Anniversary Celebration series, highlighting NeighborWorks member organizations which are celebrating milestone years marking either their membership in the network or their incorporation as an organization.

By Brittany Hutson, NeighborWorks
America Public Relations fellow

Twenty-five years ago, a group of 10 volunteers completed seven home repairs in seven months for seniors in the Asheville area. These repairs included roof and porch repairs, replacing furnaces, correcting electrical hazards, and water and sewer problems. Out of this effort was born Mountain Housing Opportunities, a community development corporation based in Asheville, North Carolina, that builds and improves homes, neighborhoods, and communities for people of Asheville and Buncombe County. Several of those volunteers served on the original board of directors of Mountain Housing, including Executive Director Scott Dedman. Today, the organization completes 150 emergency home repairs each year for families with children and elderly and disabled homeowners.

In the early 1990s, Mountain Housing moved into developing single family homes and affordable/workforce apartments, and later townhomes and condominiums for first-time homebuyers.  Since the financial crisis, Mountain Housing has temporarily stopped producing multifamily homes for homeownership.

Self Help Homeownership families work together to frame a house

“We are building single family homes and have expanded our production of apartments since the rental market continues to expand dramatically,” says Dedman. As part of the organization’s single family home development effort, Mountain Housing worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development office to start a Self-Help Homeownership program, where families spend approximately 20 hours per week building their own homes for about eight months. “We build six homes per years with families through that program,” explains Dedman. Production for apartments averages about 60 per year. To date, 535 apartments have been completed.

Two members of the six Self Help HomeOwnership
families measure wood to cut for their home

Mountain Housing became a NeighborWorks charter member five years ago, and since then, Dedman says the organization has dramatically grown in production and services. For example, after becoming a member, Mountain Housing began a down payment assistance program that provides an average of 25 to 30 homebuyers per year with loans for as much as $15,000 per home.

Since Mountain Housing earned a LEED Gold certification for a building completed in 2010, they have been incorporating even more green features into their developments. Dedman is also proud that Mountain Housing has helped more than 4,500 families and individuals. “We’ve saved people’s homes and lives through emergency repair,” he says. “We’re providing families with children and elderly and disabled folks a safe and attractive apartment in good neighborhoods. We’ve helped families move up in their quality of life.” 

Learn more about Mountain Housing Opportunities at http://www.mtnhousing.org 

Rural Gets a Welcome Spotlight in National Housing Policy Report

By David R. Dangler, director, NeighborWorks Rural Initiative

The Bipartisan Center’s Housing Commission recently released Housing America’s Future:  New Directions for National Policy.  From the introduction we learn that the report is, “the culmination of a 16-month examination of some of the key issues in housing, provides a blueprint for an entirely new system of housing finance for both the ownership and rental markets.” 

The first wave of reactions to the report have naturally focused on the recommendations to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while re-affirming the importance of sustainable homeownership as integral to the American dream, to engage the private sector more broadly in housing finance, and to remember and include the lowest income renters when allocating increasingly scarce resources. For those working in rural housing, however, what jumped out for many of us was chapter five, “The Importance of Rural Housing."

The rural recommendations give a welcome affirmation to USDA Rural Development’s “primary responsibility” for housing rural Americans, noting “higher poverty rates and lower incomes” which add to rural housing’s affordability burdens. With all the public policy focus on consolidating federal housing programs, the commission’s clear language around keeping rural housing programs at USDA is especially welcome to many.

The report includes four rural policy recommendations: 

1.    Support and strengthen USDA’s role in rural housing.
2.    Extend the current definition of rural areas through the year 2020.
3.    Increase budget allocations to serve more households.
4.    Dedicate resources for capacity-building and technology to strengthen USDA providers

If implemented, these recommendations would dovetail neatly with NeighborWorks America’s own efforts in concert with other national intermediaries—HAC, Rural LISC and Habitat for Humanity—to strengthen the rural nonprofit service delivery system.

Starting well before the Great Recession, NeighborWorks America has consistently prioritized a national partnership between credentialed nonprofits and USDA Rural Development (RD). The thinking has been that there would be a variety of ways for an increasingly professional nonprofit infrastructure to fill in key customer service gaps that would open as RD decreased its field offices and personnel. For example, the packaging of 502 Direct loan applications for RD area offices is about to transition from a handful of pilots to a mainstreamed model for others to follow.

Given the unique interdependence of rural-serving nonprofits and USDA Rural Development, chapter five brings a welcome focus to the issue of rural housing, but as with so many blue ribbon reports, the real value will be in the degree to which the report's recommendations become policy. 

The Transformation of a Tax-phobe

Elena Kaye-Schiess, AmeriCorps VISTA
with NeigborWorks Rural Initative

When I used to think about filing my taxes, I pictured myself standing at the edge of a cliff with my head turned away and my eyes closed while I dropped my stack of tax documents into the abyss. On the one hand, I considered the IRS a black abyss where as long as nothing came back out to bite me, I was golden. On the other hand, my understanding of what exactly I was sending was analogous to holding my breath and crossing my fingers.

Last year I first heard the terms EITC and VITA, or Earned Income Tax Credit and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites, through an a collaboration of NeighborWorks America's Rural Initiative and the NeighborWorks America homeownership team. The teams were working together on an open grant round to build the capacity of VITA sites operated by NeighborWorks organizations across the country. I learned about the impact NeighborWorks organizations have had in their communities through VITA sites that help residents correctly file their taxes and access the EITC, and how support from NeighborWorks America has enabled the organizations to efficiently and effectively reach more residents in their service areas.

VITA volunteers at Urban Edge help residents access their tax advantages

The EITC is one of the federal government’s largest anti-poverty programs, and each year it helps lift an estimated 6.6 million people above the poverty line. However, because workers move in and out of eligibility based on changes in their marital, parental and financial status, awareness is critical. About one-third of the EITC eligible population turns over each year, and this year millions of workers will qualify for the EITC for the first time (www.eitc.irs.gov).

Photo: Creative Commons, seniorliving.com

VITA sites bridge the awareness gap to help ensure those who qualify can claim the credit. The IRS works with national partners, community-based coalitions and thousands of local partners and governments, including many NeighborWorks organizations, to establish sites around the country. IRS-certified volunteers will provide free basic tax preparation and education about the EITC, as well as other credits individuals may qualify for. Benefits screening is also available to determine eligibility for services such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and LIHEAP (Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program).

Working on this project made me realize it was time to pull back the curtain on my tax aversion.  I became certified to volunteer at a VITA site operated by a NeighborWorks organization in my community. A year later I’ve not only become a VITA volunteer junkie, but I also incessantly hound my friends and family about how the EITC is a critical asset-building initiative, and how fantastic it is that there is probably a site in their community where they can sit down with a real live person who will prepare their taxes for free while explaining how the process works.

While volunteering with Urban Edge last year, I watched as many clients came in for tax prep, but when they learned about the financial education services Urban Edge also offered, such as first-time homebuyer education and credit counseling, they signed up for those as well. The CDC’s VITA role acted as a gateway for community members to get involved in the broader programs also available.

A friend recently told me about a new iPhone app where all you have to do is snap a picture of your W-2s and it will automatically populate your tax form for you. The old tax-phobic me would have probably thought this was a fantastic idea, but instead I had a much better recommendation to share: go visit a VITA site, and someone will help you prepare and file your taxes for free.

Want to learn more? Below is a partial list of NeighborWorks organizations which offer tax preparation services:

• Affordable Homes of South Texas (Texas)
• Arbor Development (New York)
• Family Services Inc.(South Carolina)
• Little Dixie Community Action Agency (Oklahoma)
• Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation (Minnesota)
• Neighborhood Development Services (Ohio)
• Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland (Ohio) 
• Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans (Louisiana)
• Opportunities for Chenango (New York)
• Pathfinder Services (Indiana)
• Pathstone (Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania)
• Urban Edge (Massachusetts)

A full list of all VITA tax sites is available on the IRS website: http://irs.treasury.gov/freetaxprep/

Rural Leaders Honored: a HAC Tradition Continues

By David R. Dangler, director
NeighborWorks Rural Initiative

Every other year the Housing Assistance Council, or HAC as it is commonly known, presents a series of national awards to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the quality of life in rural communities.

Two awards given this year were the Skip Jason Community Service Award and the Cochran/Collings Award for Distinguished Service in Housing for the Rural Poor. According to HAC’s web site, The Skip Jason Community Service Award acknowledges people who work "in the trenches" and usually go unrecognized outside their communities. The second award, the Cochran/Collings Award for Distinguished Service in Housing for the Rural Poor, honors individuals who have provided outstanding and enduring service, with national impact, for the betterment of housing conditions for the rural poor.

This year, two NeighborWorks network leaders were called to the dais during a packed award ceremony. Al Gold, the long time executive director of affiliate Community Resources and Housing Development Corporation  in Colorado, and Owynne Gardner, T&MA regional manager of affiliate Little Dixie Community Action Agency in Oklahoma, each won Skip Jason awards.

Owynne Gardner of Little Dixie Community Action Agency

This honor is not the first one for our network. In 1983, the first Skip Jason award was presented to Rose Garcia, executive director of Tierra del Sol in Anthony, New Mexico.  In that same year, the Clay Cochran award went to Elizabeth Herring, co-founder of NCALL Research.  Later, both Tierra del Sol and NCALL Research became chartered NeighborWorks organizations.

Over the years, the association between the NeighborWorks network and HAC’s national awards has continued to grow stronger. Winners of the Cochran/Collings Award include NeighborWorks America's current CEO Eileen Fitzgerald (2000), and many people employed at NeighborWorks affiliates, such as Peter Carey of Self Help Enterprises (2002) and Tom Carew of FAHE (2010). Skip Jason award winners include affiliate staff as well: Steve Mainster, formerly of Centro Campesino (1996), Jack Rivel of FAHE (2004), Lorna Bourg of Southern Mutual Help Association (2006) and Steve Kirk of Rural Neighborhoods Inc. (2006).

Al Gold (center) of Community Resources and Housing Development
Corporation  with Moises Losa (left), HAC's executive director,
and Representative Bennie Thompson (right)

NeighborWorks America has reason to be proud of each and every rural leader associated with the network, and we congratulate Al and Owynne for their recent accomplishments. We also tip our hats to our friends at the Housing Assistance Council who, as Eileen Fitzgerald pointed out during the awards ceremony, have been there for our rural communities since 1971. So much of rural community development work is done without fanfare, known mainly to those whose lives have been improved.  Thanks to HAC, every two years we get to honor a few of our peers and glimpse the bigger picture, a strong and diverse family of networks and individuals working to strengthen communities and improve lives.   

Working Together for Maximum Impact: NeighborWorks Rural Initiative

David Dangler,
NeighborWorks America,
director of Rural Initiatives

 The NeighborWorks Rural Initiative in 2012 is a far cry from the dozen or so rural groups who came together in the early days of the NeighborWorks network. Now there are 91 organizations participating in the Rural Initiative – and they include many of the network’s most productive members. In 2011, Rural Initiative members made direct investments into their combined communities of over $1.574 billion in 45 different states. When we drill down into the statistics, we find the Rural Initiative members are consistently in the top 25 producers in the NeighborWorks America network. This is supported by the data below, taken from a recent report on the NeighborWorks America Network entitled "It Takes a Network." All data is for 2011.

These high production figures become even more impressive when measured against the relative size and population density of many of the communities being served. For example, Wyoming Housing Network (WHN) runs a statewide program which created more new homebuyers in 2011 than any other NeighborWorks chartered network member. That in itself is impressive, but the story is larger than that. For many of the rural communities WHN served, their new homebuyers represented a significant percent of the total market activity. To illustrate, let’s use a purely fictional town we’ll call Antelope Falls, Wyoming which represents real towns I’ve seen throughout our rural network. There may have been only 10 total first time homebuyers in Antelope Falls in 2011, and of that 6 people were buyers educated by WHN – meaning WHN’s work affected 60% of the total market. In many urban environments the total number of homebuyers educated might be larger, but the percentage impact on the market is often smaller.

Another key element of the Rural Initiative network’s success has been collaboration across markets and lines of business. For example, we’ve been working closely with CFED and the  Ford Foundation to create asset-building opportunities with factory built housing in rural and urban environments.  These efforts have supported two of the most innovative and impactful social enterprises in the community development field ROC USA and Next Step. ROC USA helps residents purchase their manufactured home parks from absentee owners, and Next Step helps to replace substandard manufactured homes with Energy Star rated factory built homes. To succeed, both ROC USA and Next Step rely upon the NeighborWorks network for key lines of business – community building and organizing, home ownership education and training, rental property development and management and affordable lending.

Members of the NeighborWorks Rural Initiative, Rural LISC
and RCAC at the June conference in Visalia, California

Another key program component, which our partners have come to rely upon, is the rigor of the NeighborWorks standards for evaluating lines of business and organizational health.  Our member organizations are assessed regularly and measured against their peers and industry standards.  In addition, NeighborWorks Rural Initiative members share best practices with one another at events like this year’s June rural conference in Visalia, California. At this event, we not only collaborated within our own network, but also with two other major rural networks – Rural LISC and the Rural Communities Assistance Corporation (RCAC).

Looking ahead, we’re excited about expanding our asset-building strategies to include rural rental housing and a range of green applications that will be good for both built and natural environments. I’ll be writing more about these efforts in future blogs so stay tuned. You can subscribe by entering your email in the right side of this page.