Vermont’s NeighborWorks Organizations: The Power of a Network

By Deborah Boatright,
Northeast Regional Director,
NeighborWorks America

I had the pleasure of spending NeighborWorks Week 2012 in Vermont, crisscrossing the state while visiting all five of our network affiliates. Each one is doing excellent work in challenging communities under inspired leadership. But it is what they are doing together that truly distinguishes them, and is a model for the region and the country.

Vermont's five HomeOwnership Centers have worked together for more than a decade to provide services statewide through the NeighborWorks Alliance of Vermont. This framework was critical last summer when Tropical Storm Irene struck, causing devastation everywhere. A dozen towns were totally cut off as nearly every river in Vermont flooded. Rebuilding efforts still loom large. The Alliance's NeighborWorks Week event was to restore a flood-damaged teen center and was featured by the USDA.

Vermont NWO volunteers load a heavy piece
of debris onto a truck. Photo courtesy
of Windsor Windham Housing Trust

Tropical Storm Irene was impetus for NeighborWorks Alliance of Vermont to undertake long-term planning for statewide disaster response, with NeighborWorks America’s support. As part of this effort, each organization now has video-conferencing cababilty to make collaboration easier. Already, the state's only two certified reverse mortgage counselors are planning to meet virtually with seniors from any location.      

The trust and mutual respect among Vermont’s NeighborWorks organizations (NWOs) runs deep within the organizations and was readily apparent throughout my visit. They are thriving in the nexus of independence and interdependence. Different NWOs take the lead based upon their capacity and expertise. Collaborations are based on strength and shared interest.

Champlain Housing Trust established a Mobile Home Lending Program to repair and replace mobile homes (over 15% destroyed by Irene) and received a prestigious Cornerstone grant to strengthen operations of six Community Land Trusts, including those at three other NWOs.  NeighborWorks Western Vermont's H.E.A.T. Squad, aggressively conducting energy audits and rehabbing homes under a multi-million dollar Department of Energy grant, will soon be statewide. Central Vermont Community Land Trust and Gillman Housing Trust are part of a national pilot aimed at keeping seniors in their homes. 

Brattleboro Food Coop
Photography by Ann Wright, courtesy of Windsor Windham Housing Trust

All the Vermont organizations embrace green. The expansive Brattleboro Food Coop complex just built by Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) includes a green roof, a pellet-fueled boiler, and 24 units of affordable housing. It is another example of how Vermont’s NeighborWorks organizations are forging new partnerships well beyond the housing world.

I believe that the continued growth and impact of community development depends on its relevancy in areas such as health, employment, and education. It is all about taking part in strengthening our quality of life. The Vermont NWOs are leading the way by creating new pathways to sustainability and greater impact; and we are proud to support their success.

Making Scattered Site Rental Work

Reposted from the "Stabilize" blog of the NeighborWorks America Stable Communities program.
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Shelterforce discussed the thorny issue of managing scattered-site rentals by nonprofits in its winter 2011 issue, noting that it "has long been considered a very tough nut to crack for nonprofit housing groups." The lack of efficiencies of scale lead to higher costs for travel and time, maintenance for non-uniform household items, fewer units sharing equipment like laundry facilities, and security. One property manager estimates that management costs 25 to 30 percent more than traditional rental units.

So why do it? The glut of single-unit homes on the market means they're available, and mission-driven nonprofits also see it as an important. By putting these homes to good use, they make an impact on local neighborhoods. As quoted in the story, “Scattered-site rentals provide nonprofits with a strong physical presence and stakeholder role within a neighborhood, enabling them to be more involved in local political lobbying and neighborhood change,” says Benji Power of Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida.

NeighborWorks America has developed the comprehensive Scattered Site Rental Toolkit: Business Planning for Development & Management to assist nonprofits that want to provide affordable housing and stabilize neighborhoods through such rentals.

Does your organization have experiences — successful or otherwise — with this type of work? What advice would you share?

Department of Education's Place-Based Strategy

Reposted from the "Stabilize" blog of the NeighborWorks America Stable Communities program.
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This progress report, "Impact in Place: A Progress Report on the Department of Education's Place-Based Strategy," presents outcomes to date on efforts at a case study of San Francisco on efforts by the Department of Education to strengthen the role of schools in their communities. According to the report, "Communities that face underperforming schools, rundown housing, neighborhood violence, and poor health know that these are interconnected challenges and that they perpetuate each other....In the education world, the focus on place is particularly important, as it gives the Department a mechanism to see how its investments focused on 'in-school' levers of change interact with 'out of school' conditions for learning and the interventions meant to address them."

Elements of the theory of action include:

• Engage the Community Through Asset Mapping and a Needs Assessment
• Focus on Clear Results and Develop Shared Data Tools
• Integrate Programs From Cradle to Career
• Build Core Capacities Within Organizations and Communities
• Break Down Silos
• Capture and Share Learning

San Francisco put these elements into action to refocus citywide strategies into place-based ones, using a report from its Human Services Agency that indicated that many families accessed multiple services: mental health, juvenile justice, and foster care. It retargeted some of the $100 million flowing into two zip code areas to focus on 2,600 families with 5,800 children.

The Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) program supports the development and expansion of innovative practices that can serve as models for improving student and school outcomes. The program also identifies and documents best practices that can be shared and taken to scale based on demonstrated success. As part of the Obama Administration's Open Data Initiative, a large focus of the place-based focus has been on improving data reporting and use for effective programming.

Have any of these efforts trickled down to the places you work?

Homeownership Is More Affordable Today

By Marietta Rodriguez
Director, National
Homeownership
Programs & Lending

A new wrinkle was added to the housing affordability debate recently with the news coverage in The Wall Street Journal of a paper by Andrew Davidson & Co. The paper and the article published in the Developments blog at The Wall Street Journal, suggests that housing affordability today is not better than it was in 2006, the peak of the mortgage bubble.

We couldn’t disagree more.

At NeighborWorks America, and throughout the NeighborWorks network, affordability simply means how much of a homeowner’s current income has to go each month toward the payment on a safe, sustainable mortgage. Under that definition, the cost of mortgage finance is as low as it has ever been.

30 year fixed mortgages are at historically low rates. This, combined with a broad-based decline in home prices,  means housing affordability is significantly better than it was back in the go-go 2000s. Nominal and real household income are down from the middle part of the 2000s, but not so much to negate the affordability benefits of very low mortgage rates and lower home prices.

What is affecting the ability of the housing market to recover fully is not a question of affordability, but of credit accessibility, and here Mr. Davidson gets it right. His research finds that because homeowners today need larger down payments to be approved for a mortgage, the all-in cost of homeownership has increased. NeighborWorks America won’t argue with that; higher down payments do mean that it costs more and that it is harder to become a homeowner. We just think that the higher down payments costs are an unnecessary barrier to homeownership.

NeighborWorks America has been helping its network of nonprofits make homeownership accessible to people with very little down payment, but who still are good candidates for homeownership. NeighborWorks America and NeighborWorks organizations couple support for low down payment mortgages with homebuyer education. Homebuyer education significantly helps to reduce default, by providing prospective homebuyers with the information they need to avoid the toxic mortgages that proliferated in the 2000s and advice on purchasing a home that they could afford the moment that they close on the sale, instead of hoping some time down the road that a refinancing will lower the payment to more affordable levels.

Since we have seen even homes with higher down payments go into foreclosure in recent years, we know that equity -- while an important driver of default -- is not the only driver. Lenders need to more aggressively and more broadly consider the value of pre-purchase homebuyer education when evaluating a borrower. Such education mitigates default and improves homebuyer accessibility, which in today’s low rate market, also means improved homebuyer affordability.

Turning Foreclosure Around: Jobs and Home Rehab

By Ascala Sisk, Senior Manager
Neighborhood Stabilization
NeighborWorks America

The foreclosure crisis and the economic crisis are inextricably linked. Families and neighborhoods experiencing high foreclosure rates are also those facing high unemployment. It is our experience at NeighborWorks America that solutions which support local job creation are an essential component of neighborhood revitalization. One of the key challenges of the foreclosure crisis is the negative impact vacant and blighted properties have on communities. Recently, Citi Community Development and the Citi Foundation launched an initiative which addresses both vacancy rates and small business job creation. Their Partnership for Small Business Development program convenes and funds a working group of national organizations that provide training and business opportunities to small business contractors owned by women and minorities.

According to the United States Small Business Administration, 65 percent of the new jobs created in America between 1993 and 2009 were in small businesses, with minority-owned businesses leading the way. Between 2002 and 2007, minority business growth outpaced that of non-minority firms in terms of total revenue, employment, and number of firms. NeighborWorks America supports this program because it is helping rehabilitate properties at the same time it supports local jobs for traditionally underserved groups. It has the potential to bring back strong neighborhoods and provide sustainable benefits to communities so that they can not only recover, but also prosper.

NeighborWorks America has also done its part to restore jobs while simultaneously serving local communities. In fiscal year 2011, NeighborWorks America and its affiliated NeighborWorks network created and supported an estimated 26,000 jobs. This is in addition to the many programs we run to help residents buy or rent affordable homes, build (or rebuild) communities and increase their financial capability.

Economic recovery and community stabilization will happen when jobs return.  It’s that simple and that difficult. Every effort to address one side must be connected to the other for us to succeed.

For more on ways communities are responding to the impact of foreclosures and vacancy visit the NeighborWorks America website: www.StableCommunities.org.