Community Development Partnership Act

Was 2012 Really the Best Year for Massachusetts CDCs since 1982?

Last January I received a good bit of teasing for a blog post that I wrote entitled Could 2012 be the Best Year For Massachusetts CDCs Since 1982? Many of my colleagues thought that I was, at best, hopelessly optimistic or, at worst, strangely naive.  The truth is that I was shamelessly promoting both MACDC's 30th anniversary (we were created in 1982) and our campaign to pass the Community Development Partnership Act, which I suggested would be the most important piece of community dev

10 Reasons CDPA is Now Law

After an exciting two-year campaign, the Legislature has passed and the Governor has signed the Community Development Partnership Act into law. I believe this is the most significant community development legislation in Massachusetts since the late 1970's when Mel King led an effort to pass the original CDC enabling law, created CEDAC and CDFC (now merged into MGCC) and the CEED program. Over the past few days, many people have asked me how we did it.

Could 2012 be the best year for Massachusetts CDCs since 1982?

Starting in the mid 1970s, Mel King and other visionary leaders of the community development movement worked systematically to build a support infrastructure for CDCs in Massachusetts. They understood that such a system could grow what was then a nascent movement of community based development organizations, largely in Boston, and transform it into a robust, statewide field that could achieve impact at scale. So they created CEDAC, CDFC, the CDC Enabling Act, Chapter 40F, the CEED program, LISC and ultimately, in 1982, the Massachusetts Association of CDCs.

What is on the other side of the CDFI coin?

Increasing the supply of capital to low and moderate income communities has been a central goal of the community development movement since its inception. From the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit in 1986, to the establishment of the CDFI fund in 1995, to the New Market Tax Credit in 2000, advocates have won significant changes in public policy that have dramatically expanded the capital available to our communities.

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