INTRODUCTION

The Massachusetts Community Investment Tax Credit (CITC) program, launched in 2014, continues to be a reliable source of funds for Community Development Corporations (CDCs). In the program’s first six years, over $65 million was raised to support critical Community Development projects and programs, including $17.5 million in 2020, the most raised in any year to date. MACDC previously published a detailed report on the fundraising success of the CITC program, available on our website. While raising these funds is a significant achievement, it is important to understand how these funds are assisting participating CDCs in better serving their communities.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the CITC program appears to have given CDCs the capability to continue to grow in the past year, as well as providing them the means to address the pandemic’s challenges head-on. In this report, we will explore how CITC funding was used to maintain similar annual accomplishments and rates of growth in CDCs that we have seen since the program’s creation. Additionally, we will cover some of the ways our CDC members took initiative in addressing the public health, financial, and housing crises created by the pandemic with the help of CITC funding.

BENCHMARK METRICS

The data presented throughout this report comes from MACDC’s GOALs Report. Each year, state-certified CDCs are required to complete the GOALs survey that aims to capture detailed information on an organization’s performance across six major areas: community leader engagement; families supported; homes built or preserved, job opportunities created or preserved; and funds invested by CDCs in local communities. This year, we included questions that covered the CDCs’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in many of these areas.

In 2020, state-certified CDCs reported:

• 1,586 community leaders engaged
• 63,359 families supported with housing, jobs, or other services
• 1,043 homes built or preserved
• 4,054 job opportunities created or preserved
• 1,547 entrepreneurs received technical assistance
• $842.6 million invested in local communities

Understandably, these numbers are slightly under their equivalents in 2019. This can be explained as CDCs shifted focus to pandemic relief as the year progressed. Regardless, these are substantial feats across all categories, and do not include the specifics of the CDCs pandemic relief plans or how the CDCs themselves improved to increase capacity for support in upcoming years.

CDC ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY

In 2020, 69% of the CDCs participating in the CITC program report that it is helping them increase their operating budget.  Additionally, 62% of the participating CDCs have added or expanded the goals for their organization, indicating that their organizations are not just becoming increasingly stable, but growing, due to the CITC program. In fact, 94% of all CDCs involved in the CITC program noted an increase in their organization’s operating capacity.

A CDC’s greatest cost is staff salaries, often greatly out pacing consultant fees and facility rental or mortgage payments. CDCs are not likely to expand their staff capacity without recognizing a stable multi-year revenue source to cover these new costs, which means that the consistency of CITC-leveraged funding is key to its capacity building impact. As the data highlights, 69% of CDCs involved in the program increased their staffing levels due in part to the CITC program. 48% of CDCs also reported more staff training as a result of this funding increase. 

The CITC GOALs Survey also looks into how the CITC funds can assist CDCs in raising money from other sources. 87% of CDCs highlighted that CITC-generated funding helped them leverage both public and private, non-CITC funding. It can be inferred that the additional capacity created by CITC allowed CDCs to provide their communities better pandemic relief programs. MACDC identified that CDCs assisted small businesses in their communities with obtaining over $22 million in PPP loans and small business relief grants. Furthermore, they were able to arrange $28 million in direct cash assistance to rental households.

CDC ACTIVITY ANALYSIS

The CITC GOALs Survey also captures the activities that CDCs added or expanded with CITC. MACDC tracks the following activity categories: real estate development; housing services; small business assistance; financial stability; community leadership development/support; job training/workforce development; elder programs; youth programs; and community engagement.

75% of all CDCs participating in the CITC program reported that they added or expanded their community engagement this year. 65% stated they added or expanded real estate programs, 58% did the same for public social services, like community emergency assistance, and 52% said they added or expanded their housing services. Every other category continued to see growth as well. The increase in community engagement underlines a fundamental goal of the CITC program: To expand and enrich a CDC’s engagement with the residents of the communities in which they work as CDCs strive to be organizations that grow from the bottom up, in that residents inform the CDC on their priorities, programs and, rather than government contracts or for-profit interests determining what should be pursued.

This year’s GOALs surveys identified that 91% of CDCs developed and executed a plan to address COVID-19 in their communities. Solutions they enacted included food assistance, internet services, and connections to mental health resources. 79% of CDCs reported taking specific measures to ensure health and safety in their community through enacting social distancing measures, wellness calls, providing meals to residents, supplying PPE, and organizing socially distant activities. Seven CDCs even acted as testing sites.

CONCLUSION

The CITC program continues to exceed its original objectives. As a tax credit, it gives taxpayers the opportunity to support targeted philanthropy in communities largely composed of less advantaged members of our neighborhoods and towns. As a program that brings together public and private support to address critical community needs, the CITC program strengthens bedrock institutions that are mission driven to ensure that all Massachusetts residents have an opportunity to thrive. This year, these institutions have gone above and beyond with the resources provided by CITC as they have continued to expand access to housing, employment, health, and community resourcesin the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While working with the Mel King Institute's Public Housing Training Program, I have witnessed and taken part in its expansion into the Resident Leadership Academy. Through this work, I have had firsthand experiences with residents working through the challenges and successes of building an authentic sense of community, social capital, power, and ensuring sustainable resident-focused organizing efforts.

The work of the Resident Leadership Academy has been increasingly crucial to creating transformative and ongoing growth in the lives of residents. Working directly with residents has been an experience like no other, as they bring an abundance of diverse lived experience, charisma, curiosity, and dedication to the mission and goals of the Resident Leadership Academy. As a trainer and a point of contact and support for residents, I have had lively one-on-one conversations, compelling Core Team Trainings, and uplifting roundtables and webinars that have supported residents in stepping into their power.

The ability to foster and maintain relationships with and amongst the statewide resident network is key to moving the needle in this work. As the residents breathe life into the Resident Leadership Academy, their active and consistent participation in our programs impact them at both the micro and macro level. Through our programs, residents have worked tirelessly to strengthen and exercise their voice and power in their Housing Authorities, on their boards, and as leaders in their communities, showing success in all areas. The worth in this work is seen during trainings and webinars where residents challenge the status quo, ask necessary questions, engage with the information presented, and walk into their confidence. 

The beauty of the Resident Leadership Academy is the moments of impact in the personal, social, and communal lives of the residents; the moments where you see knowledge and skills being applied, voices being shared and heard, connections deepened, fears overcome, and a growth and radiance in a resident’s sense of self. The allure of the program is its ability to provide ongoing support, knowledge, and resources for residents as they turn their dream of higher quality life in housing into a reality. 

On October 28th, MACDC joined our partners at the Neighborhood Hub and in Holyoke to present a workshop at MHP’s Housing Institute for Gateway Cities. The workshop, titled “Addressing Distressed Properties in Holyoke,” offered perspectives on the partnership among the Neighborhood Hub, the City of Holyoke’s Office of Planning and Economic Development, and OneHolyoke CDC. 

Holyoke was one of five Gateway Cities selected by the Neighborhood Hub to receive two-year technical assistance grants to identify equitable strategies to address the challenges presented by distressed and abandoned properties, and build local capacity. The City of Holyoke is using the Hub funding to: 

• Identify locations for housing development in the South Holyoke and Flats Neighborhoods of Holyoke 
• Create base maps 
• Provide attributes and obstacles for housing development on 5 sites 
• Conduct stakeholder interviews 
• Provide a housing development toolkit 
• Prepare a plan to address the capital needs for properties owned by OneHolyoke CDC 

The project’s prospects for success are aided by the strong relationship between City government and OneHolyoke CDC, and by the able consulting assistance provided by LDS Consulting Group.  As Aaron Vega, Director of Holyoke’s Office of Planning and Economic Development stated, “The City can only do so much. Partnerships expand the City’s ability to get things done.” 

On Friday, October 29, the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved $3.8 billion in new spending using a combination of Federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and state surplus revenue. The final bill included four so-called consolidated amendments totaling $174 million that funded projects in four areas – Health and Human Services, Economic Development, Housing, and Climate/Energy.  The bill, which now goes to the Senate, included some, but not all, of MACDC’s priorities. 

Affordable Housing: The bill includes $600 million for five statewide housing initiatives.  While this was less than the $1.6 billion that CHAPA and MACDC had been advocating for it still represents an exciting and unprecedented investment in our housing system. The five housing programs are:  

• $150M for Supportive Housing Production
• $150M for Public Housing Maintenance  
• $100M for Homeownership Assistance  
• $100M for CommonWealth Builder Program (homeownership production) 
• $100M for Affordable Rental Housing Production

​MACDC worked with allies to advocate for two key amendments on the House floor, but neither was included in the Consolidated Housing Amendment.    

• Rep. David LeBeouf filed an amendment to provide $25 million for a Massachusetts Healthy Homes Initiative that would have provided funding to remove lead paint and other health hazards from 1-4 unit properties.  The Amendment garnered 34 cosponsors but did not pass. 
• Rep. Ruth Balser and Michael Day filed an amendment to fund a Right to Counsel program for people facing eviction. The Amendment garnered 77 cosponsors but was not passed. 

Small Business Support: The bill coming out of the House Ways & Means Committee recommended $50 million for grants to small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis – far less than the $1 billion proposal we put forward with the Coalition for an Equitable Economy. Rep. Liz Miranda and 39 other Representatives filed an amendment to increase this to $200 million. The final bill did increase the amount to $60 Million.  

MACDC appreciates the many Representatives who advocated for our priorities and we thank Speaker Ron Mariano and House Ways & Means Committee Chair, Aaron Michlewitz for putting together an historic and comprehensive investment plan that will improve the lives of millions of Massachusetts residents and create a healthier and more equitable Commonwealth. 

The best moments in my working life have come from working with people to discover their shared power and instilling a sense of agency in them, both as individuals and in the groups we were forming. That has always felt like the work I was meant to do.  So, when MACDC’s strategic plan identified building the power and voice of lower income people and people of color to shape the future of their communities and their own lives I was excited. But, of course, that is easier said than done.

I have spent a lot of time both at MACDC and at NeighborWorks America (it was called Neighborhood Reinvestment when I worked there.) working to help housing organizations either take on community organizing or do it more effectively.  After all those years you would think I would have come up with a step-by-step recipe for CDCs to successfully build community leaders and community power.

1. Start with leadership (at both the staff and board) that believes that community members are partners, with skills and expertise.

2. Add the resources to hire and support a skilled community organizer.

3. Mix in the opportunity to organize around an issue that will make concrete changes in peoples’ lives and in their community.

Rare as they are, these ingredients are just the start of the process – only what is needed to start the work.  Once the work is going everything gets harder. If a CDC is really working with community members in an honest way, language barriers need to be addressed, decisions take longer to make, conflicts arise, more meetings are needed and they need to be facilitated well and, so on and so on.  It is no mystery why CDCs can be skittish about community organizing and struggle to do it well.

MACDC has certainly worked hard to help CDCs take on community organizing. The Ricanne Hadrian Initiative for Community Organizing (RHICO) raised over $1 million to grant to CDCs for organizing work. During the 8 years of the RHICO all the participating CDCs also benefited from technical assistance and peer learning.  MACDC still provides technical assistance and peer learning for organizers to this day.

Sometimes I get discouraged by the fact that after all these efforts, there is not more organizing being done. But, just today, I reminded an organizer that this work takes a long time, and you have to hang in there. I am glad to report that MACDC is hanging in there. This fall we are putting a major focus on community organizing and community engagement.  The Mel King Institute is launching a new program, The Resident Leadership Academy, which will provide training to community members on how to organize and work together.  The program will be officially launched on September 23, but the truth is we are already doing the work.  On October 14, MACDC will release a report on the State of Organizing at an Innovation Forum where we will discuss some of the challenges CDCs face in doing this work and how those challenges may be overcome. In November, the Mel King Institute will roll out the Organizers Core Competencies Toolkit, which is designed to support the professional growth of community organizers and community engagement staff. And December 1, the Mel King Institute will offer an Introduction to Community Organizing training.

When talking about organizing, Myles Horton, a co-founder of the Highlander Center, would paraphrase the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado: “We make the road by walking.”  I am glad to be walking along with MACDC members as we keep moving towards more (and more effective) community organizing and deeper community engagement.

Revitalize CDC in Springfield improves housing conditions by performing assessments and interventions for adults and children with asthma to safely remain in their home. (Photo credit: Revitalize CDC)

Data, Dollars, and Direction

• Surface gaps in existing efforts and propose ways to scale up efforts to improve housing quality and safety, and therefore health outcomes, in Massachusetts.
• Advocate for an infusion of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for this important work.

• Streamlined and publicly accessible data on housing quality and safety throughout the Commonwealth. For example, we need to have accurate and timely data on the number of homes in MA that still are not lead-safe.
• Timely data on the impact of existing policy interventions to address housing quality.
• Demographic data that indicates which populations are most impacted by poor housing quality, including people of color, immigrants, children, elderly, disabled and specific neighborhoods or communities.
• Data that will help inform decisions by helping both policymakers and advocates to fully understand the gaps.

• Increased public and private investment in home-specific housing rehabilitation, lead paint abatement, and addressing other housing quality concerns.
• Increased public and private investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy and building decarbonization, which will:

1. improve housing quality and lower costs for residents of older homes; and 
2. contribute to urgent efforts to combat the climate crisis.

• Increased funding for neighborhood-scale initiatives to address vacant and distressed housing.
• Better alignment of different funding streams from the housing, energy and health sectors so property owners and public housing authorities can leverage dollars and undertake comprehensive renovations at one time. 

• Formation of a Task Force comprised of a broad array of public, private, nonprofit, and community members to set goals and monitor progress around housing safety and quality in Massachusetts.
• Incorporation of housing quality improvements into our long-term resiliency strategy to ensure that our most vulnerable communities are protected from the impacts of climate change, extreme weather, flooding, etc., and development of mitigation plans in advance of when disasters occur.
• Streamlined systems for integrating housing, energy, climate and health programs and dollars into a coordinated property improvement strategy.
• Neighborhood and community-level initiatives to address property distress, abandonment, and disinvestment.
• Engagement of the health sector, including hospitals, to:

1. champion the effectiveness of healthy housing programs on impacting patient health outcomes; and
2. implement and support healthy housing programs as part of their Community Health Improvement Plans and Community Benefits programs.

• Development of policies and tools to ensure that improved housing quality does not lead to escalating rents and displacement.

• Increasing funding for effective programs, such as the State’s Get the Lead Out (GTLO) Program.
• Ensuring that available programs and funding are accessible to all populations. For example, we should be using and strengthening the infrastructure of community-based organizations which provide support to individuals and families facing language and other barriers.

Revitalize CDC in Springfield improves housing conditions by performing assessments and interventions for adults and children with asthma to safely remain in their home. (Photo credit: Revitalize CDC)

Current Initiatives Targeted at Neighborhood Disinvestment and Climate Change 

In our most recent blog, the third in our series, we examined current programs focused on addressing property-level distress. These programs including ones that confront lead hazards in homes, poor indoor air quality, and other unsafe housing conditions. In the current blog, we focus on current efforts to address two broader factors: neighborhood disinvestment and climate change. Attention to these “underlying conditions” is necessary for efforts to address property-level distress to succeed. 

Addressing neighborhood disinvestment:

As noted in our prior blog, many lower-income neighborhoods in Massachusetts—most notably, but not solely, in the state’s Gateway Cities and some rural communities —struggle with the challenges of weak real estate markets, with low rents and declining or stagnant home values. In these neighborhoods, too often property owners lack economic incentives to invest in these structures for long-term sustainability, making neighborhood-or community-wide interventions necessary. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problems associated with neighborhood disinvestment. As author Alan Mallach from the Center for Community Progress noted in his June 2020 Report: Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst: Addressing the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic in America’s Struggling Neighborhoods, “one thing we can expect is that the effects will be much more severe in struggling cities, lower income neighborhoods, and communities of color.” 

Fortunately, there are a number of promising programs and interventions: 

Local Code Enforcement as Neighborhood Stabilization: Municipal governments can enforce the State Building Code and Sanitary Code, to incentivize owners to maintain their properties, and sanction those who do not do so.  This can be challenging, as many lack the resources to identify problem properties and maintain current records. Fortunately, Massachusetts will receive approximately $.5.3 million in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), that will address both lost revenue and pandemic-related costs, and thereby strengthen the capacity of local governments to enforce codes.  

Receivership: Receivership is a tool by which the Court can appoint a person or organization to temporarily manage a property (occupied or vacant) to enforce the state Sanitary Code and respond to an irresponsible or absentee landlord.  For occupied buildings, Receivership can address needed repairs and prevent a building from deteriorating, to provide better living conditions for tenants. For abandoned properties, the MA Attorney General’s Neighborhood Renewal Division is a resource for municipalities in utilizing Receivership. Many CDCs have supported these efforts. For example, OneHolyoke CDC has acted as a Court-Ordered Receiver in Holyoke, and Worcester Community Housing Resources has operated a Receivership loan fund in addition to serving as Receiver itself in some cases.   

Liabilities to Assets (LTA) Program to Address Abandoned Homes: The MA Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is administering a $7.5 million, five-year pilot program to work with a CDC, NewVue Communities, to acquire and rehabilitate more than 40 abandoned homes in North Central Massachusetts, and then sell the homes to low-and moderate-income homebuyers. An energy efficiency consultant recommends steps that can be taken during the rehab to make the homes more efficient and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center will help to defray the cost of some of the upgrades. Despite numerous challenges (often due to the deteriorated condition of many vacant properties), LTA provides a promising model for a broader statewide initiative. 

The Commonwealth’s Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative is modeled on LTA. MACDC, working with MassINC, MassHousing, and other public and nonprofit partners, has launched an initiative intended to put vacant housing back on the market, restore poor quality housing to good condition, and improve the quality of life in struggling neighborhoods and communities across the Commonwealth.  While there are several components to this initiative, implementation of The Neighborhood Hub, supported by more than $2 million in state funds, and staffed by MassHousing, is well underway. The technical and financial assistance to improve capacity on the local level will soon be accompanied by state capital dollars to support property rehabilitation. 

Other Initiatives to Address Neighborhood Disinvestment: 

• CDCs in Gateway Cities, and in small towns, have long taken an active role in neighborhood stabilization initiatives.  Their housing development efforts and housing rehab programs are often part of a neighborhood-wide strategy.  
• While limited, affordable homeownership development efforts in these weaker market areas have several goals: providing low-and moderate-income first-time homebuyers with affordable homeownership, providing these homebuyers with the opportunities to build wealth, and stabilizing disinvested neighborhoods. As an example, the State’s Commonwealth Builder Program, administered by MassHousing, provides funding for both new construction and adaptive reuse to turn vacant factories or schools in Gateway Cities into affordable home ownership opportunities. 
• The MA Public Health Association is partnering with Neighbor to Neighbor on an initiative to improve housing and transportation in Springfield and Worcester. They are currently convening residents to get their input, and then will decide on advocacy strategies.  

Addressing climate change: 

Climate change impacts many aspects of our lives. Efforts to combat climate change, and its impact, are underway in Massachusetts, including passage of legislation to dramatically reduce climate emissions. Nonetheless, the harmful impacts of a warming climate are already being felt, in homes and neighborhoods across the Commonwealth.  

The broad scale of the climate crisis, and its already devastating impacts on residents and communities, require urgent, comprehensive, and aggressive strategies.  Currently, there are several such initiatives: 

Energy efficiency and renewable energy: 

Energy efficiency programs mitigate the impacts of climate change, including extreme temperatures.  These programs additionally lower utility costs to enhance affordability and can directly address health hazards, such as windows containing lead-based paint and poor ventilation. 

Massachusetts is in the process of developing its 3-year Energy Efficiency Plan, for calendar years 2022 through 2024, funded by utility ratepayers and guided by a public process overseen by the MA Department of Public Utilities (DPU). Under the current 3-year Plan, the Mass Save Program offers income eligible households in 1-4 family homes no- and low-cost energy efficiency upgrades. Furthermore, through the LEAN Multifamily Program, owners of multifamily projects where at least 50% of the households have incomes at or below 60% of area median income can access no-cost energy upgrades.  

CDCs have used available resources to provide energy efficiency retrofits: 

• In Calendar Year 2020, CDCs reported energy retrofits on 1,135 units in their rental portfolios. The combined dollar amount of these energy retrofits was $5.3 Million. 
• In the communities they serve, in CY 2020, CDCs provided funding for energy efficiency improvements for more than 1,500 homes, for a combined amount of $3.9 Million. 

Other initiatives address the need for energy efficiency and renewable energy: 

• The MA Clean Energy Center, a state economic development agency, provides information, referrals, and resources for everything from weatherization to renewable energy technologies. 
• Resonant Energy, LISC Boston and MACDC have launched the Solar Technical Assistance Retrofit (STAR) program, designed to remove barriers and dramatically increase the adoption for solar PV across the Commonwealth. 
• LISC Boston, MACDC, and New Ecology have formed the Clean Energy Cohort, a peer learning group for affordable housing professionals to network, learn, and share information.  

Decarbonization: 

LISC Boston, MACDC, and New Ecology are using our established partnership as a springboard to launch the Decarbonization of Affordable Subsidized Housing (DASH) project. In FY2022, DASH will focus on two main areas: (1) education and technical assistance for CDCs and others in the affordable housing field on the need to decarbonize the affordable housing sector via deep energy retrofits and electrification of new and existing buildings, and (2) policy advocacy to remove barriers, provide incentives, and drive resources to the affordable housing sector so owners can meaningfully accelerate decarbonization. 

The goal of DASH is to get affordable housing a proverbial seat (and meal) at the electrification and building decarbonization table. Toward that end, we intend to surface – and start generating potential solutions for – the financial, technical, and knowledge barriers that are getting in the way of affordable housing fully participating in an all-electric, carbon free future. 

Policy advocacy: 

The Housing and Environmental Revenue Opportunities (HERO) coalition is a diverse coalition of environmental and housing advocacy organizations that are pushing for major new state investments to address the affordable housing and climate crises. HERO urges the Massachusetts State Legislature to enact legislation that would double the current Deeds Excise Tax, upon the sale of real property in Massachusetts, to generate approximately $300 million in new revenue each year, to be split evenly between Affordable Housing and Climate. 

This new revenue would create or preserve additional housing for 18,000 working-class homeowners and renters over 10 years; finance hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive, flexible grants to localities for climate resilience and mitigation; and assist between 3,500 and 6,500 additional extremely low-income families per year with housing vouchers or project-based rental assistance. 

Through a combination of property-level interventions, along with a commitment to and expansion of these programs aimed at addressing climate change and neighborhood disinvestment, we can move the needle on housing quality and associated health outcomes in Massachusetts. In our fifth, and final, blog post, we will suggest ways we can scale up and better align current efforts addressing both underlying conditions as well as property-level distress. Our goal is to identify how a more coordinated, data-driven and better resourced approach can tie together disparate threads to create healthier homes, resulting in healthier communities and healthier residents of those communities.