MACDC board and staff leaders joined with community development leaders from across the country in Washington DC recently to participate in NeighborWorks America's Excellence in Governance program. The program works with community development organizations over an 18-month to help them improve their board governance practices.  Each organization identifies specific goals for improvement and develops a work plan to achieve them.  MACDC's board has decided to focus on two issues: (1) helping our board devote more time and energy to generative discussions about deepening our impact and (2) improving the racial and ethnic diversity of our board and other leadership roles.  Through the program, we are working to adopt "best practices" from other organizations, change our board culture to focus on the big issues, build stronger relationships among board members, and ensure a welcoming environment for new board members.

On Monday, December 11, Governor Charlie Baker stood with leaders from municipal government, business and the housing field, including MACDC, to announce his new Housing Choice Initiative with the goal of producing 135,000 homes across the state by 2025.  The Initiative creates a new system of incentives and rewards for municipalities that deliver sustainable housing growth; creates a new technical assistance toolbox to empower cities and towns to plan for new housing production; and proposes legislative changes, through An Act to Promote Housing Choices, to deliver smart, effective zoning at the local level.

The Governor’s program builds on the ideas and proposals being advanced by the Great Neighborhoods campaign led by the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, of which MACDC is an active member.  The Great Neighborhoods campaign announced its support for the Housing Choice Initiative and also plans to continue advocating for comprehensive statewide zoning reform legislation.  The Governor’s initiative also comes at a great time for MACDC as we have just launched our new Suburban Housing Caucus with 13 of our member organizations. The Caucus and its members will be working to encourage cities and towns to embrace the initiative and become designated Housing Choice Communities.

“We are very excited about the Governor’s Housing Choice Initiative and look forward to working with his Administration to make the program a success throughout the Commonwealth. Our non-profit, community-led member organizations have built over 18,000 homes and we are eager to build more.  This program will provide the tools and supports to build more homes for a wide range of households and to build them in good locations,” said Joseph Kriesberg, President of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations.

The City of Northampton has spent the last four years developing a plan to revitalize the Pleasant Street Corridor, a stretch that has been identified as an important gateway to downtown Northampton.  Two CDC affordable housing developments have played a key role in the rejuvenation of the corridor.

Way Finders’  Live 155 Apartments, currently under construction, will provide 70 mixed-income studio and one-bedroom apartments when it is completed in the spring of 2018.  Just across Pleasant Street is Valley CDC’s  Lumber Yard Apartments, which will break ground next month on 55 affordable units.  Both projects will include commercial space.

These projects complement the City’s efforts to transform Pleasant Street from a state highway into a city street that serves the needs of residents and local business.  Infrastructure improvements include new raised crosswalks, curb extensions, improved bicycle and pedestrian paths, the addition of on-street parking, landscaping, and a new rotary that provides some separation between the highway and the main city street.

Both projects were assisted by The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC), a public-private community development finance institution that provides financial resources and technical expertise for community-based and other non-profit organizations engaged in effective community development in Massachusetts.

In its weekly blog, Insites, CEDAC highlights the catalytic role that these two projects are having in Northampton.

Despite substantial gains made over 45 years of public health intervention, lead exposure remains a significant health risk for children in Massachusetts. Recent evidence suggests that for children there is no safe level of exposure to lead and that exposure to relatively low levels can result in irreversible health effects.  Due to recent advances in State policy, there are new tools to combat the dangers posed by lead paint.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has proposed amendments to regulations on Lead Poisoning Prevention and Control, to lower the threshold of Blood Lead Level (BLL) defining lead poisoning.  DPH notes that this will broaden the protection of children by expanding the number of properties where the Commonwealth would require inspection and remediation of violations of the Lead Law, increasing the number of lead-safe units.  The change also underscores the need for funding to remove hazardous lead paint.  Fortunately, funding is now more readily available to help homeowners.

In October 2016, MassHousing, which administers the Get the Lead Out Program on behalf of the MA Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), announced enhancements to the Program.  These enhancements make it easier for all families throughout the Commonwealth to gain access to the GTLO funds.  One important enhancement is that now all owner occupants have access to 0% loans, with repayment deferred until the home is sold, transferred, or refinanced. Mass Housing also made technical changes that make it easier for banks and non-profit agencies, including CDCs, to administer the program.

These changes were the result of advocacy by MACDC, its Members, CHAPA, the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, and the Massachusetts Public Health Association.  We met with representatives of DHCD and MassHousing late in 2015, and again in May of 2016.  The agencies were receptive to our recommendations, culminating in the significant changes announced in October of 2016.

These improvements to the GTLO Program have paid off.  In fiscal year 2017, 80 loans were made – the most since fiscal year 2008.  In fact, these 80 loans were more than the combined loans made during the four-year period from fiscal years 2010 through 2013!  MACDC’s advocacy played a significant role in this success.

Exposure to lead paint remains a serious problem.  Due to the welcome increase in the number of GTLO loans, the available funding has been reduced to approximately $3.5 million.  MACDC hopes to work with DHCD and MassHousing to secure additional funding for this important program in the coming months and years.

As members of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance (MSGA), MACDC enthusiastically endorses the Great Neighborhoods campaign, led by MSGA, which is all about safeguarding and securing many of the things we all care about: better housing choices for families and seniors; more vibrant, walkable downtowns that promote healthy living and local businesses; and a development approach that preserves natural resources and protects us from climate change.

You may already know some of the following unfortunate facts:

· The median home sale price is now over $400,000 while the median rent in the state is $2600 per month. Nearly some quarter-million families in Massachusetts pay more than half their income on housing.

· At the same time, 13 acres of open space are lost to sprawling development in Massachusetts, and the average single-family lot in Metro Boston is now larger than a professional football field.

· At least 52% of Americans want to live in places where they do not have to use a car often.

You can learn more about the Campaign, sign the petition, and read the Call to Action here, which lists organizations that endorse these shared principles. Please contact Larry Field at the MA Smart Growth Alliance if your organization can endorse the Campaign. His email address is larry@ma-smartgrowth.org.

A broad range of organizations has joined the Great Neighborhoods campaign to promote its core principles and to call on state leaders to pass a strong bill this session that addresses the housing crisis and looks to create healthier, walkable places to live and thrive. We urge that your organization join the Great Neighborhoods campaign and that you individually sign the petition calling on state leaders to act!

Undoing Racism Workshop: Moving Forward

If you have ever attended an Undoing Racism Workshop and are left wondering what to do next, there is an opportunity coming up next month. The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and the Undoing Racism Workshop is at the forefront of anti-racist training and community organizer training. The Haymarket People’s Fund in partnership with the Boston College CHRIJ and LSOE, Simmons SSW, and the Mel King Institute, are happy to announce a regroup session open to anyone that has ever attended an Undoing Racism Workshop. This session revisits concepts from the workshop to discuss, reflect, and apply those themes to our lives and communities. This winter’s community regroup session will take place Friday November 3^rd from 4 pm to 6 pm at the Nate Smith House Conference Room, 155 Lamartine St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. 

Community organizers Ronald Chisom and Dr. Jim Dunn founded The People’s Institute in 1980 to support a “collective of anti-racist, multicultural community organizers, and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social transformation.” They work with individuals, communities, organizations, and institutions to undo the causes of racism and to create a society where race is no longer a barrier preventing communities and individuals from building communities and “effective coalitions.”

The Undoing Racism Workshop is one of The People’s Institute’s main Anti-Racist Principles in their mission to achieve effective social transformation. Through an intensive two-and-half-day workshop The People’s Institute asked difficult questions in hopes of molding active community organizers. The workshop consisted of four distinct themes—listed below—addressing how participants contribute to outlined ecosystem and what an organizer’s role is.

• Why are people poor?
• Community power analysis
• What is gatekeeping?
• Deconstructing internalized racial oppression

The winter regroup session on Friday, November 3^rd from 4 pm to 6 pm at ---- is a chance for all those that have ever attended the Undoing Racism Workshop to remember key lessons and discover resources for moving forward. The People’s Institute created the workshop as a tool not to address the symptoms of racism, but undo the causes that have integrated into everyday life. Come out to the regroup session to find resources and forge connections with the aim of creating “a more just and equitable society.”

For more information, please reach out to Mahlet Moges at MahletM@macdc.org or Courtnye Lloyd at LLOYDCB@bc.edu

MACDC released a report today called “Investing in Impact: How the Massachusetts Community Investment Tax Credit is Improving Communities and Changing Lives” that highlights how the program raised nearly $24 million in its first three years and has been a game changer for those organizations involved in the program.  The CITC program is helping CDCs leverage new private and federal dollars while increasing their strategic and collaborative initiatives.  With the majority of dollars coming from new donations, the CITC program is fueling expanded programming in a broad range of community development arenas from affordable housing, to community organizing, to economic development to arts & cultural programming.

The report includes two interactive portals that enable stakeholders to see the results for individual CDCs and to conduct their own analysis of the data. 

• The CITC Investment Dashboard provides detailed analytics about the 4,500 donations received through the program from 2014-2016;
• The Growing Opportunities, Assets and Leaders (GOALs) database provides detailed performance data on MACDC's Members.

The report concludes that the CITC program is doing precisely what the legislature intended when it was first enacted in 2012.  Key findings include:

• In 2015 and 2016, CDCs participating in the CITC program:
  
  • created or preserved 2,916 homes;
  • created or preserved 8,742 job opportunities;
  • started, grew, or stabilized 1,420 businesses; and
  • served 132,038 families.
• The program has generated $24 million in private philanthropy for community development over the first three years of the program, with the funding growing dramatically each year from $4.7 million in 2014 to $8.2 million in 2015 to $11 million in 2016.
• Donations are coming from new supporters, in particular those from individuals who comprise 64% of the total donations and 40% of the total dollars secured.  CITC is also attracting new and larger investments from small businesses, large companies and nonprofit institutions.
• New and flexible funding is fueling new and expanded programming in a broad range of community development arenas from affordable housing, to community organizing, to arts & cultural programming, thereby demonstrating that CITC is fostering more comprehensive approaches to community improvement.
• CITC is helping CDCs act more strategically and collaboratively to implement initiatives that are tailored to the local context and market.
• CITC is helping CDCs leverage new private and federal dollars.  Over the past two years, $9.6 million in tax credits have supported a total investment of over $1.2 billion in local communities.

Beyond the numbers, the CDCs consistently report that CITC has transformed their organizations, enabling them to deepen resident engagement, act more strategically and collaboratively, and make meaningful progress toward improving the communities they serve and enhancing opportunities for the people living in those communities.

The new report underscores the importance of enacting legislation to extend and expand the CITC program.  MACDC is currently working with Senators Sal DiDomenico and Linda Dorcena Forry and Rep. Stephen Kulik to win passage of legislation that would extend the program from 2019 to 2025 and slowly increase the cap on tax credits from $6 million to $12 million annually.