Solutions for Mitigating Neighborhood Blight:
Innovations and Policy Strategies

Registration for this webinar is closed.

In a number of cities across the country, neighborhood revitalization has been stymied by the impact of blight. Whether it's in the form of abandoned properties or homes that are in severe disrepair or vacant, blight is a major cause of what's become known as the "appraisal gap"—the situation in which the cost of rehabilitating a home is greater than the home's post-construction value. The appraisal gap can hamper the recovery of a city's housing market and foster a favorable environment for bottom-feeding investors, who build up large rental portfolios by buying up foreclosed homes that were previously owner-occupied.

During the housing crisis, the temporary Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) provided gap financing that enabled housing developers to build or rehab a high volume of single-family homes. But what approaches are available to help fill the gap now, post-NSP?

This Connecting Communities^® webinar will highlight two innovative programs and a policy strategy that offer working solutions to address the appraisal gap and mitigate the impact of blight, vacancy and abandonment in distressed communities across the country.

Speakers:

• Kim Graziani, vice president and director of national technical assistance for the Center for Community Progress, will provide a national perspective on neighborhood blight.
• Steve Lockwood, executive director of Frayser Community Development Corp. in Memphis, Tenn., will share an analysis showing that his organization increased home values $6 for every $1 it invested in fighting blight.
• Krysta Pate, program director for Detroit Home Mortgage, will discuss a new program her organization designed to address the appraisal gap in a scalable manner.
• Matt Josephs, senior vice president of policy for LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corp.), will describe efforts to create a federal affordable homeownership tax credit that would support the development and renovation of housing in distressed neighborhoods.

Participation in this webinar is free; however, registration is required. Sign up for this session at the Connecting Communities website.

For more information, please email communities@stls.frb.org.

The Connecting Communities webinar series is a Federal Reserve System initiative providing a national audience with timely information on emerging and important community and economic development topics. All sessions are recorded and archived on the Connecting Communities website.