Neighborhoods USA Conference
I will be attending the Neighborhoods USA Conference this week (Thursday/Friday) in Kansas City. I hope to learn of some "best practices" from other communities with regard to neighborhood revitalization. I will post a report upon return.
The conference website is located at the following link: http://www.kcmo.org/neigh.nsf/web/nusa
posted by Ian Frink @ 12:26 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Ian,
Good to see another alderman add a blog to his list of communicating tools.
Day one of the conference is complete. I'll post a full report this weekend.
One item, which caught my eye today was a program that has been implemented in Des Moines. DM Ald. Chris Hensely presented the city/county partnership: Neighborhood Finance Corporation.
"The Neighborhood Finance Corporation provides unique lending programs and related services to facilitate targeted neighborhood revitalization in Polk County, Iowa through partnerships with residents, governments, community-based organizations and the business community."
The group is a 501(c)3 and has made $137-million in loans and grants since 1991.
Additional info is at: www.neighborhoodfinance.org
This could be worthy of further review for us in Davenport, perhaps a similiar program or components of this idea might spur re-investmemt for our city.
Also today, Davenport's own Barbara Metz led a workshop on Neighborhood Association Organization.
Over 900 folks are participating in the conference, which concludes tomorrow.
NFC in Des Moines enjoys the benefit of equity investments from local banks and well developed loan pool. Its interesting that the same banks in Des Moines (Wells, US Bank,others) make investments there and don't do it here! The Scott County Housing Trust Fund has been trying to attract banks to their fund-if the banks don't want to make home improvement, refinance, and home purchase loans in LMI neighborhoods as evidenced by the data in the recent HUD Impediments study and previouse studies, they could pool their money and share risk-just as NFC does in Des Moines. This concept has been presented to local banks over and over in the past ten years. The problem with banks in Davenport is that there is not one decision maker in the banking culture here that can make a move. Christine Hensley is a Des Moines City Council member and is also the Community Reinvestment Act compliance officer for Bank of the West (formerly Commercial Federal Bank). Until recently the leadership of NFC was Gary Dodge, a former banker with Norwest and Wells Fargo. Prior to that NFC was started by Curt Heidt, now top managment at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. Curt was one of the original founders of NHS here in Davenport. Leadership within the banking community in Des Moines made this happen in parternship with the non-profit and neighborhood representatives in Des Moines. The point is that the Scott County Housing Trust fund has already leveraged more than $22 million in home mortgages, home improvement loans, and abandoned housing improvements through non-profit and for-profit developers in the last 6 years WITHOUT bank help (two small grants of $5000 from Wells and USBank non withstanding). Using Iowa Finance Authority Local Housing Trust Fund money and local gambling authority and some HUD funds they have a demonstrated history of high performance. Local government, banks, for profit and non profit, and neighborhood representatives serve on the distribution committee for the trust fund. Instead of reinventing something that already exists, maybe some banks could drop a dime to their colleagues in Des Moines and get on the ball here! Thanks to Alderman Frink for taking the time to educate himself on the real potential that lies in making fair credit available to under served areas of the community.
Thanks for the note Shelley. I will continue to explore what more we might be able to accomplish with programs we already have in place, in additional to some potential supplemental options. I look forward to learning more, with regard to our alternatives.
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