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| NeighborWorks® Honors Achievements in Affordable Housing and Community Development at Federal, State and Local Levels
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Five elected officials will receive top honors from NeighborWorks America for their leadership in expanding the affordable housing supply for low- and moderate-income families and strengthening communities. The officials are Rep. David Price (D-NC); Rep. Robert Matsui (Rep. Matsui is awarded posthumously); Robert Morgan, program director, Montana Board of Housing; Gloria Rendon, superintendent of Santa Fe, New Mexico, schools; and Martin Lujan, board of education president, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The five honorees will receive the NeighborWorks Government Service Award at a ceremony August 23 and held during the NeighborWorks Training Institute in Washington, D.C. View media advisory. View honoree biographies.
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| 1,700 to Attend NeighborWorks Training Institute in Washington, D.C. |
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Community leaders from all over the country are coming to Washington, D.C., August 22-26, to participate in a NeighborWorks Training Institute. New this year are green building course offerings supported by Home Depot Foundation. "The next generation of homeownership partnerships" is the subject of a one-day symposium that features experts from business and finance Wednesday August 24. View media advisory.
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NeighborWorks America Honors Eight Local Heroes
For Community Building and Revitalization
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| NeighborWorks America is honoring the work of eight community leaders representing communities from all over the country. The 14th Annual Dorothy Richardson awardees will be honored at a ceremony scheduled for August 22 in Washington, D.C. View news release. |
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| Wyoming Housing Network Joins NeighborWorks |
| The Wyoming Housing Network, based in Casper, Wyoming, was chartered this month into the NeighborWorks network through assistance from the Rocky Mountain district of NeighborWorks America. Jim Fackrell brings almost two decades of experience in all facets of the housing and community development profession to his new job as executive director of the organization, formed last year. This represents the first NeighborWorks organization in Wyoming. |
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| Community
Strategies represents the shared experience of NeighborWorks
America and its member organizations in various topics
of community development and affordable housing. |
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| The
NeighborWorks Training
Institute is dedicated to providing the highest quality training
for community development practitioners. Learn about the latest
classes and symposia on leading-edge topics. |
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| NeighborWorks America produces a wide-variety of publications. Most
are free and others cost a nominal fee to order. For a complete
listing and order forms, go to NeighborWorks Publications. |
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| New Freddie Mac Grant Continues Support of NCHEC |
| Freddie Mac has broadened its ongoing financial support for NeighborWorks America with a $250,000 grant to the NeighborWorks Center for Homeownership Education and Counseling (NCHEC) in support of NCHEC’s homeownership counseling certification program.
As part of its 2003-2007 partnership with NeighborWorks America, Freddie Mac will provide $2 million to support NeighborWorks programs, including NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers and high-profile symposia on emerging issues affecting affordable housing.
View news story. |
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| NeighborWorks Executive Talks to Credit Unions About Predatory Lending Challenge |
| Nelson Merced, NeighborWorks America’s director of national initiatives, spoke about predatory lending challenges recently at the Partnering and Leadership Successes Luncheon co-sponsored by the National Credit Union Administration and other credit union industry groups. Merced called for a range of countermeasures against predatory lending tactics. These measures include effective state legislation, better disclosure practices, better enforcement and consumer education, and mandatory registration of mortgage brokers. View remarks.
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| Homeownership Both Cause and Cure for Wealth Gap: Roundtable |
| Journalists, homeownership advocates and academicians debated a number of issues at the NeighborWorks America Reporters’ Roundtable held July 18. While current efforts to increase minority homeownership are working, participants concluded that more public and private resources are needed to help the nation solve the wealth-gap dilemma. “Housing has the greatest power to disenfranchise and the greatest power to close the wealth gap,” said Kenneth Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America. View roundtable report. |
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| Pasadena NHS Names New Executive Director |
| BongHwan “BH” Kim was recently named Pasadena
Neighborhood Housing Services’ new executive director after more than 25 years
revitalizing communities.
Kim has served as the executive director of two Los Angeles non-profit organizations and initiated and developed a $5 million 19-unit
affordable housing and community center facility.
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| Primavera Offers Homeless 'A Hand Up' |
| Bob Bohnas, a recovering drug addict, said he owes his turnaround to help he received from the Primavera Foundation, a Tucson, Arizona, NeighborWorks organization that provides assistance to the homeless and those on the verge of being homeless. "They [Primavera] don't give you a handout, they give you a hand up," Bohnas told the Arizona Star. View article and compelling photos. |
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| Neighborhood Capital Loan to Fund Boston Area Multifamily Project |
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Madison Park Development Corporation, a NeighborWorks organization in Roxbury, Massachusetts., recently received a $500,000 loan from Neighborhood Capital Corporation for developing 40 units of affordable multifamily housing.
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| Two NeighborWorks Organizations in the Running for Affordable Housing Finance 'Readers' Choice Awards'; September 9 Voting Deadline |
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Umpqua Community Development Corp. and AHC, Inc. are among the finalists in the "Readers' Choice Awards". View Umpqua CDC's project The Grand Apartments in Roseburg, Oregon and AHC, Inc.'s project
Hunter’s Park in Arlington, Virginia. If you are a subscriber to the magazine, consider casting your vote for one of these superb projects! Online voting ends Friday, Sept. 9. Voting information.
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| Denver Mayor Urges Religious Groups to Help Homeless |
| Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is asking every church, synagogue and mosque in the Denver metro area to sponsor one homeless family. More than 1,000 religious congregations exist in metro Denver, and the mayor hopes that their involvement will make a huge dent in homelessness. View article.
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| Making Connections in Lawrence, Massachusetts |
| Lawrence CommunityWorks is featured in the recent issue of CommonWealth magazine, and not just for its housing and economic development efforts. The Massachusetts' NeighborWorks organization, led by Bill Traynor, is lauded for leveraging the power of networks to engage citizens in improving their community, a former mill town. The article is temporarily available for download. [PDF] |
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| NeighborWorks Appropriations Update |
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The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a funding level of $115 million for NeighborWorks America on July 21st as part of the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia and Independent Agencies appropriations bill. This is $3 million less than the level passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. The full Senate is expected to consider the Appropriations Committee proposal in September. Please visit our Contact Congress Web page for more information.
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| New CRA Rule Finalized |
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The new CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) rule was finalized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve on July 19.
The new rule is nearly identical to a proposed rule issued on March 11 to alleviate administrative and regulatory burden for banks with asset size between $250 million and $1 billion. These banks (now being referred to as intermediate small banks) will be subject to two separately rated tests: the small bank lending test; and a new community development test.
The community development test will focus on a financial institution’s lending, and not related investments and services. Intermediate small banks will no longer have to collect and report on CRA loan data but examiners will still evaluate their lending activity and disclose the results to the public. The new rule will also revise the meaning of community development to include affordable housing in underserved rural areas and designated disaster areas. That provision in particular, would be applicable to all banks irrespective of size.
View July 19 final rule. [PDF]
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| Two NeighborWorks Organizations Receive CDFI Awards |
| Rural Opportunities in Rochester, New York, and NHS of Cleveland are among the awardees of this year's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. CDFI announced that $12 million has been awarded to 94 community-based organizations across the country. |
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| New Legislation: Housing America's Workforce Act of 2005 |
Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Mel Martinez (R-FL), and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have introduced the Housing America’s Workforce Act of 2005 (S 1330). The bill provides tax relief to working families by allowing them to exclude monies received through employer-assisted housing (EAH) programs from their taxable income, creates an employer tax credit for qualified employee housing assistance programs, and establishes a three-year competitive grant program, administered by HUD, for nonprofits and local governments to aid with costs associated with administering EAH programs. In the House, a companion measure (HR 3194) was introduced by Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY).
View legislation.
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| Main Street HOPE VI Funds, September 2 |
HUD has issued a $5 million Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for HOPE VI grants to assist small units of local government that have existing Main Street area revitalization projects. The funds are to be used for new construction or rehabilitation of affordable housing in the Main Street redevelopment area. HUD expects to award 10 to 15 grants of up to $500,000 each. Applications must be submitted on or before September 2. Contact: 800-HUD-8929 or visit HUD Web site.
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| Innovations Award in Affordable Housing, September 15 |
The Fannie Mae Foundation is partnering with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to offer a 2006 Innovations in American Government Award in the specific area of affordable housing. All units of government addressing issues of affordable housing are eligible. The winner will receive a $100,000 grant to increase the visibility and dissemination of its program. The next round of applications is due September 15. View application.
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| NeighborWorks Training Institute, Washington, DC, August 22-26 |
| Pre-event registration is over, but on-site registration begins August 21. To register on-site, please visit either of our two registration locations: Hilton Washington and the Capital Hilton. Learn more about the training institute in Washington, DC. There is still space available in the Wednesday, August 24 symposium — The Next Generation of Homeownership Partnerships: What's the Real Bottom Line? hosted by NCHEC, the NeighborWorks Campaign for Home Ownership, and the NeighborWorks Insurance Alliance. Learn more about the symposium. |
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| The Nonprofit Housing Management Specialist, September 15-25, Denver |
| There is still space available in The Nonprofit Housing Management Specialist (NHMS) course. NHMS is the first course in professional certification from The Consortium for Housing and Asset Management (CHAM). It is an intensive five-day survey course for property managers, community development corporation staff, and directors of property management who are building new systems. Learn more about the NHMS course agenda and registration. Note: Registration for the Advanced Housing Asset Management course will be available within the next couple of weeks. |
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| NCCED Conference, September 19-21, Washington, D.C. |
| The community economic development industry will celebrate another milestone at the 2005 annual conference and 35th anniversary celebration dinner of the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED). The conference will bring together leading practitioners, funders, and government officials to learn and share innovative ideas, strategies and resources. The conference is particularly timely because it will examine public policy and the leadership challenges that many emerging and mature CDCs will face over the next decade. Registration information. |
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| Advanced Practitioner Program — Contemporary Issues Course Offering Organizational Leadership Succession, October 16-19, Baltimore |
| This course is designed to provide executive directors and/or board chairs an opportunity to analyze a organization's vulnerability to leadership change, think about various approaches to leadership change, develop systems to address their organization's situation, and assist to implement those systems during the six months following this three-day intensive course. The program will encourage participants to challenge themselves and invent new ways of operating their organizations. Learn more about this course and the Advanced Practitioner Program. Application Deadline: August 26, 2005 |
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| NeighborWorks Training Institute, San Francisco, December 5-9 |
| Registration for the NeighborWorks Training Institute in San Francisco will be available soon. This institute features 24 new courses, including two focused on rural development and four “green” courses promoting environmentally-friendly and healthier communities.
Join us on Wednesday, December 7 for the symposium — The New Rural America: Partners and Progress. This symposium will explore cutting-edge development work happening in rural communities across the United States. Keep watching www.nw.org/training for details!
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| Save the Date for the NeighborWorks Training Institute in Atlanta, Feb. 20-24, 2006 |
| Of Special Note: The Wednesday symposium topic is youth engagement in community development. |
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| Joint Center Working Papers |
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The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University has issued two new publications in its Working Papers series: The Impact of Minority Growth and Minorities’ Rising Household Income on Housing Markets [PDF]
by Zhu Xiao Di, Ruby Henry, Eric Belsky, and George Masnick; and
The Importance of Wealth and Income in the Transition to Homeownership [PDF]
by Zhu Xiao Di and Xiaodong Liu
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| LISC Rental Housing Guides |
| The Local Initiatives Support Corporation has released two new technical guides to help nonprofits working to preserve affordable rental housing. Preservation of Affordable Rural Housing: A Practitioners' Guide to the Section 515 Program is intended to describe the RHS 515 program as it exists today, some of the challenges associated with preserving Section 515 properties, and some successful preservation strategies Either can be downloaded electronically from LISC's Web site at www.lisc.org/preservation; printed copies can be ordered at publications@lisc.org. |
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| KnowledgePlex® Chats: Manufactured Homes, Aug. 23; Data Segmentation, Aug. 24 |
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Soaring home prices, high construction costs, and scarce land are making manufactured homes increasingly attractive to both innovative developers and price-constrained home buyers. Participating in an online discussion on August 23 at 2 p.m. (ET) will be Kathryn Goulding of CFED, Paul Bradley of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, and Skipper StipeMaas of the Georgia Legal Services Program... The chat on data segmentation on August 24 at 2 p.m. (ET), will cover the history, structure, and possible applications of data segmentation systems for community and economic development. A variety of private-sector systems, such as MOSAIC, PRIZM, and PYSTE, are widely used by the commercial sector. Participating experts will be Alyssa Lee and Robert Haslach of the Urban Markets Initiative. Details: http://www.knowledgeplex.org/xchat.html
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| Trim Details: How Small Design Decisions Support a Whole Development |
| The details — particularly the trim details — of your affordable housing development are some of the most important design decisions you will help make as part of the design team. Details are about how things come together — different planes, different materials, and different building elements. Carefully designing the details is important not only because it helps control construction and maintenance costs, but also because these small design moves are the ones that help make your project visually clear. See Design Advisor. |
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