Achieving Durable Mixed Income Communities Through Affordable Housing Preservation The latest What Works Volume features an essay by Karen Black along with Michael Norton and Jacob Rosch from Reinvestment Fund about how to create mixed-income neighborhoods through affordable housing preservation. This case study highlights the viability of context-specific strategies, including a mix of public and … Continue reading What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Mixed-Income Communities
may8_admin
Village of Monticello Problem Properties Remediation Action Plan
Remediate long-term vacant properties with New York state-authorized legal tools Leaders of the village of Monticello in New York State seek to bring long-term vacant and abandoned buildings back into productive reuse and ensure that the village’s housing is safe, healthy, and code compliant. This action plan maps Monticello’s housing markets, identifies its problem properties, … Continue reading Village of Monticello Problem Properties Remediation Action Plan
Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine A Private-Led Model For Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods
Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine A Private-Led Model For Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods is the first in a series from the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University. Bruce Katz, Karen Black and Luise Noring created this City Case to share a detailed description of the turnaround of the once-blighted, downtown-adjacent Over-The-Rhine neighborhood through the City’s use of a … Continue reading Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine A Private-Led Model For Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods
ABA Vacant and Problem Properties Book: A Guide to Legal Strategies and Remedies
This invaluable practical resource published by the American Bar Association provides a thorough introduction to the legal and policy issues associated with vacant and problem properties, how to take action to revitalize them, and how to frame effective and defensible local ordinances and regulations. It also addresses the benefits and challenges of creating land banks, … Continue reading ABA Vacant and Problem Properties Book: A Guide to Legal Strategies and Remedies
Bethlehem Blight Betterment Initiative
WINNER OF THE 2018 LEHIGH VALLEY AWARD FOR PLAN OR POLICY Working with the Reinvestment Fund and Atria Planning, May 8 created a plan for the City of Bethlehem to reactivate its blighted properties and equitably grow their diverse neighborhood markets. Our team worked with city, county, business and non-profit leaders to create a detailed … Continue reading Bethlehem Blight Betterment Initiative
West Philadelphia Scattered Site Model: An Affordable Housing Impact Study
In this study, May 8 Consulting and Reinvestment Fund set out to understand how the rehabilitation of 1,100 affordable housing units in 760 single-family houses or duplexes from 1989 to 2013, has impacted the West Philadelphia neighborhoods in which they are located. It compared the scattered site approach to developments that produced a similar number … Continue reading West Philadelphia Scattered Site Model: An Affordable Housing Impact Study
Next Great City 2015
Next Great City 2015, a coalition of over 100 Philadelphia organizations, created a set of recommendations for actions the next Mayor can take to make Philadelphia the Next Great City. This is Next Great City’s third collective effort since 2007 and the third time that Karen Black of May 8 facilitated three town-hall style meetings … Continue reading Next Great City 2015
Healthy Rowhouse Project
In April 2014 the Oak Foundation invited us to imagine strategies to preserve and increase the city of Philadelphia’s affordable housing at a time when real estate prices are rising. May 8 CEO Karen Black proposed to Oak that Philadelphia would benefit from new loan and grant models to provide home repairs at scale in order to … Continue reading Healthy Rowhouse Project
Stronger Together: The $12 Billion Impact of Community Development Corporations in New Jersey
Stronger Together tells a clear, data-driven story about just how effective New Jersey’s community development corporations (CDCs) are. Econsult Solutions provided the data analysis and May 8 Consulting worked with the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey to tell CDCs story in a new way – not as a group of small community … Continue reading Stronger Together: The $12 Billion Impact of Community Development Corporations in New Jersey
From Blight To Bright
Every official, resident, and business owner in every Pennsylvania community can agree on one fact: for Pennsylvania communities to thrive, a majority of the roughly 300,000 vacant properties in the Commonwealth must be put into productive reuse. This manual presents the most effective tools available to Pennsylvania local governments to return vacant properties to productive … Continue reading From Blight To Bright