Looking for a specific grant?
Page Tools
Resources and ideas help community grow
By ANN RICHARDS
After seven years of patient planning and community organizing, the Salem Housing Community Development Corporation’s efforts to revive a long-abandoned neighborhood a mile north of Flint, Michigan’s central business district had sputtered to a halt. Although properties had been acquired and cleared, the local resources needed to continue the project were tapped out.
That was when the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) decided it wanted to be involved, according to Raymond Hatter, who recently retired as Salem's executive director.
With LISC's participation came a wide array of assistance, not the least of which was a national network of community development practitioners who have been involved in thousands of projects that could help inform Salem's work.
Today, 24 new single-family rental homes and duplexes have risen from the ashes of burned-out housing and trash-strewn properties. Designed in collaboration with neighborhood block clubs, the houses in Metawanenee Hills — as the new development is known — complement the architectural style of adjacent structures, several of which Salem is renovating.
 |
| Metawanenee Hills has a waiting list of more than 200 families. |
LISC provided a $100,000 predevelopment loan to get things started. The
National Equity Fund Inc. (NEF), a subsidiary of LISC, provided $4.5 million in tax credit equity. Private dollars made up the balance of the $5-million development.
"LISC walked in the door asking what we needed," said Jane Richardson, Salem's acting executive director. "In addition to bringing us access to financing and connecting us with a viable development company for our housing project, they have continued to help us build our organizational skills with dollars for capacity mapping and training."
Today, more than 200 families are on a waiting list to rent the units, which were fully occupied when they were completed in the fall of 2007. Demand is so great, Salem hopes to initiate a second phase of new housing with the help of LISC and the Genesee County Land Bank, a public authority created in 2003 to hold, manage and develop tax-foreclosed properties.
Metawanenee Hills has been a coup for the land bank, says Dan Kildee, Genesee County treasurer and chair of the land bank's board of directors.
"Metawanenee Hills is an example of a neighborhood taking root once dilapidated housing is cleared out," he said. "We knew it [the housing development] was coming, but it's sure nice to finally see it happening. We have LISC to thank for that. In Flint, they serve as the bridge between the land bank and the nonprofit community that can develop affordable neighborhoods."
In 2002, the Mott Foundation provided the county with a three-year, $891,000 grant to create a land bank authority.
"Part of that grant was to build our capacity," Kildee said. "We contacted the national LISC Knowledge Sharing Initiative to get some help. They sent us to Michigan LISC, which responded by forming a partnership with us to create the first land bank in the state."
Michigan LISC, headquartered in Kalamazoo, has offices in Flint, Grand Rapids and Washtenaw County (the Ann Arbor area). In 2006, it provided more than $3 million toward development of new affordable and mixed-use, public, and mixed-income housing in communities across the state. Currently, it serves more than 85 community development corporations (CDCs) across the state.
The Metawanenee Hills project was ideal for LISC involvement, according to Michael Freeman, senior program officer for the Flint office, because Salem's goal was larger than construction. It also was seeking to rebuild a neighborhood.
"In the past, LISC's Flint area work focused mainly on housing production, and we've done a decent job of stabilizing neighborhoods," Freeman said.
"But what we've discovered in Flint — and in neighborhoods around the country — is that new housing isn’t enough. Unless you address the social dynamics of a neighborhood at the same time you're trying to effect physical change, you'll be back to rehab the same housing eight or 10 years later.
"The kind of sustainability we're interested in can be achieved only by stepping back and taking a hard look at what we want for the future. With limited resources and a wide range of need in the community, we work with local agencies to figure out how to deploy finite resources and who best to partner with to keep the momentum going."
Nationally, LISC works in more than 300 urban and rural communities across the country. Since it was organized in 1979, the nonprofit lending and grantmaking institution has directed more than $7.8 billion from 3,100 investors, lenders and donors toward the transformation of distressed neighborhoods.
In 2006, the organization unveiled a new strategic plan — the Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI) — that continues to emphasize investment in housing and other real estate, but also encourages permanent change in targeted neighborhoods by supporting efforts to increase family income, stimulate economic activity and connect residents to the mainstream economy, improve access to quality education, and support healthy environments and lifestyles.
"It's about transforming marginalized neighborhoods and making them neighborhoods of choice," said Tahirih Zeigler, director of Michigan LISC since 2006.
LISC's state and national offices bolster local efforts by providing a variety of resources to the table, such as best practices and national models, training and organizational capacity-building opportunities, and funding.
"We also serve as neutral convener for our local programs," Zeigler said.
"We help encourage strategic alliances. Over the next decade, Michigan LISC will continue to provide affordable housing, but we also will step up our emphasis on helping distressed neighborhoods gain access to education and quality child care, supporting local economies through micro-enterprise development, and revitalizing distressed corridors and linking them to the larger community."
In Genesee County, LISC, the land bank and community partners have several projects in the works.
"Fortunately for us, the stars lined up in support of SCI in Flint," Freeman said.
"Given the level of disinvestment, it didn't make sense to scatter housing throughout the city. We decided we needed a tight, geographic focus if we were going to show impact. Fortunately, local funders were already thinking along the same lines.
"As soon as local CDCs (community development corporations) understood we could bring resources into the community, they were more than willing to team up."
Mott funding has been instrumental in helping leverage new local, state and national resources, according to Freeman. After providing indirect support through the land bank, the Foundation granted $300,000 to LISC in general support in 2006. That investment had a cascade effect, leveraging $2 million in additional investment that year — and another $6 million in tax credits, loans and grants since.
Another Mott grant to Kettering University, used to create a comprehensive master plan linking neighborhoods and institutions lying between the campus and downtown Flint along the Flint River corridor, also has helped shape LISC's strategic approach in Flint.
The Flint River District Plan, completed in 2004 by Sasaki Associates Inc., encompasses vacant industrial land as well as several major city institutions, including Kettering and Hurley Medical Center. Using the river as a community "spine," the plan is designed to integrate with Flint's central business district and create a "university corridor" along the former Third Avenue, a major thoroughfare between Kettering on the west, the University of Michigan-Flint downtown and Mott Community College on the east. In August 2008, the city of Flint officially renamed the street University Avenue.
Although Sasaki has worked to create separate master plans for Flint's downtown, the Flint Cultural Center and UM-Flint, the Flint River District Plan is the first to deal with traditional, neighborhood-based housing. The primary focus of the plan's neighborhood redevelopment is Carriage Town, where the majority of existing housing was built in the early 1900s, when Flint was the carriage capital of the U.S.
"From the minute it was completed, I've used the Flint River District Plan to help guide our decisionmaking — where to invest our resources and where to build partnerships," Freeman said.
Over the past decade, Carriage Town has bucked housing trends for the rest of the city with a 10 percent increase in homeownership, despite the city's increasingly poor economy, according to Freeman.
"It's an ideal area to develop new housing for people who are interested in a 'walk to work' lifestyle," he said.
Vacant and land-banked properties were another asset that pushed Carriage Town to the top of LISC's list of areas with potential for revitalization. Through land transfers from the city of Flint and the neighborhood association, the land bank had assembled contiguous lots that could be used to cluster new housing or single lots appropriate for housing.
In September 2007, LISC and its partners initiated two housing projects in Carriage Town. Thirteen units — including eight new builds and five rehabilitated houses — will be redeveloped in proximity to one another along a yet-to-be-named street. The homes, funded by LISC, the city, brownfield tax increment financing and $225,000 in grants from Mott, will be priced to appeal to middle-class families with jobs nearby. The $1.9-million project is designed to help improve the overall appearance of the neighborhood and attract additional private investment in the Flint River District.
The Berridge Place project — which will transform a 24,000 square-foot former hotel into a 23-unit condominium and mixed-use development — is designed to attract smaller families and single residents — young professionals, university or hospital employees, Freeman said.
The $6.2-million renovation, expected to be completed this year, is the result of collaborative efforts between the land bank and Court Street Village Non-Profit Housing Corporation. Other major investors among the 18 funding partners include the city and county, the Ruth Mott Foundation, the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, the State of Michigan's Cool Cities Initiative, and LISC. The Mott Foundation also made a $300,000 grant in support.
In addition to its housing development activities, Flint LISC’s efforts to build the organizational capacity of area nonprofits have been well-received, particularly by some of the smaller nonprofits, such as the Flint Neighborhood Improvement and Preservation Project Inc. (NIPP).
"They've been with us every step of the way, helping us secure grants, conduct market research, and develop our LLC (limited liability corporation), said Judy Christenson, a project director for Flint NIPP.
Staffing, through the Michigan LISC AmeriCorps, has been one of its most valuable contributions to Flint NIPP, she said.
"We would never be able to take on some of the projects we're involved in without our AmeriCorps volunteers."
In 1994, LISC partnered with the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency, to sponsor a LISC AmeriCorps program. Michigan hosts the largest AmeriCorps program in LISC's national network, placing approximately 120 members with CDCs across the state to date.
Freeman became involved in Flint's housing revitalization efforts through the AmeriCorps project.
"I was a LISC AmeriCorps member with Court Street Village Nonprofit Housing Corporation back in 1994," he said.
Freeman was hired to direct the state's AmeriCorps program in 2000, but he returned to Michigan LISC and Flint in 2004.
He likens LISC's role in Flint to that of oil in an automobile engine — preventing friction, keeping various parts working smoothly — all with an eye toward getting ideas moving.
"Our role is identifying needs and filling gaps, building organizational capacity and facilitating cooperation," he said. "It's what I love about this job. We don't want to be prescriptive, but we do want to help steer strategic investments that will lead to change in the community."
Said Salem Housing's Hatter:
"Unfortunately, in Flint a lot of nonprofits like us have had a 'go-it-alone' attitude for too long. Here we were, cutting ourselves off from this huge skill set and experience.
"Michael has shown us that LISC has a wealth of practical knowledge; he has real heart for this work. Now we know what tools are available and we're reaching out and grabbing them."