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February 02, 2012
Spotlight: Fighting urban blight is focus of $1.1 million grant
About the Grantee: The Center for Community Progress was established in 2010 to help communities counter the problems of blight and dereliction that result from vacant and abandoned properties by developing new resources to assist both cities and local neighborhoods with their revitalization efforts.
Headquartered in Flint and with offices in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, Louisiana, the center consolidates its core work around land banking and local community capacity building — with an emphasis on the nation’s deteriorating industrial cities.
Founded with the support of the Mott and Ford foundations, the Center for Community Progress has received $3.1 million in grants from the Mott Foundation.
Purpose of the Grant: Much of the organization’s past work has focused on helping states establish predictable and equitable tax foreclosure systems, while establishing the tools — such as land banks — for putting foreclosed properties into productive reuse. During the past two years, however, the center has discovered that one of the greatest barriers to urban revitalization in weak-market cities is lack of access to capital that would allow cities to finance receivables on tax-delinquent properties so that profits stay within the public realm. In many cases, local governments’ short-term need for revenue to cover basic services impel them to sell tax liens at a discount to private investors, who realize profits from reselling liens to property owners.
“Our experience in Michigan has shown that localities that are able to finance their debt recuperate sufficient monies through normal tax collection and delinquency fees to more than offset losses from tax foreclosures,” said Kildee.
“In fact, in every case we have studied, this approach results in new revenue that can be used to invest in reclaiming vacant and abandoned properties.”
In 2012, a significant focus the center’s work will be on investigating alternate financing mechanisms that will enable local governments to efficiently collect on tax-delinquent properties without sacrificing surplus revenues to third-party investors. The organization also will continue its work with Michigan State University to create a series of white papers on municipal finance, completing two additional case studies of Michigan cities in fiscal crisis and publishing recommendations for addressing acute and chronic fiscal distress.
Learn more: Read about how Community Progress is helping cities around the country rethink and reuse existing urban assets as a way of creating strong, vibrant and sustainable communities and regions.
Read a related Q&A with Kildee, in which he shares his perspectives on land use issues in the U.S.