About the Grantee
The Flint-based Center for Community Progress has risen quickly to become one of the nation’s leading action and research agencies battling the devastation that vacant and abandoned properties inflict on deteriorating urban areas.
Since its 2009 inception, the Center has worked with local groups in Michigan cities such as Flint and Detroit, and in 25 communities across 11 states, to devise strategies for reclaiming vacant, abandoned and problem properties that otherwise pose obstacles to creating safe and desirable urban living and work environments.
The Center, with offices also in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, Louisiana, has received a total of $4.36 million in grants from the C.S. Mott Foundation.
Purpose of the Grant
Through technical assistance and capacity building, the Center helps teach local communities the practical tools for tackling the abundance of vacant properties that can destabilize urban neighborhoods.
Those tools include creating land banks, which can acquire and repurpose vacant and abandoned land, and beefing up code enforcement for residential and commercial property.
The Center marries this with efforts promoting land-use and tax-policy change; helping prepare local communities to implement those changes; and assisting them in building networks and making contacts at the local and state level.
In 2013, the Center will continue to create and distribute tools and resources to local communities working to prevent, acquire and reuse vacant and abandoned property. It also will seek to make a wider array of resources available through Web-based tools that support best practices; new Webinar learning sessions; and the creation of a peer-to-peer learning and training network.
Among the organization’s specific goals:
- Expand the Building American Cities Toolkit, an interactive online resource for those trying to make their communities and neighborhoods stronger.
- Restructure the Community Progress Leadership Institute, which convenes yearly and will be reformatted to engage the nation’s best practitioners and experts in vacant property in a train-the-trainers curriculum.
- Provide further education and technical assistance to local communities on the importance of code enforcement. The Center links the importance of code enforcement resources to local government’s ability to identify, stop and reverse the negative effects of vacant and abandoned properties.
“Over the past three years, the Center has been able to build a body of experience and a network of practitioners that are transforming the way communities approach the prevention and reuse of vacant properties,” said Tamar Shapiro, the organization’s president and CEO.
“The Mott Foundation’s support will enable us to further expand the reach of our work and ensure that the tools and knowledge we’ve developed with our partners will create a strong foundation for sustainable, economically vibrant cities and towns.”
Learn More
The work of the Center for Community Progress is highlighted in this Mott.org news article.