Tools
Slides for Capital Improvement Plans Webinar with DHCD 10.14.2021
DHCDPowerpoint slides that correspond with webinar here: https://youtu.be/k3wXaRrkhxI
Capital Improvement Plans with DHCD Webinar 10.14.2021
Stefanie BrynenEvery Housing Authority has a Capital Improvement Plan which lays out the major improvements the authority will make to its properties in the next five years. These plans have a huge impact on residents’ quality of life, and like budgets, all residents have the right to weigh in. Resident Board Members especially need to understand the details of a Capital Improvement Plan so they can make their perspectives known to the Board.
Local Tenant Organization Success Stories Webinar, August 2021
Judy O’Kulsky, Public Housing ResidentFor residents of public housing What makes for a successful Local Tenant Organization? In this webinar we talk about how to connect with residents in your development to build a powerful network that can make changes to benefit everyone. Residents are often held back by “The Big 4” -- fear, hopelessness, confusion and division. But through building trusted relationships we can overcome these barriers and improve the quality of life. What follows is an interview with Judy O'Kulsky who is on the board of the newly elected local tenant organization in Belchertown, MA and also serves on the board of the Belchertown Housing Authority.
Local Tenant Organization Success Stories Webinar, August 2021
Carol Roberts, Public Housing ResidentFor residents of public housing What makes for a successful Local Tenant Organization? In this webinar we talk about how to connect with residents in your development to build a powerful network that can make changes to benefit everyone. Residents are often held back by “The Big 4” -- fear, hopelessness, confusion, and division. But through building trusted relationships we can overcome these barriers and improve the quality of life. What follows is an interview with Carol Roberts, a long time board member of the local tenants organization in Caffrey Towers in Brockton, MA and also serves as a board member of the Brockton Housing Authority.
Creativity and Community Action
David M. Greenberg, LISCIn a new essay and workbook from David M. Greenberg, LISC's vice president for Knowledge Management and Strategy, practitioners are posed with two parallel questions: how can community development and activism enhance artistic and cultural work? And how can cultural practice community development and activism? Using paintings, poetry, and the work of artist-activists in Logan Square, Chicago, as “cases,” the resource helps enhance the reach, ambition, and impact of collaborations between artists and community organizations.
Climate Resilient Land Use Strategies
Metropolitan Area Planning CouncilLand use regulations can be a powerful tool to provide climate resilience. From floodplain and wetlands restrictions, to tree protection and water conservation, to design standards and zoning, communities are using their regulatory authority to address the growing impacts of rainstorms, sea level rise, heat, and drought.
YW Boston’s 2021 Small Biz Map
YW BostonSupport businesses run by women and people of color in Greater Boston
Existing Buildings and Climate Change Resources
Boston Society for ArchitectureWe cannot meet our future goals without utilizing our greatest built and cultural assets: existing buildings. Below are some resources to support the industry as we forge ahead.
COVID-19 Reopening Guide for Small Businesses
Chamber of CommerceThis guide will cover all that business owners need to know about reopening and navigating current government requirements.
Mass Law Reform Institute Annual Plan Webinar, Recorded June 2021
Molly Broderick. MLRIEvery Local Housing Authority (LHA) is required to prepare and post an Annual Plan. This Plan includes the LHA's budget, capital improvement plan, maintenance information, a list of policies, a list of waivers, and more. Residents have the right to weigh in, especially Local Tenant Organizations!
DHCD Annual Plan Webinar, Recorded June 2021
Paul McPartland, DHCDEvery Local Housing Authority (LHA) is required to prepare and post an Annual Plan. This Plan includes the LHA's budget, capital improvement plan, maintenance information, a list of policies, a list of waivers, and more. Residents have the right to weigh in, especially Local Tenant Organizations!
Mixed-Finance Redevelopment of State-Aided Public Housing Webinar, Recorded December 2020
Robert Muollo, DHCDRedeveloping state public housing is a complex, multi-faceted and inclusionary process involving many stakeholders that takes vision and coordination to achieve the best outcome. By improving one’s understanding of the redevelopment process, residents can become better empowered to participate, distinguish fact from myth, and drive community priorities.
Local Housing Authority Capital Improvement Plans, Recorded May 2020
Fatima Razzaq, DHCDEvery Housing Authority has a Capital Improvement Plan which lays out the major improvements the authority will make to its properties in the next five years. These plans have a huge impact on residents’ quality of life and all residents have the right to weigh in. Resident Board Members especially need to understand the details of a Capital Improvement Plan so they can make their perspectives known to the Board.
Public Housing Rent Policies during COVID-19, Recorded May 2020
Judith Liben, Mass Law Reform Institute (MLRI)Watch Judith Liben of Mass Law Reform Institute review Public Housing Rents during the COVID-19 Emergency.
Local Housing Authority Annual Plans, Recorded May 2020
Annette Duke, Mass Law Reform Institute (MLRI)Every Local Housing Authority (LHA) is required to prepare and post an Annual Plan. This Plan includes the LHA's budget, capital improvement plan, maintenance information, a list of policies, a list of waivers, and more. Residents have the right to weigh in, especially Local Tenant Organizations! Watch this video to learn more.
State Support for Local School Construction: Leveraging Equity and Diversity
Lauren Mittman, Nikhil De, and Philip TegelerHistorically, state support for suburban school construction facilitated white flight and metropolitan segregation. The least we can do today is think more carefully about the impacts of future school construction funding. PRRAC has prepared a policy brief on this question, based on a state-by-state survey of current practices.
Best Practices for RAD "Choice-Mobility" Implementation
Poverty & Race Research Action CouncilThe Rental Assistance Demonstration has become the most significant public housing redevelopment program in the U.S., bringing new funds to support aging properties around the country. One essential element of the program is that, after conversion, all tenants have a right to request a portable Housing Choice Voucher, and move to a community of their choice (thus opening up their apartment to another eligible family on the waiting list). Few housing authorities have worked out plans for implementation of this Choice-Mobility feature of the program, so we have developed a guidance document for PHAs and advocates, based on extensive policy research and interviews.
Delivering Credit to Entrepreneurs of Color Impacted by COVID-19: Why Community Financial Institutions Are Essential
The Aspen InstitutePrior to the global pandemic, the relatively high small business start and ownership rates among entrepreneurs of color were a bright spot in a period of declining US entrepreneurship. But small businesses have endured some of the hardest stresses of the pandemic, as forced closures and physical distancing have decimated earnings for restaurants, salons, childcare centers, and other services we all rely on. Businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color have been particularly impacted by declining revenues, and despite government efforts to get money into people’s hands, many small businesses have not received the support they need. This is partly a problem with the delivery systems used: programs that flow through banks miss those that have historically been underserved. Fortunately, there are lenders who serve these businesses and communities: Community Development Financial Institutions. CDFIs are mission-driven lenders that serve the parts of America that too often get left behind, inc
Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”
Poverty & Race research Action Council (PRRAC)HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.
Cambridge College Resource Library for Business Development Program
Cambridge CollegeThe Business Resource Library connects Consultants, Technical Assistance Providers and students to a variety of learning tools, including sample documents and industry trend topics. This library can quickly provide comprehensive information you may need to assist small businesses during their start-up, stabilization and growth phases. These materials can be downloaded from the links below. This library was built with the collaboration of Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC), Mel King Institute, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and Technical Assistance providers.
Arts & Planning Toolkit
MAPCThe Arts and Planning Toolkit has been given a reboot to become better aligned with the needs of municipal planners who are doing arts and culture-related work. Each page now follows a consistent outline of tools, resources, and examples to show how ideas may be put into action.
Opportunity360 Community Dashboard
EnterpriseOpportunity360 Community Dashboards provide the information necessary to determine where action is most needed and where established programs and policies have been most successful in any neighborhood in the country. These dashboards now allow data comparison for up to three census tracts, anywhere in the US. In the free Opportunity360 Community Dashboards, you will find over 150 indicators from 27 sources.
Housing Matters
Urban InstituteHousing Matters is an online resource for the most rigorous research and practical information on how a quality, stable, affordable home in a vibrant community contributes to individual and community success.
Radical Imagination
Angela Glover Blackwell; Powered by PolicyLinkTo imagine radically, means to think big, demand better, and redefine the terms of the struggle; the Radical Imagination podcast delivers all that. The debut season confronts the challenging issues facing our nation, including immigration, the need for big new economic ideas, the impact of climate change, revolutionary approaches to community safety and justice, and more.
The Move
Ceasar McDowell, Founder; Ayushi Roy, Podcast co-host; Misael Galdamez, Website Author; Julia Curbera, Website AuthorThe Move is a movement to rebuild our public’s muscle for democracy. This movement aims to bring together people of all backgrounds who are seeking to facilitate real civic engagement in today’s democracies. The Move rebuilds our public muscle in three ways: We will partner in the design and implementation of at least one civic engagement project each year. We will provide a collaborative learning and knowledge exchange platform on TheMove.MIT.edu and it’s adjacent social media channels for cities, institutions, and community organizations. We will advance learning, experimentation, and innovation in civic design using eight design principles.
Massachusetts Defense For Eviction (MADE): Self-Guided Eviction Help
Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord's eviction case correctly.
Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project
Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (MCBC)The Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (the MCBC) has sponsored an annual report on small business lending trends in Massachusetts since 1998. In the Spring of 2019, MCBC launched a new online platform – the Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project – that serves as a companion to the most recent report, Small Business Lending in Massachusetts 2008-2017, authored by BankMaps. The Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project provides an online data service with interactive access to maps and charts from six (6) national databases related to the subject of small business lending in Massachusetts.
Boston Neighborhood Change Interactive Map
Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard UniversityA new interactive mapping tool showing the dramatic demographic, social, and economic changes that have occurred in Greater Boston since 1990. The tool includes data from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses and from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates for 2010 and 2016.
DataTown
Massachusetts Housing Partnership's Center for Housing DataThe site compiles community-level information from various data sources for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns, and visualizes that data in graphics and charts so it's easy to understand, print out and bring to a community discussion.
Prosperity Now Scorecard
Prosperity Now ScorecardA comprehensive resource for data on household financial health, racial economic inequality and policy recommendations to help put everyone in our country on a path to prosperity.
The National Equity Research Database, Boston Edition
Brandeis Institute for Child, Youth and Family PolicyThis is a database of 286 socio-economic indicators on a wide range of subjects, including demography, education, employment, health, housing, earnings and ancestry covering the Boston metropolitan area.
Building Blocks: Connecting People, Places and Policies
Enterprise Community PartnersA podcast for thought-provoking conversations about the current issues, trends, ideas and big questions facing the affordable housing and community development field in the United States.
MASSCAP Trainings: Recorded Webinars
MASSCAPThis resource contains all the past recorded webinars from MASSCAP (Understanding Immigrant Rights, Community Action Impact, Succession Planning, and More!)
Operationalizing Racial Equity & Inclusion at Living Cities: Tools for Getting Started and Keeping At It
Living CitiesThese are some of the resources and contacts LC has shared with organizations who are looking to embed racial equity and inclusion into their work.
Opportunity Zone Eligibility Tool
The Opportunity360 team created the tool below to help states and others interested in opportunity zone eligibility to determine which tracts in their state or region are eligible and how eligible tracts relate to other federal programs and designations.
Advancements in measuring bicycle and pedestrian accessibility
State Smart Transportation InitiativeJennifer Boldry from People For Bikes and Spencer Gardner from Toole Design Group discussed their new open source Bike Network Accessibility tool, and Chris McCahill from SSTI showed how pedestrian accessibility measures have been applied in Sacramento, Calif., Madison, Wisc., and Virginia.
Racial Identity Caucusing: A Strategy for Building Anti-Racist Collectives
CrossroadsThis toolkit describes methods for anti-racism work and the value of caucusing
Mapped: How the US Generates Electricity
CarbonbriefCarbon Brief has plotted the nation’s power stations in an interactive map to show how and where the US generates electricity.
Understanding Systemic Racism
Race Forward"What Is Systemic Racism?" is an 8-part video series that shows how racism shows up in our lives across institutions and society: Wealth Gap, Employment, Housing Discrimination, Government Surveillance, Incarceration, Drug Arrests, Immigration Arrests, Infant Mortality
Rejecting Bigotry, Demanding Action
Opportunity AgendaTogether with UnidosUS, The Opportunity Agenda completed public opinion and messaging research with this goal in mind: to tell a story of American diversity that reflects our values and our aspirations as a country stronger because of our myriad backgrounds, ethnicities, races, experiences – because of the parts of us that may make us different, but ultimately also make us stronger. This research provides guidance for those using their platforms to reject bigotry while demand action.