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Community Wealth Blog

A recent article by Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times illustrates the growing dimensions of the explosion of foreclosures, resulting largely from sub-prime (that is, loans that charge three or more percentage points higher than prime) mortgage lending to low-income families.

“Why fight the rowdy crowds at the big boxes, chain stores and warehouse clubs when you can find unique gifts, delicious food, and friendly faces at independent businesses in your own community?” asks the website of Local First Utah.  Founded in 2005, Local First Utah has set the week of November 24-December 1 as “buy local week.”

A study by the Applied Research Center at California State University Sacramento found that in-state investments by CalPERS, (or the California Public Employees’ Retirement System), the state’s leading public pension fund, contributed nearly $8.5 billion in economic value to the state economy in 2006, making CalPERS a larger player in the California economy than the machinery manufacturing; oil and gas extraction; or amusements, gambling and recreation industries. 

Five years ago, Thad Williamson, David Imbroscio, and C-W.org’s own Gar Alperovitz wrote in Making a Place for Community that, “It is intuitively obvious to most citizens that moderately-sized university towns, state capitals, and even towns near long-established active military bases and prisons have greater stability than areas primarily dependent on private investment.”

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) seeks a full-time Director to establish and manage local operations for the National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC) in New Orleans for a period of at least two years. He or she will report directly to the LISC Senior Vice President of the Gulf Region Rebuilding Initiative.

The legislation aims to establish dedicated sources of funding for the production, preservation and rehabilitation of 1.5 million affordable homes in 10 years and now faces consideration by the Senate. According to the bill’s terms, at least 75% of the funds will be for housing for households that are extremely low income, earning less than 30% of an area’s median income. 

Portland has a strong group of community wealth building organizations, but as in many cities, Portland’s community development department found, in Cutler’s words, that different efforts “had succeeded with one population or another, but these were all isolated efforts.” Portland’s Economic Opportunity Initiative aimed to bring coherence to these efforts.

An analysis of domestic government spending by the Progressive States Network finds that states spend over $2 trillion on domestic programs, three times the amount of funds directly administered by the federal government.  This disparity—the opposite of what is usually assumed to be the case—comes from the fact that much of federal spending supports “defense and international relations, interest payments on the federal debt, and transfer payments to the states, who actual administer most programs.”

As Heather Peeler highlights in a recent e-newsletter article from the social enterprise consulting group Community Wealth Ventures, as the social enterprise field grows, “there is a great deal of debate on legal and structural issues.”

Although not formally launching until October, the START website already includes a wide range of resources for people interested in social change organizing. Developed by two activists from Cleveland and Philadelphia, the site includes a 24-session study course that small groups (say, of 8-10 people) can use to gather together, study and discuss environmental, domestic, and world issues using the on-line readings, read and think about the world they want and how to get there, and then act.

The Community Investment Network a project of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, has launched a web portal called Subprime Spotlight. The website includes a useful definition of “predatory lending” and carefully distinguishes it from sub-prime lending per se. As the website notes, “Sub-prime loans are not necessarily by their nature ‘predatory,’ but these types of loans do provide ample opportunities for dishonest and greedy mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers to exploit vulnerable borrowers.”

In the summer of 1967, riots in Newark’s Central Ward killed 23 and injured 725.  Shortly afterward, Father William Linder and other community members helped found New Community Corporation, an example of a then new type of nonprofit known as a community development corporation (CDC) that aimed to provide services, create businesses, and build a better Newark.