Detroit NRSA
In 2015, The City of Detroit was amid bankruptcy when the Duggan administration took office. Detroit was facing a myriad of challenges and many neighborhoods in rapid decline. Detroit Future City, a 50-year comprehensive plan, recommended that Detroit adopt a targeted approach to neighborhood revitalization. We recommended that the mayor use this opportunity to adopt HUD’s Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area tool in one or more neighborhoods to optimize the use of $135 million of unspent HUD funds and to achieve greater impact.
Over-Arching Goals
Create an effective neighborhood investment strategy that achieves the mayor’s community development priorities, leverages capital from the private and philanthropic sector and responds to market conditions.
Collaborate with the community to design the strategy and ensure inclusion of all stakeholders. Make sure strategies address decades of disinvestment and embedded inequities. Develop more efficient service delivery models and capacity for implementing the strategy.
Approach
The C-FACTS team helped design and implement one of the most expansive and effective NRSAs in the country that is featured as a best practice on the HUD Exchange. The C-FACTS team returned in 2020 to evaluate the outcomes of the NRSAs and renew the plans for an additional five years (Click here to see the updated Detroit NRSA Plan). The following outcomes were achieved:
- Educated the Mayor and Council on NRSA rules and regulations, benefits that could be derived from using the tool and criteria for HUD designation. We provided best practice examples of exemplary NRSAs and their outcomes.
- Conducted an analysis of Detroit census tracts, demographics, market trends and other relevant data. Since several neighborhoods were likely to meet the NRSA demographic requirements, criteria for selecting the target neighborhoods such as proximity to commercial corridors, community capacity, and opportunity to leverage other investments supplemented the data analysis.
- Facilitated community engagement sessions, focus groups and planning sessions to ensure the plan reflected the needs and priorities of residents and business owners. Met with anchor institutions and foundations to solicit support for the strategy.
- Designed a 0% interest home repair loan program that attracted a 100% match from a major bank by using CDBG funds as a credit enhancement. The program targeted NRSAs which allowed borrowers to participate regardless of income levels, a huge factor in achieving neighborhood stabilization. The program was initially capitalized at $8 million and recapitalized when all funds were deployed. 800 home repair loans were closed and construction on 682 properties completed representing a $13.5 million investment. Ninety-five percent of borrowers are Black or Latino helping to increase wealth and equity for BIPOC families. Over time the program should be self-sufficient from loan repayments.
- Supported the design of an innovative, commercial corridor program that connected vacant storefronts with small business owners using CDBG funds to rehab commercial space and create jobs. Over 50 businesses located to vacant storefronts creating economic opportunity for entrepreneurs and jobs for residents.
Outcomes
- More than 5,000 summer jobs were created with over 100 businesses providing employment opportunities for Detroit youth.
- One NRSA achieved significant improvements such that boundaries needed to be revised in the second round because the original target area no longer met NRSA poverty-level requirements.
- The City added new qualified block groups and expanded the NRSA boundaries to reflect initiatives that the City plans to undertake over the next five (5) years in NRSAs such as:
- Strategic Fund Neighborhood Fund (SNF): An aggressive strategic plan to fund neighborhood parks, and streetscape improvements to ten (10) areas within the City that overlap with the NRSAs.
- A $250M Affordable Housing Leverage Fund (AHLF) Program (in partnership with the City, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) for the creation and maintenance of affordable multi-family housing.
- Six (6) Housing Resource Centers (HRC) – A one-stop-shop to help people with their housing needs and wrap-around services to increase housing stability, and homeownership.
