Good Times Threaten Community Development Corporations

"Much of the rebirth of New York City neighborhoods in recent years can be traced to a force that many New Yorkers barely know exists: a sprawling network of community-development corporations and other homegrown nonprofit groups.

Now those neighborhoods are flourishing; private developers are back, and rents are rising. The city has exhausted its supply of properties taken in tax foreclosures, which were passed on to nonprofits to make into apartments that people of modest means could afford. As a result, the country's largest network of community development organizations is at a crossroads: The groups can retool themselves or fade away.

The shakeout comes at a time when the Bloomberg administration has embarked upon what it calls 'the largest affordable-housing plan in the country's history,' promising to create or preserve 165,000 units of lower-cost housing by 2013."

"Elsewhere in the country, community development groups in cities including Boston, Cleveland and Seattle have begun extending their activities beyond their traditional focus on housing. A recent report by the Urban Institute found that some have moved into activities like helping neighborhood businesses line up financing and working with employers to bring welfare recipients into the labor market.

There are now at least 60 community development corporations and other nonprofits involved with housing development in New York City Two national groups, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Enterprise Community Partners, have worked closely with many of the local groups, providing capital, technical expertise and training."