Philadelphia City Council Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, 20 Jun 2017

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless 6-20-2017

Description

The Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and The Homeless of the Council of the City of Philadelphia will hold a Public Hearing on to hear testimony on the following items:

170048 Resolution authorizing the Council of the City of Philadelphia to investigate the recent sale of tax delinquent properties approved for acquisition by the Philadelphia Land Bank for workforce housing, side yards, and community gardens, to assess Land Bank strategies to better support balanced and equitable neighborhood growth, and to explore a moratorium on all lien and sheriff sales of tax delinquent properties.

170252 Resolution calling for a hearing on Philadelphia's "middle neighborhoods," which are neighborhoods where housing is typically affordable and where quality of life - measured by access to high quality public amenities and advantageous employment, crime rates, and school performance - is sufficiently good that new home buyers are willing to play the odds and choose these neighborhoods over others in hopes they will improve rather than decline, and to explore potential intergovernmental policy solutions to stabilize and support these neighborhoods.

Committee of Housing Neighborhood Development and the Homeless
Chair: Councilman Allan Domb (At Large)
Vice Chair: Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell (3rd District)

A

Parent is being called to order. This is a public meeting public hearing of the City Council Committee on housing, Neighborhood, Development and the homeless.

A

The purpose of this public hearing is to hear testimony on resolution number one: seven zero, two five two we have a quorum present to my right is actually the chair of the committee, who has deputized me as his fellow council member to chair this meeting of, because the resolution at hand is one that I was fortunate to sponsor, with the support of all of my colleagues and to his right is our veteran she's, a veteran of the crew and the veteran of neighborhood economic development, and that's our Councilwoman Janie Blackwell to my left is kale councilman at-large al talbin burger, who is also just for the record, is the former head of the North East Chamber of Commerce, which will serve as well councilman as we move forward.

A

With this of this conversation, we recognize that a quorum of the committee members are present. In addition to that, I want to ask any of my colleagues: do they have any opening remarks before we begin since they don't? Let me just quickly just say that it is this book for those of you who are watching on television, this book that was edited by Paul Brophy on the edge America's middle neighborhood. That I was first introduced in 2016 at an event that was held at Temple University by congressman Evans.

A

We met with Paul Brophy, we heard from he along with IRA Goldstein, who we know from the reinvestment fund, and they gave us data to support this concept, something that we are all familiar with, that we know, but this thing had never had a name and Paul Brophy defines it as something called middle neighborhoods and we'll go a little further into that after the clerk reads. The title of the resolution being considered today, a.

B

Resolution calling for hearing I'm, Philadelphia neighborhoods, which are neighborhoods were housing, is typically affordable and were quality of life measured by access to high-quality public amenities and advantageous employment. Crime rates and school performance is sufficiently good that new home buyers are willing to play the odds and choose these neighborhoods over others in hopes they will improve rather than decline, and to explore potential intergovernmental policy solutions to stabilize and support these neighborhoods will.

A

The clerk please call the first panel to testify on the resolution and while that panel is actually coming forward,.

A

And while that panel is coming forward, would you call that group forward.

B

Congressman dry, Evans, Paul, Brophy and mark Desmond, let.

A

Me just say, while that panel is coming up this term, that Paul Brophy has defined for us middle neighborhoods. It is actually something that we know, because these neighborhoods have been defined as areas that are not thriving enough to attract sustained private investment and yet not trouble enough to warrant concentrated public attention. You will notice that there is a chart to our left up on the screen that gives a snapshot of the four point: three four billion dollars in revenue that is included in Philadelphia's FY 18 budget.

A

You will note that 45% of that is generated from the wage, tax and eighteen point. Five percent of that is generated from residential property taxes, and we say that because long before Philadelphia began to enjoy a surge in its population, growth, middle neighborhoods have served as the foundation of the city's tax base. In addition to that, many of you have a copy of this sort of informational slide that was developed by our Department of Revenue.

A

And if you look at this summary of the tax collections in the city of Philadelphia, middle neighborhood have the fewest delinquent tax, paying citizens in the city of Philadelphia and for those that are delinquent. They immediately enter into payment agreement. The end game here today, as my councilman fellow councilman, Alan dime as charelle. What do you hope comes out of this hearing?

A

I am hoping that, after we hear your testimony and the data that we're going to receive from the reinvestment fund that we will develop an intergovernmental strategy specifically directed towards how we will grow, invest, improve and preserve middle neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia. With that being said, it will the panel and we'll hear from Paul Brophy. First, please identify yourself for the record and feel free to summarize your testimony and and and not read it if you prefer well.

C

Councilwoman, thank you very much. I'm Paul, Brophy, proud to say I am a native Philadelphian, also very honored, to be here speaking before the distinguished council members on this very important subject: your wife Councilwoman kind of the publication of this book on the edge America's middle neighborhoods, which was published by the American assembly, a Columbia University based think tank was deliberately intended to stimulate this kind of discussion middle neighborhoods next slide.

C

Please are the kind of neighborhoods that are neither the most distressed neighborhoods in the city, nor are they the clearly swung neighborhoods in the city there in between. There were also neighborhoods that are not paid attention to in many respects. They're taken for granted, I, don't know who's moving the slides, but could someone move the next slide and one more please I want to start with me if you'll indulge me for a moment, this is the 4400 block of 7th Street in Hunting Park, all right, that's the street, where I grew up.

C

I grew up in what we understand. The retrospect was a middle neighborhood. This was a working-class neighborhood people paid their taxes.

C

These property values were modest, but they were increasing, and then this neighborhood neighborhood went through a level block busting in the 1960s, and then it really got that it became a crack headquarters in this city, and it was very, very painful to me to see the Nathan Butler, which was the trafficking place for crack, had been the location of my at knuckles grocery store, so I known with the pain of what can happen to the lives of people who see a middle neighborhood decline and also Councilwoman to echo.

C

Your point can also see what happens at the tax base in this city in this neighborhood as a decline. So I only show it to let you know that I lived in one of these places I understand what they can do if they work well, I also see what happens if they fall into decline. Next slide, please what are the characteristics? The housing is generally an acceptable condition. It's mostly single-family housing. They are vulnerable to decline. Property values are often flat.

C

The trajectory of what's happening is not clear and, interestingly enough, this was reported by, however Goldstein and his colleagues who wrote a chapter in this book that they're more racially diverse than either the strong or very distressed neighborhoods. Next slide. Please just the word of making sure we're on the same page in terms of understanding, neighborhood change in two ways.

C

First, we've months had a movement in this country, which was pushing for strong neighborhoods on the screen is a picture of Gail's in kata from the Austin neighborhood in Chicago, who discovered that lenders were not lending nearly as much in that neighborhood as people were saving in those same institutions, she got riled up organized a national coalition that led to the kinder year that Reinvestment Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, but there was a movement to strengthen neighborhoods that peaked in the Carter Administration when there was an office of neighborhoods in huh next slide, please in fact the Neighborhood Housing Services program that we know, which is currently run by NeighborWorks America, started off as a middle neighborhoods program.

C

It started in Pittsburgh Dorothy Richardson is somebody I knew she now is named as the name. The word security workers in the NHS model, Dorothy wrote worked with the lead executive of a Savings Loan Association to start to improve a middle neighborhood on Pittsburgh's North Side next slide, please, but then the emphasis shifted and appropriately we needed to focus on affordable housing in this country, but what happened was rather than a being of both and it became an either word. We focused on affordable housing almost exclusively and we lost the attention to neighborhoods.

C

In fact, often, community development is equated to affordable housing, but there are different things. Neighborhood improvement is about trying to stabilize neighborhoods, because nextslide neighborhoods compete with each other for residents and in an area like Philadelphia which until very recently has had a stable or shrinking population.

C

Neighborhoods competing successfully for residents is a very important element of keeping middle neighborhoods, strong and I'll get to in a second some of the challenges that they are facing in doing so so next life, so middle neighborhoods are these places that are housing, modest income, people in relatively inexpensive housing, affordable housing, sometimes the housing people call it naturally occurring affordable housing, and but what we found in producing the book is that there are more people living in these places than we expected anywhere from 35 to 55 percent of population in the cities we looked at live in little neighborhoods, but we don't think of it that way, because the federal government in emphasizing low-income neighborhoods has had our focus on one category of neighborhoods.

C

This book is arguing that we need to not only focus on those low-income neighborhoods but need to focus on middle neighborhoods. Let me use this analogy: isn't it cheaper to give somebody the preventive medicine that they need, rather than wait till they get sick and then treat them all right? We've been waiting for the patient to get sick.

C

We've been waiting for the neighborhood's to decline before we treat them this middle neighborhoods evidence suggests that we'd be much wiser and were financially pleased if we invested in our in these neighborhoods and before they decline rather than after next slide. Please there are many challenges facing these neighborhoods and I'll go through them break lookie there outlined in the book one as I think you know, the middle class in this country is shrinking. So if we're talking middle neighborhoods, we have a shrinking middle class and we have neighborhoods competing with each other.

C

We have a challenge in reaching people of modest incomes to live in these neighborhoods next slide. The second there's a level of sorting that's occurred. This happens to be some data from st. Louis that we looked at recently and what we're seeing is that the number of census tracts in st. Louis has reduced the middle. You can see lower middle income tracks, middle income tracks upper income tracks and in 2013 we had fewer people in st. Louis living in these middle-income tracks that we did earlier, so we're seeing sorting occur in this country.

C

Next challenge is that the aging housing stock is not meeting market demand. You know, I grew up in that thousand square foot house and fill it off in Hunting Park, one bathroom kind of a small toilet in the basement. It's not what people want today, so some of these houses have got to be modernized. We are seeing some things underway in some cities where some standardized modernization can make these properties more attractive to today's housing market. Next slide, please. We are also seeing that homeownership is declining. If you look here, you can see changes.

C

The number of home owners 2007 to 2013, so adelphia is losing homeowners, Detroit laws from big-time, but since these are mostly single-family neighborhoods, this is a challenge we have to make homeownership affordable, solve the mortgage issues, get people interested in buying homes in these neighborhoods very, very important next slide and, lastly, there's suburban competition in some areas. This happens to be a suburb of Baltimore. That house is selling for about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and so this is competing with middle neighborhoods. People look at this and say: well.

C

Maybe this is a better neighborhood from a crime perspective from a school's perspective, but we have to really market neighborhoods and often the middle neighborhoods. Reality is better than the middle neighborhoods perception in the housing market and so a lot of what's happening to try to remedy this is some very successful marketing and getting information out about middle neighborhoods around the country. Next slide, please. um So there are activities underway, they are sparse, but what we did in writing.

C

This book is look at a number of programs around the country next slide, please some of which are marketing like this North abroad, Geneva middle Maine. These are marketing programs supported in part by NeighborWorks America, the the largest of which is the most successful, which is healthy, neighborhoods, which you're going to hear about more fully from Marxist Minh. This is a Baltimore program that has been saving middle neighborhoods from decline very very important issue. So next slide please and go to the next one. Please there's a policy discussion we could have, but I think.

C

The key issue here is, as we focus on Philadelphia um I, think that the council, one Parker, I'm delighted that you've scheduled this hearing. The purpose, as you put it, is to think through the intergovernmental strategy necessary. This book doesn't call for a government program. This book calls for a mixture of activities from neighborhood residents and the reason I have this slide up. We have to remember it. Little starts with the people in these neighborhoods who have to care about them, have to love about love the neighborhoods as you're here from mark.

C

There are some approaches that can be used to help people see the assets in the neighborhood, rather than only seeing liabilities in the neighborhood. So this is very important. I think that getting intergovernmental strategies underway- and that includes banks as well as just intergovernmental, inter-sectoral as well banks foundations, the people in the neighborhood I've been very encouraged by the visitors who've been having around the country in the level of enthusiasm for the concept and the gratitude people are saying to me and the other authors I edited, but we've got mark Sisson.

C

As an author here, we've got our revolt scene and his colleagues here as authors for shining a light on these neglected places. Because, again, if we can invest in them now and keep them stable, we will be saving a lot of tax dollars by not letting these neighborhoods decline. Thank you very much. Councilman.

A

Presence of Councilwoman Marija, quinones, Sanchez and Paul, as you were talking about your growing up and living in hundred part that is Councilwoman phantasms district, just wanted to know that photo.

C

Right, I'm, sorry I'm not still around, so you can represent Thank You Allison Evan.

D

Thank you very much.

D

Wicked name is Dwight Evans, congressman of the second congressional district and I'd like to thank the Chairman and all members in particularly Councilwoman Parker, for taking the leadership on this particular event. I'm glad we all a joint here together as key players in the middle neighborhood space and conversation.

D

It is wonderful to bring us together a group of individuals who have been raising the dialogue in the conversation around the issue of middle neighborhoods, I arrived in Congress November, the 14th 2016 I'm new to Congress, but believe me, I've, been working on the issue of middle neighborhoods for many many years and I want to thank Beverly Coleman from Temple University who who constantly was bugging me, but as she used to sit with me at the septa meetings and say to me over and over again, we got to have this discussion.

D

As you know, I was in the state legislature for 36 years. Let's get down to what we're talking about today.

D

My friend, Paul Brophy, has so aptly described this element of middle neighborhoods and I applaud him as Councilwoman Parker did in terms of him putting a definition on this issue and I'll say that G, because this is an issue that I've been working on an awful long time. Let me just give you a little backdrop in the congressional district that I represent. That goes from broad and cheltenham to tasker and Reid and goes up to Villanova University.

D

It is probably one of the most diverse congressional district of all the districts there are in the city of Philadelphia and what I love about the district is the people and if Paul just described he described, they talked about the people in the bottom up and the question is: how do we address this?

D

So I'm happy as I mentioned, Beverly home and earlier that joining with Paul and Temple University, where we first kicked off this discussion and then from kicking off this discussion, then we took it to Washington DC to have a larger discussion with two congressmen, one from Flint, Michigan dan killed these and then Elijah Cummings from Baltimore and then joining with both of those congressmen. We had a briefing from a national perspective, there's no question that cities really need a partner and it is unthought-of that the city can address this issue without having a partner.

D

There's no question that Philadelphia is over. 40 percent of population live in these middle neighborhoods and the question is: we need to figure out. How do we take the stress, neighborhoods and move into middle neighborhoods, and how do we stabilize the neighborhoods that we have? That is the challenge that I see I'm, presenting to you, members of this committee, a list of legislation that has various status of positions within the United States Congress that I view that will contribute to the stability of mental neighborhoods.

D

For example, one of the things you hear Paul described that people compete make a decision because people don't just buy a house, they buy the neighborhood. So when Paul described to you about people competing for neighborhoods, one on one of the greatest challenges, I think in the case of the city of Philadelphia and the superintendent talked about, is the school buildings that we had. The superintendent came out and said that it would take five billion dollars to do something with the school buildings in the city of Philadelphia and I'm. Gonna.

D

Give an example that most of you may know when Washington Lane and Chu there's Roosevelt jr. high school was built in 1922, so you have Roosevelt during high school built in 1922, and then you have Witek and charter school that came online in 2016 right next to ricikan charter school is favor line is a branding supermarket.

D

So if you look at you Avenue and you walk down two avenues, you can see very specifically a building that is built in one in 1922, and so one of the first things that I did when I got to Congress is I borrowed the concept from President Trump President Trump took a old post office and use a technique that was in the tax code of 1986 that came up with President Reagan and Tip O'neill is called the prior youth tax credit, the rehabilitation.

D

So what I did and it's on your list is number one- is House. Resolution 922 is I, introduced that resolution and basically said that. Why can't we do the same thing with school buildings? Why can we put language in using the rehabilitation tax credit as a way to modernize these school buildings? Now that fits perfectly what Paul talks about, because if you're talking about competing in these middle neighborhoods, one of the first aspect is schools at the basis of it. That's the decision. People look at schools, they look at the business amenities.

D

They look at all that stickers as Allen when he came over there. The first thing he said Paul is: where is the restaurant I couldn't take him to relish I think I took him to a Jamaican restaurant across the street and he said he wanted to go to a few restaurants, because food is a part of it. So this concept that I introduced, which is in the Ways and Means Committee, now, is basically on the view of dealing with school buildings. Now this is not a problem as unique to filled-up it.

D

It is a national problem. I formed an alliance with a congressman from Virginia named I'm McEachin, and this is a problem that they had and Richmond has this problem and Baltimore has this problem?

D

The last place is that so, if you want to talk about dealing with middle neighborhoods- and you want to talk about the elements that Paul described in terms of attracting people- school buildings- which and y'all have done a great job here in the state- there's no way that you have to has to be by yourselves to address that issue and I do believe the federal government with the president talking about infrastructure, he saw about roads and bridges. I do believe schools should be a part of the infrastructure discussion.

D

Richard Nixon in 1960, debating John F Kennedy talked about the building of schools. John F Kennedy talked about the building of schools. We are at a point in this country that school buildings need to be addressed. So if you're talking about the issue, that Paul is talking about, there's no way, you cannot talk about growing stabilization of that without talking about school buildings.

D

In addition to that, we are at a point where these neighborhoods, as your own pocket said, are the stable aspect of our city and there's no way you want these neighborhoods to move into a declining state, because there's no way that city itself or the state or the feds will fire. So you need to support that necessary in terms of providing that to it. So what I am attempting to do in Congress is basically figure out ways and that's why I gave you the package of legislation is making some of these things happen.

D

I sit on the Small, Business, Committee and I, see you on Agriculture Committee and both of those committees. I think are essential to stability, one of the other ideas. That was the issue about supermarkets and food deserts, and that is an idea that we now have at a national level in the farm bill last year it was put in the farm bill about putting supermarkets something that started at the state level we now have taken in national. That is another part of stability in our communities. So if you talk about schools, you talk about supermarkets.

D

All those elements are part of attracting a stability community. So I'm going to stress to you as council people that you're not in this by yourselves, though, I heard what Paul said that he indicated, there's certain things that the city can do and there's no question and I think you have been doing a fantastic job on those circumstances.

D

I applaud you for the issues at your past I think it's a hundred million dollars I think that your past to try to deal with the waiting list in terms of what is it again home, sale, I, think that is a part of the equation. So I give you credit from a council perspective. I. Also, give you credit in terms of what you've done on your rebuild initiative.

D

I know, what's tough but I think what you have to pretend to do on your rebuild and your basic system, although those are important, but those of us in the federal government need to do our part. So this hearing I believe that you're conducting is really a plus in terms of trying to bring the focus together.

D

So let me just say this in closing: do in spite of what you read and what you see I'm, trying to stress you not to get caught in up in the day there are some people in Congress who are trying to figure out ways to work with cities.

D

It's not the way I would like it to be, but look I'm, not president, but they are there's a group of us Democrats and some Republicans who are trying to figure out ways to make and by having this discussion around middle neighbors as a council, you can send a message because I would like to see. Philadelphia, obviously be the laboratory where this return. I know in Baltimore, and Mark will talk about that.

D

You know Baltimore feel that they have a lot of common denominator, so I just want to come here and just basically stress to you that you're, not in this alone, and that we are paying attention. Thank you very much.

E

Thank you, I'm Marxist man, I'm, the president of healthy neighborhoods, in Baltimore Maryland. We have been doing this stuff for about 12 years. Three, quick things on the front end. One is in Baltimore from time to time. People from other places come to tell us how we should run our city. That's not what this is. We we hope you take what we do and make it fit in your city and use it the way you want.

E

Secondly, no one in Baltimore sat down in the front end of this and laid out exactly how we're going to run healthy neighborhoods. We had a mission, we saw a problem, and each year we weave a to our strategies that our resources change, some of them and you'll see some of that. But from time to time we make this presentation and people say: I can't do this in my city, it's too much. We couldn't do either, and but this is real we're getting this done.

E

So let me take you through the principles, the guiding principles we wrote just before we came to visit the Congress a couple weeks ago, which we, what what is it we've been doing? One is everything we do is about strategies and assets of neighborhoods, which in Baltimore may be in your neighborhoods. We complain a lot. We complain about trash. We complain about the Orioles, we complain about the Ravens and if you complain just enough, no one wants to live in your neighborhood, and so we focus on what works.

E

Paul said we compete for residents, we all do. How do we make our neighborhood better, fundamentally fundamental to our work? Is we ask neighborhoods to buy into the fact that appreciation works at a neighborhood? If mrs. Smith brought a house with her family facing her and run Park in Baltimore 20 years ago for $80,000, and now it's worth 85, she didn't make a good deal and that she's not going to put more money into the house and she's going to have trouble selling it to the next family.

E

So all of our strategies, all of our tools, are about helping build appreciation. We want positive neighborhood action. We ask people to take control of their neighborhood, I told this horrible story. My my wife was a senior official in the health department in the city and one day we walked out of our house and somebody run over a rat. This happens in cities before I took this job.

E

I would have said to my wife, Barbara call the health department in to come pick this up, because that's what we do not not in a healthy neighborhood I asked my teenage daughter. Did you want to take the plastic shovel or the vet? We were going to clean it up ourselves now, because we didn't want people driving past off since eating. That's true about everything we do in healthy neighborhoods. We ask people to take control of their block their house, their neighborhood.

E

Our programs aren't income restricted. If somebody earns a lot of money, we'd love to have them move into our neighborhood, it's ok, ok, they might even over improve it. We think over in pooling properties is a good thing. Our loan program actually lends more than the value of the house to get people to do that, we're in the granite counter type cup business instead of the Formica. We're not we're not. We don't close people just to me code and every loan we make and we made nearly 600 require some exterior improvement.

E

We want neighbors to see the end results that maybe a roof. It maybe painting a portrait, maybe planting flowers and trees, but we want the neighbors and the people driving through it to see change and value is built by over improver.

E

We've worked a lot with private capital by the time you finish this hearing, you will spend more time hearing about healthy neighborhoods in the ten years of council people in Baltimore weed those out program with a lot of bank commitment, a lot of foundation commitments, neighborhood leaders, bank presidents, foundation leaders met to concede of this program and then brought it to the government, it's their program they've bought in, and that was very important to us.

E

We built a community oriented system. Every neighborhood one has a strong community organization they help in the marketing, but they also not go on a door somebody's having trouble paying alone back and that it turns out. That's really important to the banks that lend money in our neighborhoods and make concessions.

E

They believe that a system of neighborhood organizations marketing and engage mitigate risk, and if we're banking, asking banks to lend more than the value of a property, they want to know that, if there's a problem, somebody can step in and help neighborhood groups really do that. Well, we start on the best locks first, because that's less expensive that is visible and we demand measurable results. We're looking every few months at certain real estate markers our values going up are new people buying.

E

Are there more we have permits in their word of the year before that encourages the people that fund us banks and foundations, another city to see that we're making a difference. It goes beyond stories, it's about real numbers and they're, simple numbers to get so next slide. Please, like every good organization. This is our mission statement. We spent a lot of time with it. We work in strong but undervalued, neighborhoods, they're, good places. They just didn't that values don't increase in people on putting enough back.

E

We ask people to market their communities and we want to push up home values and we, we believe in community organizing neighborliness people getting together having festivals, having parties is really an important part of city living and we'll spend a little money to make that happen.

E

This is a map of Baltimore, the purple Pinker healthy neighborhoods, which should be important to you, is every kind and shape some of you have visited with us a couple of weeks ago and got to see them. They are real house neighborhoods. There are more modern row house neighborhoods, they are freestanding on steroids. You can buy a house of them for $70,000. We can buy a house in for 300,000 willing. Them was a commitment to the principles that we have lack of appreciation fraying around the edges and a strong neighborhood organization.

E

That said, we buy into this philosophy, that's what join them and so very different kinds of places. Next slide, please! Oh, what a lot of places in Baltimore doing a lot of things. This is I used to work at the Enterprise. Foundation, really stuffed our numbers so that we impress funders. These are real numbers.

E

Okay, we were in 39 years in the city we've invested between one big federal grant and seventy million dollars of bank money, one hundred and forty six million dollars in these name, mostly on terms that wouldn't have happened without our loan pool. Without our program, home values have gone up, was kind of ventured into some other rehab, because we develop capacity to do it. We've got marketing strategies for each neighborhood.

E

He what we discovered was our neighborhood partners were good at giving out paper, but when people started to look for houses, they looked on the internet, and so if every neighborhood didn't have a good website that sold messages that talked about house values that talked about schools or other assets, it was falling behind and in a lot of our neighborhoods Realtors who were selling houses, knew nothing about the neighborhood I came from somewhere else, and so there's a lot of educating of Realtors.

E

And how does that come together for us on giving you a vision of a home tour? We had last fall. It start with 40 people are very nice boss on Saturday. They started in the office of David Wilson as the president of Morgan State University. He welcomed into his neighborhood because the neighbors around them around his college. They went from there and saw three or four open houses met, Realtors and open houses. They then went to visit the charter, public and Catholic schools in the neighborhood. They were all they're all high-performing.

E

The principles met them in each one gave them the tour families look for schools, families, look for schools that are welcoming. They came back with bought them lunch in a neighborhood restaurant, that's selling the neighborhood. That was all done in concert with three neighborhood groups. It's got a different feel Marketing. Really matters neighborhoods. Do that! Well, look for the next slide. We've spent over a decade a lot of money on supporting neighborhoods. We fund little capital projects, they may be Street plantings.

E

They may be putting automatic lights on the fronts and houses they may go to neighborhood signs. We do lots of marketing every neighbor. Has a website doesn't cost a lot to create one? We provide materials uh and neighbors where the lots of Luis mattock families are in Spanish. There are home stairs, there are home visits, there are tours.

E

None of this is new to you, probably, but there's a lot of scale to it, and we want our neighbor partners to spend time doing the marketing not raising money in bake sales, and so we have money that will yell in thousand and two thousand dollar increments helps people get stuff done. Getting stuff done is really important to us.

E

We have 2 very good loan pools. They are at scale the first loan pool raising their Lea 40 million dollars from 10 banks will tell you what they connect to we've had 173 loans left. We made nearly 300 loans in the first one. The second loan pool raised 30 million. One of the differences for us is the regional banks that bought a lot of the first loan pool, don't exist any longer and we market a lot more small community banks and one of the important things we learned about them is CRA enforcement matters.

E

Yes, okay, we get a lot of calls from small banks. Saying. Can you help me? The regulators are at my door. I haven't done my share of lending in Baltimore. We want to be in your loan pool, quick, we're happy to oblige them, but that's important. It's important part of this. What makes our loan pool different and debt we wanted to make it possible for neighbors to compete, so our loan pools do three things we acquire and renovate will pay for. Refinance and Rehab will do home improvement loans.

E

All of them share one thing: they improve properties, we're not simply helping people buy. You got to fix up. You got to do something on the outside. How do we pay for that? We will lend more than the after. We have value of apps, so we go to 110 percent of the after. We have value. That's kind of like the hub 203k per room, but we don't require mortgage insurance, okay and so that by itself that saves more than half a point a year for them. How do we do that?

E

We went through the banks and said you should take some more risk and we went to three foundations in the state government said when you take some of the top ten percent of our state, so we lend more and we don't require mortgage insurance premium and our loan pool is always a four percent or 1 percent below market, but never less than four excuse me.

E

So in an environment where interest rates are going up between a concession on the loan amount fixed for 30 years and no mortgage insurance, we're probably saving families 2%, which $100,000 house is to lend yield, that's no small incentive and it's all private. None of this is about block grants or city grants or mentoring grants. We provide free architectural advice, helps people figure out what to do in their kitchens or in their backyards.

E

It also gives the bank's comfort that, on the rehab side, somebody's reading a contract to make sure it can be done and if something goes wrong, we help fix it with that architect. No upper income limits that speaks for itself, credit score of 620, that's better than most of what's in the market. Now the city got a little bit embarrassed over time that we were doing this and they weren't. So they gave us some metric.

E

We have grant money if you borrow ten from us Wilmette fund 10,000 for renovation, so at $10,000 we have job that turns into $20,000 of money to do more, rehab, again improving the property holder in the property. How do we know works our home values going up? That's pretty simple: immeasurable is the tax base going up the houses so more quickly decreased I'm on the market? We we spend a lot of time with realtors. Are people putting more money and our does?

E

The permit desk in Baltimore show leap, more rehab permits, and finally, is there more neighborhood activity and organizing that's tougher to measure? Are there block parties? Are there marketing events? Is their neighborhood night out, for you know, for the community? Is somebody showing a movie? Is the literally getting more applicants to play? All those things show confidence in the neighborhood and that's a part of the reason people six creating neighborhoods?

E

That's what we do we're happy, if you beg, borrow and steal our documents, our strategies, we'd love, to have more people, come to Baltimore, to see what we do. It's real, not because I say it, but because we have neighborhood leaders who've, you know who will talk to you about what we do. We don't it doesn't work in every neighborhood. There are places that are too tough and poor for us, but we can make a difference in neighborhoods that Paul described.

E

We can make a big difference over time. We can do with a lot of private money. Thank you for listening. Thank.

A

You first, let me say special thanks to each of you. I know we're under some time constraints for for all three of you and so we're going to have some questions from our panel I wanted to say a special thanks to congressman Evans congressman. Thank you for putting on a record that, in essence, Philadelphia has already taken some action to address these issues. Ie rebuild you mentioned the one hundred million dollars generated from my point: zero one percent increase in a realty transfer tax.

A

That's projected to generate 100 million dollars, 60 million going to address the basic systems home repair program and forty million dollars mark to do exactly what you just described and the healthy neighborhoods program for the reviving sort of loan rehab fund is, is one that we've been using in addition to that, Paul I wanted to say a special thanks to you for noting that this intergovernmental sort of cooperative planning strategy that we're talking about is the acts government to sort of come together and very intentionally take inventory of all of the programs it currently offers because, as the congressman stated, we are already doing some things to address these issues.

A

But how can we partner with the private sector and a Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, is here today, along with wonderful organizations like our Community Development Corporation's that are functioning it neighborhood and they do it better than government could ever do it? How do we find a way to have a specific strategy directed to these neighborhood? So thank you.

D

If I could councilman anything on ahead to a mark, mark talked about activities and, since all of you and myself are elected, I would argue voting participation. You will see in neighborhoods that are middle neighborhoods and you do the history. You will see a higher motive affinity turn out. So look at the voting. Turnout of these neighborhoods mark talked about the activities I saw. The voting participation number is higher in his labor, so.

A

I just want to just put a pin in that higher sieve. High civic engagement, voting participation, high rate of taxpaying citizens, and even if they are delinquent, they are highly likely to enter into a payment agreement and the rate of home ownership is higher than the average city of Philadelphia we're about at 51. A 52 percent at many of these neighborhoods you'll see 60 to 80 percent of home ownership. So point will taken councilman Allen down. Who is that access, as our expert realtor right, Thank.

F

You councilman Parker thing and thank you to the panel where we got a few questions. I just wanted to ask: could you maybe mr. Brophy, can you define for me what your opinion is on the price ranges of middle-income housing prices and middle-income per Philadelphia income and Jenna when.

C

Ira goes chains up in the next panel. He can give you more specific information, but we basically looked and looking at housing. Price range that is just below and just above the median for the city is what we're looking at I wouldn't give you those numbers for Philadelphia and I would add to that councilman that these are also neighborhoods like marks, describing where they're not volatile in terms of gentrification.

C

These are neighborhoods that are kind of the struggle is one of getting them to appreciate, rather than be flat or declining, but the kind of people moving into the neighborhoods mark, described or kind of very much like a people living there. So those prices don't jump crazy. They do hopefully begin together on a constant kind of upward cycle, but there are 80 to 120 percent of area media. The.

F

Other question on a couple other questions was what we're seeing in Philadelphia is that the suburban prices in general I'm sending this message out there, people buying in the suburbs today I don't believe their values will hold in the next 10 years. They're actually going down, there's very few areas where people are seeing increases in value, but they are seeing it in the city, so in some ways is may in we sorted I, guess, starting in the 60s and 70s.

F

We saw this tremendous migration of the middle-income population go to either South Jersey or Bucks County or other Delaware County, and those home prices today will not be in five years. What they are today they'll be lower. I.

C

Do think there's been a shift in preferences right city living is obviously back if you will and most cities we're seeing an increase in demand, which is great I, do a lot of work in cities that have a flat population and so they're back to this competition question is trying to position these middle aggregates, so they can get some attention paid to from the market because it's not always obvious to the market. These places are good places to live so.

F

Let me ask you another question, because I saw a chart recently about Philadelphia compared to 25 other cities, and it's said that our average income in Philadelphia is towards the bottom compared to other cities. So what it means to me is the jobs that we have available in our city: don't pay as much on average as other cities are paying which hurts our middle neighborhoods and our lower neighborhoods too.

F

So in that context, and the Pennsylvania economy recently had a report that said in the last fourteen years, 25 percent of all jobs in this area were in technology. Okay and we've had a hundred thousand Millennials move here in the last ten years, and it's, albeit last twelve months, had the highest percentage of Millennials of any major city moving to our city, going through what congressman evidence at about the schools- and I 100% believe, what can we do? Could we target middle neighborhoods to be the models of schools that specialize in technology?

F

For this reason, one will become a magnet to you'll, be able to get employment in that field and take me to a higher level and it might alter the neighborhood. Let.

C

Me let me answer resounding. Yes, let me also tell you a related story in Baltimore, which we took a look at the schools in the middle neighborhoods. That marks program is helping. There was a general belief among people living in the neighborhoods and in the market that these schools are not performing well, it turned out a closer analysis, show that some of them were performing well above state standards.

C

So one of the local foundations provided some mini grants to some of these schools to begin to count the fact that they were better than they thought that the market thought and one of my favorite examples of how some of that money was used. The kids, the teachers, the principal's and one of these schools had a breakfast to invite the real estate agents in one morning to show them the screen, because the real estate agents have never been in the school play.

C

Some of these schools are better than his thought point be to reference your point: let's get these schools teaching kids for tomorrow's jobs, it'll be an attractive feature to moms and dads moving into the neighborhoods as well, and.

F

To take that a step further, you know I've actually visited 31 public schools so far, including Rowan elementary up on Avenue.

C

F

A mouse with Councilman Parker when we visited that school and I will say this I'd say 99% of schools. I visit are exactly what you said way better than what people think and we have to get the press to talk about those good schools. So the only schools that make the paper the four or five schools a year that have a problem and the other 220 that are doing a great job. Nobody hears about them. So we would never say on that.

F

The other thing I wanted to mention, though, would it also be beneficial for the high schools? I love, a school called Cristo Rey Cristo Rey is I, think 5200 North Broad, it's moving to 17th and Allegheny. What? If we took high schools in these middle neighborhoods, it adopted a concept that Cristo Rey does where the child works one day a week from 9th 12th grade and a different job. Every day of the week we are evolution. Oh that's!

F

What we're missing in the in the country really the connection of Education and employment and that connects the two and Christa Ray's doing phenomenal with that? Yes, right have.

C

F

That model anywhere in the public school.

E

F

E

F

Tell us a few there.

E

Is a crystal raid in Baltimore, another challenge for us and what's more about that, is it's a citywide school and so it doesn't add value to a particular neighborhood, some of our best school high schools or citywide. And so you can't say this is my neighborhood school. But too quick. You write about personal, a it does a great job for gates, but.

F

What can we take a public school I'm going to use councilman, Parker's district Remenham, councilman Blackwell's district and do a Christa array type model in the public public school? We connect the kids in ninth and 12th grade with jobs and then have employment, and they learn for different job experiences and they're going to have skills and get exposed and I have Cristo Rey here and in my real estate office and I will tell you. The exposure for these kids is great. I'm believed positive.

F

Some of them haven't even been in an elevator and haven't had the exposure and they're doing very well, but with Cristo Rey in Philadelphia. If I recall, 92 percent of the kids graduated 100 percent went on to college. You.

D

You can, and it is happening right now- take Penn Alexander Penn Alexander is a perfect example of an alliance that was formed with the school district and it was formed specifically targeted to Penn's population. Now that is an example right there Jenny black walls area. That is an example of how you're building that connection you got Saint Joe you got LaSalle you. You could see that I'm gonna go back to something Paul said and I want to skip over. You know we have this larger debate. Around health.

D

T'pol talked about preventive. Now, if you use a preventive strategy, it'd be far more efficient on your budget, your budgets about four billion dollars right. If we had more discussions and that's why I give Councilwoman Parker and you, as the chair of this committee, credit by having this public space discussion, see I think what happens in the process. Is we don't have this kind of discussion? What happens? Is you act into it? So I think you have examples.

D

I just gave you pet Alexander, Crystal Ralphie on Broad, Street I know both of those locations and their example. So we have to amplify those examples, as mark talked about in Baltimore and those of us in public office. You don't have to amplify that and talk about it and point to it and I give credit to the mayor and the council with getting stability on the teachers contract.

D

That is a very important element, so you have to soak all those elements until you have them, but you got to communicate it and that's what Mark said what's lacking is the marketing communications aspect to all in this discussion. So by you having this hearing and the three of us here and I mean I said we did it at Temple with Beverly Coleman and didn't it. We got to do more of this and that's why I'm saying to you, counselor counselor,.

A

Table Berg thank.

G

You, madam chairman and panel, or congressman Evans and mr. Brophy and mr. Sussman I. Thank you. Your expertise is much much enlightening. I have a question over mr. Sussman. The the healthy neighborhoods organization that you had you are only in Baltimore is at the Amuro I.

E

Run the Baltimore healthy neighborhoods, there are people around the country doing just what you're doing, which is trying to figure out how to take concepts like this and apply them in there from you, so in Milwaukee, via the Milwaukee Foundation has done this, but I think we're probably at a bigger scale for all sorts of reasons. There's.

G

Similar organizations like what you're not connect, no.

E

No we're not we're not franchise library. Okay, no well we'd be happy to come visit with you. What you need to work welcome to Baltimore to learn how to do this chat with.

G

E

G

E

By run by day or by lunch, but no we're this is local. This is multiple I'm.

G

Rather, very impressed and I also want to thank council and Walker for bringing this forward, because I think we're all learning quite a bit. How old is your organization in the sensor depends.

E

Who's counting I've got we're similar between 11 and 15 years old. We started as pilot for a small community foundation and then grew it private, so yeah, private, yeah and and.

C

What a Milwaukee is actually sponsored by the Milwaukee Community Foundation, okay. Well, thank you and.

G

And and the municipal dollars, meaning dollars from the city, we.

E

Got we get some money from the city, but I know I've worked in city government for long time, I think it's very hard to run this kind of organization inside the city government, because, because we're all trained in the government to focus on the toughest places and the poorest problems at income restrictions and we've had a lot of flexibility to be creative. You.

G

Mentioned something that sparked a great interest in myself and mounted chair, and that is that you got the real estate and the school sort of cooperating at an open house and well.

E

We try it works some places. It works better than others. In the example that Paul described there were kids, you know and a principal who got it. This idea this is I, can make my school better by making it more open to the people selling the neighborhood and we've got a few different versions that we we did some training under the same ground. We discovered it in a couple of public schools.

E

They weren't very good the people at the front, desks, weren't, very good at marketing to new parents, so somebody came in with a four or five year. Old and I want to see what you're doing in the school when it wasn't as welcoming as it might have been to a notice everything that's about market.

D

The a is an example that Houston and Henry parents did the same thing. They invited the really terms really took them on tour. Basically, in the mad at West binary's area, they took the the relatives, they did the same thing. Unfortunately, they only got like local publicity.

D

So what mark is describing has been done in Maya and West Mountain area and theoretically it could be done. City life I mean if you want to do it. It's really organizing to what Marcus described for this I know that could teach the parents at Henry and Houston did the same thing, because Paul said it correct. Most relatives would all due respect. They made know somebody particular property, but they don't know anything about the community. That.

G

Is correct and.

D

That's what you see and you and I both know from a long-dead record. We see what happens in Longdale short, like that. They don't know that they know that property, but they don't know the amenity correct connected with it and you're, not that fourth of July many times in Long Rising Sun Avenue that in itself look at that community I know that's in Councilwoman Parker's area is the 35th Ward three four four three two one, but that's it that's another devil. So what well mark and Paula both talking about where a deficiency is?

D

Is the market I? Don't think, there's any entity to my knowledge in the city of to lucky, like that, I mean you kind of have the CBC organizations and I don't know if the CBC organizations does something like that. Y'all could tell me better if they did I don't know yeah.

A

D

Cbc's I, don't look, they do anything like that. Well,.

G

Iii think it's excellent. What what I'm hearing and mr. Susman are you invited into a neighborhood or you just say: hey, you guys need us. Well, I won't be here. We.

E

Selected neighborhoods by competition three three times, if you wanted to be part of this, we said tell us what the assets are. Okay, so you know dealing with the identity and we don't want to be in places where the neighborhood doesn't buy him correctly. So you know, and so there's neighborhood buy and it's got to be the good organization. It's got to get the marking. I just got to have a real board.

E

That participates, and you know it, and so we've got some of the best CDC's and nonprofits in Baltimore that are participating and they bring their own take on it. How to do it? We're not creating a market went up branding each neighborhood that they've got to figure out what the assets are. Art I mean in some places the solidity in some places. It's great restaurants and yeah. We discovered that neighborhood, gardens and farms are a great marketing tool for the next generation of homeowners.

E

We didn't know that going in, and so it's a little bit different in each place, but we're invited by.

G

Your bylaws or charter, are you limited to being in Baltimore proper or you can work in the Baltimore in a ring suburbs? We've.

E

Been invited a few times to work in the suburbs and the foundations who are well represented on our board has said: if we're competing with the suburbs, you can't go out and help them compete. Well, so so we've not. We can come visit with you and be helpful here, but I we're competing I think we are a city institution because.

G

Many times the inner rings numbers, for example,.

E

G

And, and and even Abington Bensalem have some of the same problems that we're facing I just had any. Unless you were a student of politics, a New Philadelphia all that. Well, you wouldn't know when you cross the city line you every would know that I mean.

E

Sir, we've approached our work with an awful lot of discipline. We could be in lots of places doing lots of things. We have a modest amount of money, a few staff people and we've got if we ask the neighborhood's to concentrate on certain block certain message: we've got to do the same thing, and so we we've been pretty disciplined. Thank.

G

You, madam chair, thank you very much. Thank.

A

You I'm going to councilman down, but before that I want to ask you again. I know you all you know had some trains and other things that you have to get them quickly, probably and mark constantly mentioned income guidelines, and when I talked about middle neighborhoods in Philadelphia often talked about the constituency. That is not wealthy, but they usually make a nickel over the income guidelines in order to be eligible for some programs that are often offered tell me about why the relaxed income guidelines are so important for the success of what you do.

E

You're relaxed on two sides of this one is we we're thrilled if people of means want to pick our neighborhoods it, it sends a message. It's a positive message. On the other hand, because we're not just credit score well, we were able to look at all the facts and circumstances around every loan and every family and we've been able to bend and stretch to get people into our program. Creating homeowners and improving properties is the end result and it's.

E

The goal is to make loans not to reject people and so and we've exerted, we hired a bank to run the loan program for us, but but it turns out that we knew more and our neighborhoods knew more about the real estate market than they did, and so we've become the fact of credit officers on this, and we can. We can get people in under the line.

E

I would I would imagine in Philadelphia, you've got CDC's and other neighborhoods that know every nook and cranny of the neighborhood or know more than the appraisers and more than a bank loan officers, and we we've been able to inflict that knowledge on the banks. So.

A

I wanted to say thank you, I hope. Our council president Darrell Clarke is listening. I wanted you to go on a record with that, because the bill that allowed us to increase the realty transfer tax was a bill that I introduced on his behalf. The B SRP program is traditionally, it has been funded via development block grant money, and we know that when we talk about the income guidelines for where that Community Development Block Grant money can be used, we're restricted to certain regions. In addition to that, I want to take this. For the record.

A

The city of Philadelphia's guidelines for using those dollars are even more restrictive than the federal guidance that that was by a council decision that took place some time ago to deal with some challenges, but I just wanted you to say that on the record, because the forty million dollar portion is what our council president has talked about and though he'll be pleased to hear that councilman down and then Calculon see a chance to have any questions.

A

F

You thank you, counselor I think this is a question for you Paul. What do you think is the number one reason why people have left cities and gone to the suburbs. Well,.

C

Multiple reasons I think we have since the end of World War two sold the American Dream as being a suburban dream and the weather. That's the classic kind of house with a white picket fence image, I'm glad that the markets, shifting the other way I think what's happening. Is the next generation understands and feels that density is a positive, not negative, that being able to get to work without getting at a car is a positive rather than negative, I think we're seeing shift in general kind of attitudes and mores about where we live.

C

There was a researcher for Brookings, in fact the Brookings Institution, who took a look and said we have now too many suburban single-family houses in this country, because the demand is shifted to cities and but I think there's a long history as to why and don't forget. We also had a situation in which the federal government made it easier to get mortgages and suburbs than they did in central cities and I. Think that's over too so.

F

I mean when I see going on, which I think is a positive, is that the internet is the city's best friend you had, because every urban city right now is doing well, I think it's doing well, because maybe the younger population spends a lot of time during a day working by themselves or on the internet, and they crave socialization in evening and that's where the city and these neighborhoods can play a big role right. You know, pure, we had a report about the Millennials when their kids get to kindergarten.

F

The percentage that leave the city I think the report in six months ago was 52% of our Millennials, but what they didn't mention those 15 years ago was over 90 percent left right. So right, we've made tremendous strides in a positive way. We still have almost half leaving, but we're doing way better than we did. 15 years really has changed address, so it I mean I. Do think that Congressman Evans idea with the schools is that is the hook.

F

I think you put a great school in each of these neighborhoods people gonna want to live there and Penn Alexander's. A great example anyway, thank you from thank youing.

A

H

And I'll be brief. I think I want to thank the councilman for bringing this forward and some of the data sets that have been provided. That I think it's hugely in for informative in terms of informing us around strategy, one of the things we've done with other programs and projects. We look at value of investment versus return, and none of this do I see kind of that direct correlation of.

H

If we put in one dollar, you know the value and we've seen it in our blight initiatives when we've done the land here, you know the minute, you fix a lot every vacant property on a block, devalue the entire block by 7,000, and is there that kind of ratio? Is anybody looking at that to say for every $1 we invest in middle neighborhoods? What's the return, whether its value or something else, another data set? We.

E

Haven't done it that way, we've looked at increased tax base, increased tax payment, but we we haven't done that analysis to say if, if there's a dollar but but in simple terms, if we're matched funding rehab, if a bank puts in 10,000 in the city matches it. Oh that's a dollar for dollar a match and then values go up. On top of that. So I we haven't it's the problem with having a smaller organization. We've. We don't spend money on research, but we see we see results, there's a nerve, but.

C

Councilwoman, let me just ask mark to further comment: the actual investment of public funds relative to the private investment, that's home equity and it's bank money is such that you've got a very high-level area with yeah we're.

E

From the city side, we're probably three or four to one Kalea and and the city money is mostly passed through to fund marketing at the neighborhood level or improve it increased rehab. That's not it's not organizational to us, but and we've created an environment where banks, while we were, is money from banks, we're making it possible for other lenders that are not part of what we do to feel more comfortable in the city.

E

If we never made alone, but Bank of America made a lot of loans in neighborhoods that they might have passed by or PNC, we would have done well and so we're creating a level of confidence. huh But it's slow right. It's incremental! No.

H

No, it's clear clearly one of the things you know in councilman Parker's. It has really highlighted this. We need to have a strategy and a policy about what we do and.

E

H

Just think, to the extent that we can quantify that I think.

E

H

Basic systems is a perfect example of how far were willing to go right. I lived in Hunting, Park and I came in when you know my first March was with Jesse Jackson around at Mason Butler councilman Tesco I worked for her at that particular time and and I think as a city we've, you know from our tax payment plan you know today we just launched the tap program that this council moved forward. That's going to create an affordability plan, I think if the city wants to stick to its core values around home ownership.

H

This is the next series of what do we do? You know to support those middle neighborhoods. You know some of the data sets that that reinvestment provides is like. I have not no high market. You know all most of my neighborhoods are either distressed or in that middle income, Oxford Circle, and when we started looking at those data that 44% of the people in 62nd ward have a delinquent water bill. It's like stuff that we can really chip away at if we're willing to be a little bit more flexible around the qualification piece.

H

So I think it's it's huge and, to the extent that we can start narrowing in on, if we're going to make and again I come from a CDC world right, we're doing block to block I like to figure out from a housing preservation strategy. What do we do? How do we help people understand their newfound equity right, particularly as we talk about a bi, so yeah, I guess the question for us is: what are the data sets?

H

We have to start looking at right now and generating so that there is a value to the investment that we should be making all right. Thank.

A

You Thank you Thank You, councilman, Calvin, Calvin Berger and then we'll ask our next panel to sort of move closer I.

G

Have a very, very, very quick question for for mr. Sussman and once again, thanks again for this information, it's very very important and I'm going to be able to be part of it. Mr. Sussman, the question I have for you is just once again on your governance, I'm very impressed with what I'm hearing about your organization. Are you limited? We talked about the suburbs and so on, but Baltimore is also a county and a city. Are you just limited to the city limits, or are you also in the county of Baltimore.

E

No, we were set up to work in the city, Baltimore.

G

E

Invest City now.

G

And nowhere else in this video.

E

There's nothing that stops us from doing it. I.

G

E

But no we're we're doing Baltimore City work, there's.

C

Planning to do.

E

Yep and and and the banks are challenged to make loans in the city, so I think yeah.

G

Yeah, no, it's your your right on and how many my final question. So how many neighborhoods would you say, you're involved in public.

E

Say well in 39 neighborhoods that are supported by 11 CDC, like organizations, so we've got 200 neighborhoods in Baltimore that are drawn on a map, see so what we could probably be in another 30 or 40 easily. If resources were there to support the neighborhood work, we you know, we we believe in neighborhood, organizing and marketing. I have to be the resources to do that. So thank.

I

B

Very much thank.

E

You thank you thanks for doing this,.

B

Ira Goldstein Andrew fresh craft, Yvette, Nunez and Tom D'alessio.

A

Councilman Sanchez I think your question. Actually you just teed up IRA goes to his reputation from the reinvestment fund and to hear from the chamber. So thank you.

J

J

Sure my name is IRA Goldstein and I. Am the president of policy solutions? An organization called reinvestment fund come here today to talk to you a little bit about some of the work that we did included in the volume council person Parker that you held up before Paul broke these volume and then to give you some additional informations that we gathered as we were, trying to localize it much more and bring it more up-to-date for the city of Philadelphia before I get too far along I.

J

Just want to mention that my co-authors Jacob Russian dose wrecker with me, as well as my colleague, Emily Dowdle, who were part of the group of people who who did this work so I'm speaking on behalf of them all next slide, please.

J

So when we think about middle markets, as we did in in the volume and as we do here in the city of Philadelphia, what we try and do is to think about them really in the context of what the conditions are in those places.

J

We've for many years now done real estate market analyses here in the city of Philadelphia oftentimes, supported by the city and sometimes by the foundation, sometimes both that look at a very granular level at the real estate market in Philadelphia, through something known as the market value analysis that takes into account not only home sale prices, but things like owner occupancy rates, subsidized rental, housing, vacancy rates, foreclosures things of that nature, and when we think about real estate markets, we put all those things together and it's out of that that we extract what we think are the middle markets of the city of Philadelphia.

J

So next slide, please, if you sort of take that granular analysis and then just sort of raise it up a little bit. What we did for purposes of today is to think about really carving Philadelphia's markets into three basic strata: the purple markets on that map being the strongest real estate markets in the city of Philadelphia, the salmon colored ones being those that have some elements of distress in them and then the yellow areas being what we want to focus on for today's comment. Being the middle markets.

J

Absolutely so, as you see there, we have the city of Philadelphia carved into those three strata and just for purposes making it easy to look at.

J

We added the council districts on there next slide, please what we've observed in terms of what the data look like for the city is, firstly, that Philadelphia's middle markets are actually growing at a reasonably nice pace, so in other words, if we were to look at the population in those areas in calendar year, 2000 from census, 2000 on up through 2015, what we observe is actually about a four point: seven percent increase, which does outstrip the overall population growth for the city.

J

It's not as fast as in some of the most strongest real estate markets here in the city of Philadelphia, but it certainly is a population growth that is stronger than in the distressed areas. I would note also that we think, by using all those different indicators about the market at about 40 41 percent of the city's real estate markets fall within that middle market strata.

J

One of the other things that we identified was that these are places actually that, as we see changing, you know the changing profile of the city. These men of markets are actually places where we're seeing a very significant growth in the foreign-born population of the city of Philadelphia, so the immigrants coming into the city, who were really in some measure, fueling the city's population growth, are finding themselves either in the first or second move into the city in these middle market neighborhoods, and these areas are providing. What we believe is a as Paul described it.

J

A good quality of life, good set of opportunity for people to sort of come into the city, become integrated into the city's economic and social fabric and really to sort of a little a high quality life next slide. Please.

J

One of the things we did observe as we started to break apart, the middle neighborhoods of the city of Philadelphia by the racial and ethnic characteristics is in actuality. The the area of the middle market, areas that tended to have larger concentrations of an african-american population didn't do quite as well in terms of population change in fact, actually continued to see a slow population decline. However, the areas that were large in terms of the proportion of the Hispanic population upwards of 25%, which in the city of Philadelphia, is a relatively high percent.

J

Those areas did very well in terms of population growth, as did just the mixed neighborhoods, these areas that do find a mixture of african-american people and Hispanic people and Asian people and people foreign-born populations. Those are the areas that actually did really quite well in terms of their population profiles. Next slide, please.

J

I was led to believe that you all might be interested in seeing how this might break out by council district, so I decided to do a slide that broke out the populations by council district, and one of the things that we do observe is that some of the council districts are really substantially more home to these middle market areas than others, and particularly council person. Parker's district is really very heavily a middle market area as well as a councilman Haman's district. Those are the areas.

J

Those are the two districts, the two council Manek districts that have the largest concentrations of middle market communities. Next slide. Please.

J

In terms of incomes, these are unadjusted for inflation. What we observed is in Philadelphia stress markets. Those were the areas that had those salmon colors on that first map. There you saw some income rise, but not nearly as much as what you observed in the stronger markets and the middle markets are actually growing in terms of their income. But if you were to inflation, adjust those numbers. What you'd find is that those growth numbers of nineteen percent over fifteen year period really a much more like flat rather than a nineteen percent growth.

J

However, that fifty-one percent in the stronger markets is a real growth. If you were to sort of take into account inflation owner occupancy. I. Think Paul mentioned this in in some of his presentation on the last manual.

J

We did observe that there was a decline in the owner occupancy rate overall in the city of Philadelphia and, frankly, that's a pattern that you see in other cities around the country, partly a reflection, I, think of of tastes and preferences, partly a reflection of the economy, partly a reflection, but a ways that people think about where they want to be and sort of how they sort of progress through their lifestyle and and what housing means to that.

J

But what we observe in the city of Philadelphia is we saw a slight decline between 2000 and 2015. We saw reasonably substantial I think decline in the metal markets of about 12 percent, but that is less than the owner occupancy decline. That was observed in the stress markets. Next slide, please this next slide as it's coming up I think is going to be one that gives you a little bit of a sense as to what's driving some of those numbers.

J

The the line chart on the left there that traces mortgage foreclosure filings in the city of Philadelphia for about a 10 year time period and what you'll observe if you were to sort of think about that blue line being the strongest real estate markets in the green and the red being the middle and distressed and stress markets. Those minimum stress markets tracked very closely together and very differently than those very strong markets, and, to the extent that those foreclosure filings lead to that loss of home. Those are the kinds of things that are driving now.

J

What I would have also I think it's a fair observation in there that the the middle markets look much more like those stressed markets than they do. The stronger markets, which means that that threat to economic stability sits out there. It's gotten much better than it was at the peak of the foreclosure crisis, but it's still standing much more, like those stress places than the stronger markets.

J

The chart on the bottom right hand corner that looks at evictions as a proportion of renter occupancy units and what you'd observe there is that blue line is the rent, the eviction rate for the very strong markets, and you see a little bit of fluctuation in there, but basically flat. But what you also observe is that those middle markets with the red line and the stress markets with the green line, those are actually much more again like each other than they are like the stronger markets in the city.

J

So these are places again, I think either whether or not you're, thinking about ownership or tenancy you're, seeing places that are still experiencing some stresses for those populations and the impacts that has for both the individuals were affected by it in the communities around them. Next slide, please.

J

These are the sale, price trends and here again we've. Given you a summary of the period about the last ten years and what you would observe there. The black line is the city of Philadelphia. The red line is those middle markets, and for a long time, the middle was trending very much like the city. What you'll see here is the city is now beginning to pull apart a little bit from those middle markets and I.

J

Think it's a fair enough observation to make out of that chart that if you were to look back to County or 2000, which is the beginning of the time period versus where we are now that the middle markets from a price perspective are looking more like the more distressed markets than they are the stronger markets again, I think speaking to some of those economic pressures that attach now.

J

The flip side, though I think, is that when those price trends don't move up as far the benefit of that is that they maintain reasonable levels of affordability, for people who are more modest means, but as an asset, and we Paul described an appreciation of an asset they're not appreciating in the same way as the other neighborhoods homes in the other neighborhoods. Our next slide. Please.

J

Some just some generalized trends that are not reflected in the charts. You know we've gone through that foreclosure crisis and we've gone through the you know the great upheaval in the mortgage markets and one of the things that I think it's fair enough to observe over the last several years is that the FHA has become an increasingly poor, important part of the way that people are financing homes, particularly in these middle markets and in distressed markets.

J

The the conventional credit has not made their way back in, in the same rate, you'll see middle market areas where 50 60, 70 % of the homes transact with FHA insured mortgages that that would you know just for a sense of scale right before the bubble burst. You're, probably you know most single digits and right. So it's a big difference. You're, seeing a slight increase in the utilization of Housing Choice vouchers. In some of the middle market areas, you are seeing pretty steady.

J

Affordability in here homes are generally not super affordable, but you know in general, because people who live in these areas are of more you know, modest means, they're able to afford their homes without great stress. That doesn't mean that you know, as they make their way through life cycle or other things happen, that they don't experience, difficulty with maintenance and other than taxes like and Congressman Evans made the point about voting.

J

These are places where it appears to us, as we've looked through years of voter activity, that these are places where you do in fact see slightly elevated rates of voting activity. So these are people who sort of see the world through the lens of their sort of personal space and they vote, and they you know they exert their agency through their votes and, frankly, I. Think.

J

One of the things that we all have to be concerned about is that they don't vote with their feet and leave the city of Philadelphia if the conditions are not right for them and I. Think that that's a really important thing to to pay attention to and and and I sort of take all this together and I wrap it up and conclude with I.

J

Think that you know the city of Philadelphia and I'm, a lifelong Philadelphian, never lived about only for very short periods of time did I ever live outside the city of Philadelphia lived here, went to school here, worked here, etc. I think that it's a city that when we think about middle-market, requires some intentionality, it's not that things haven't happened in there. It's not that good things happen happen in there, but I think it requires. Intentionality programs make their way up there.

J

Sometimes, and people get benefits from them sometimes, but it's really about sort of thinking about them as a category of place and with intention and plan make sure that the right kinds of things happened in this place with.

K

That I'd, like.

J

To stop, thank you sure.

K

Good afternoon, chairman DOM, Councilwoman, Parker and members of the committee, my name is Yvette Nunez and vice president of civic affairs, at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater, Philadelphia and I. Thank you for the opportunity to present insight on strategies that we think will help the private sector, nonprofit sector and the city and its efforts to revitalize Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods. I have submitted a comprehensive written testimony. I will summarize that into the five strategies that we think would be most helpful.

K

First, the chamber represents over 600,000 employees throughout the region, advocating for public policy to grow Pennsylvania's economy, creating jobs and putting the Commonwealth on a fiscally sound path for the future. Here in Philadelphia, the chamber execute this work through its roadmap for growth, Action Team, which engages government as well as neighborhood and civic associations on a shared job creation and economic growth agenda, with a focus on Philadelphia neighborhoods.

K

We support the following number one: an increased focus on small business by offering support to those in middle neighborhoods, Chamber members in Philadelphia, who are located in middle neighborhoods, represent more than 18,000 employees. Here in the city, we know that city why there are more than 18,000 companies with 19 percent of them, based in middle neighborhoods. Companies located in middle neighborhoods tend to be smaller than those located in central business districts.

K

Small businesses do not have as many employees with larger firms, but they are more numerous and account for a significant proportion of jobs in the city. Since many large employers are increasingly owned by companies outside of a region. Small business development is a way of fostering economic benefits that stay within the city. As a joint venture between the chamber and Philadelphia P IDC has been committed to driving growth to every corner Philadelphia for nearly 60 years.

K

Over the last five years, p IDC has made more than 360 loans to small businesses in 94 percent of zip codes around Philadelphia investing more than 117 million dollars. Pid sees loans have helped to stabilize, have helped stable and growing businesses throughout the city's neighborhoods, invest in new equipment, improve storefronts, buy property, refinance higher interest debt and support their cash flow needs. A recent example of a small business aided by PID, sees efforts in councilman.

K

Parker's district is Magali Spa located in Oxford Circle, it's a seven year old, S corporation owned and operated by a Lila wedding, a licensed cosmetologist, with more than two decades of industry experience, Miz wedding used, PID C funds to finance a portion of the acquisition of sixty four, oh six, castor Avenue. Much of the company's inventory is sourced from South Florida, South, America and Latin America, and is generally difficult to find in Philadelphia, making this business a unique retail presence for the growing Hispanic community in and around the Oxford Circle neighborhood.

K

Our second recommendation is collaboration between local government and CDC's, a top priority for the Chamber's roadmap for growth action team is neighborhood economic development, focusing on how to support growth within Philadelphia's many nay hoods outside of Center City. This work may include encouraging growth along commercial corridors and in Business Improvement Districts, improving the quality of life for residents, promoting resources available for small business owners, reducing barriers for immigrant entrepreneurs and dovetailing this work with local workforce development efforts.

K

Channeling, the growth potential in Philadelphia's neighborhoods may help move the needle on its high poverty rate and keep neighborhoods stable. Our third recommendation is developing incentives and financing. State and local governments offer incentives to attract or retain business on the theory that the incentives will lead to business investment and thus two new jobs. Philadelphia has the capacity to offer more tax increment financing as an incentive to spur economic growth.

K

Tax, increment financing, a method of financing redevelopment activities directly tied to the success of those activities can be used to leverage public funds to promote private-sector activity in a targeted district or area. While the widespread use of TIF and major metros reflects its success as a key tool for finance public improvements, Philadelphia has used them sparingly and typically only for individual site development, since TIF programs tend to favor larger projects in areas near those with strong real-estate performance creation of additional TIF districts on underutilized commercial corridors in middle neighborhoods should be given consideration.

K

Our fourth recommendation: continued support for SEPTA's capital and operating budget as new employment hubs are being formed across the city having quality transit options are essential to employees living in middle neighborhoods, set the services Philadelphia and the surrounding counties providing greater connectivity for those working in Center, City and reverse community. During the most recent City Council hearing for SEPTA's FY 18 operating budget set this committed to maintaining stable transit options for residents working in the Greater Philadelphia region.

K

The testimony provided was able to highlight initiatives which include new para transit vehicles, trolley modernization, broad street and market Frankfort line station accessibility projects, bus rapid transit on Roosevelt Boulevard and as Philadelphia continues to grows. A regional economic hub, local and state government should offer continues to support receptive capital program budget. Our fourth recommendation, or a fifth and final recommendation is improving Philadelphia's business climate, most economic development policies and business attraction strategies are aimed at reducing the cost to business.

K

City government can help retain business by retuning, reducing those costs with financial incentives, waivers of fees or taxes or in-kind services. Business attraction and resections can also help can also be achieved with a strong understanding of what businesses value and addressing quality of life factors that make a community an attractive place to do business. While the city has little control over location, specific cost factors like energy and labor, they can foster a more favorable business climate through careful consideration of tax and regulatory burdens.

K

Thank you, and these are all recommendations that were happy to serve as partners in executing.

L

Good afternoon, chairman DOM and members of a Committee on housing, Neighborhood, Development and the homeless, my name is Tom D'alessio and I'm here to testify on resolution number one: seven: zero, two five two I'm an urban planner and the president and CEO and publisher of next city were a nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire social, economic and environmental change in cities through journalism and events around the world.

L

Earlier in my career, I served as a land-use advisor to to New Jersey governors in Trenton, but today I'm happy to report I work from neck cities, office right next door in ten Center, which I call home.

L

Thank you again, Councilwoman Parker for introducing this important resolution and to the City Council and to this committee for holding today's hearing, which is bringing much-needed attention to Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods, a topic we at next city recently investigated through a data-driven journalism, project called Philadelphia and flux. You can find that at neck City org, in partnership with researchers at the reinvestment fund and through support of the William Penn foundation, we investigated indicators of growth and stability in middle neighborhoods.

L

We chose to focus on these neighborhoods because of their importance to the city's overall stability and tax base. What we found are places where residents and civic institutions are working hard to maintain their neighborhoods as communities of choice in the face of rising economic pressures and other challenges, including demographic shifts, such as in aging populations in some areas and in fluxes of school age. Children in other areas, one area reported on is the one nine one: five: zero zip code of East Mount Airy writing Councilwoman Parkers district.

L

As the council is well aware, there is a strong neighborhood one with one of the city's highest rates of homeownership, relatively high home values and an energy energized citizenry that votes and makes sure to show up for block cleanups and public meetings.

L

Even so, every year, between 2004 and 2015, the neighborhood's experienced higher rates of foreclosure and eviction than the other middle neighborhoods and the City of the whole. It has also seen the population contract at a time when other parts of the city are adding people. All of this indicates a need for support and investment.

L

What we found through interviewing residents, businesses, business owners and community development professionals is the interest in support for commercial corridor improvements on wodsworth Avenue and Vernon Road, where the Commerce Department has already started work.

L

Meanwhile, in Oxford Circle, where we have also done reporting in research, we found a vibrant community with a fast-growing population of immigrants from all over the world and their children. According to the reinvestment fund policy map data between 2000 and 2010, nearly all of the census tracts that made up the neighborhood have seen the population under the age of 18 increased by 21 enter more with the population over the age of 65, fell at the same rate about half of the tracks in Oxford.

L

Circle have seen the number of children between the ages of five and nine increase by 58%. Many are refugees over the past two years. Just one of these three agencies active in Philadelphia, has resettled over 50 families in the northeast section of the city that includes Oxford Circle. For these families, a major issue is education.

L

Oxford circles: middle school was recently closed in families report long commutes for their children and a lack of resources surrounding educational opportunities in the area. Our reporting points to a need for additional resources to support families in middle neighborhoods Locke like Oxford Circle, where the city's future is being shaped.

L

We at next city congratulate the Philadelphia City Council for taking on the challenges of middle neighborhoods, and we urge you to consider interventions to address the potential of these communities, including housing, counseling and targeted home finance to job training. They could property cleanup investment in public facilities and commercial corridor improvements. Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

M

Good afternoon, chairman down Councilwoman Parker, Councilwoman Blackwell other members of the committee, my name is Andrew first off I'm, the executive director of Philadelphia list and I'm pleased to be able to testify here today on resolution. One 702, five, two as most of you know, liske, is a leading national and local community development, financial institution and the community development intermediary that partners closely with community organizations to revitalize their neighborhoods.

M

This, in addition to loans and equity, let's provides capacity-building technical assistance, community engagement and leadership, training and program grants to Community Development, Corporation's and other community-based organizations to ensure that they have the resource and tools to meet the needs of neighborhood residents. I would like to commend councilman Parker and congressman Evans for championing Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods, as reinvestment fund than others have indicated. These neighborhoods have provided stability to families and to the city during a turbulent half-century of demographic and economic change.

M

They have also served as places of equal opportunity and common ground where african-americans and more recently, immigrants could achieve a piece of the American dream and live alongside other middle-class families, regardless of race or ethnicity. Now, as we see symptoms of fragility amidst resilience, it is time to assess and address the needs of our mental neighborhoods.

M

You have already heard some expert testimony and you will soon hear more I'd like to offer several basic observations and recommendations that the city's and others could implement fairly quickly, I'd like to focus primarily on issues of civic capacity and community development capacity and efforts that are already underway or could be connected to middle neighborhoods. Many of these neighborhoods have active civic associations, Friends of groups and recreation advisory councils. Most of them do not currently have a high capacity Community Development Corporation that can manage real estate redevelopment, commercial, revitalization or neighborhood wide home repair programs.

M

Second, we must not take civic capacity for granted. Some middle neighborhoods rely on an aging cohort of civically active residents and do not always replenish themselves with newer and younger leaders if last month's voting turned out as an indication, civic activity and some of our middle neighborhoods may be decreasing.

M

My four recommendations build on and enhance to the capacity in middle neighborhoods. They focus on rebuild home repairs, redevelopment of vacant properties and neighborhood commercial quarters. First maximize the opportunity of rebuild city council and the administration deserve. Congratulations for reaching agreement on funding and a process for renovating our libraries parks and rec centers. As they say now, the hard work begins.

M

Whatever else you do with rebuild funds in middle neighborhoods, please make sure you do three things: encourage full community engagement, extend the design and improvements and build and share community capacity for each rebuild site and middle neighborhoods. The project users should conduct a resident engagement process that does not start and stop with existing friends of an advisory groups. This is a rare opportunity to build broader, multi-generational, civic participation in the design and programming of our neighborhood Civic Center's.

M

If done right, not only will middle neighbourhoods benefit from the revitalized spaces, but they will also rebuild their own civic capacity to tackle other neighborhood challenges during the engagement and design process. Don't focus just on the rebuild sites, encourage residents and city agencies to assess physical conditions surrounding the sites, such as sidewalks bike paths, bus stops, street lighting, trees and nearby homes and stores. Even if the rebuild funds can't pay for improvements to all of these, the rebuild process can drive.

M

Other public and private investments to the surrounding area rebuild will not achieve its full impact if the city ends up with a number of improved spaces, surrounded by unsafe or deteriorated environments.

M

Finally, in middle neighborhoods, where there are CDC's or similar organizations rebuild offers an opportunity to build their capacity, whether as a project user, a subcontractor or as a programmer maintenance steward. However, smaller CDC's will need some level of capacity building or support in order to fulfill their responsibilities in neighborhoods, where there is no CDC rebuild offers an opportunity for neighborhood civic groups to partner with a capable nearby CDC or with a citywide project user.

M

Such a partnership would not transform civic organizations into cdc's, but it would build their capacity to recruit and partner with capable organizations that could help them with other neighborhood challenges such as deteriorating homes, vacant and blighted buildings and struggling commercial corridors. We've heard previously about the example healthy neighborhoods in Baltimore, which could offer one we prynt for what we're looking at here regarding home repairs, again City Council's to be commended for approving bonds that can provide essential grants and loans.

M

For this purpose, you'll hear more about home repairs from Jill Roberts in the healthy row house, so I'll simply state. This may be the most significant public service you can provide to homeowners and small landlords and middle neighbourhoods.

M

Despite the relative stability of middle neighborhoods, many of them have suffered from level of vacancy and blight and neighborhoods with flat or decreasing market values, and where there is no strong CDC vacant properties may sit and deteriorate.

M

One initiative that shows promise and addressing such situations as jump start Germantown, an innovative social impact model for real estate and community development frustrated by continued blight and barriers to residential redevelopment in germantown, ken weinstein, a Philly office, retail, founded jump-start Germantown to train, provide networking and financing for local aspiring developers to acquire and renovate lighted properties and return them to productive and community friendly use.

M

Although jump start is not exclusively a middle neighborhoods program and is well suited to middle neighborhoods, because it works best in markets where values are high enough to recruit acquisition and renovation costs.

M

Finally, every middle neighborhood has at least one neighborhood commercial quarter. The significance of these quarters is not always economic development. In many cases, they consist of a small number of stores providing a few key goods and services. However, in all cases, these corridors serve as community centers places where you go to meet your neighbors, while getting a haircut sitting down for lunch, coffee or beer, or dropping off your child at a childcare center.

M

If those out these go now the serious approach, the middle neighborhoods, we need to have a clear picture of the state of each of our commercial quarters. We need to celebrate and invest in our larger, thriving quarters, including the capacity of quarter managers. We need to nurture and support our smaller and struggling quarters, but we must not invest in their growth if they cannot sustain it, and we must not assume that smaller quarters need their own dedicated quarter manager.

M

Again, we need to look for opportunities to partner between local groups with larger, capable Gribbs, whether they be citywide or near by CDC. These are all things that I think are underway or easily obtainable in the next year to support our little neighborhood. Thank you. So.

A

Let me thank the panel. Each of you for testifying. I also want to say that to my right, Councilwoman Cindy bass has joined us, Thank, You Councilwoman for being here and Councilwoman, we're going to make sure that we show you data they've. Given us a map, the reinvestment fund has like prep district and it always mattered, so it to each of us. So we can see what's going on at home in any questions, councilman I have.

F

A question for a mr. IRA Goldstein did I hear you say incorrectly man will you give us a handout and he talked about in this handout? The median household income in 2000, purses, 2015 and the three categories of stress markets, middle markets in stronger markets? Did you state in your comments that the gains that we made were basically wiped out because of inflation? I?

F

J

Say that the gain, if you say, think about the amount of inflation that occurred between 2000, 2000 and 2015, that the gains that were made in distressed markets and probably most of those in the middle markets were wiped out in the you know as a result of inflation. However, the gains that were made in the stronger markets were in excess of that you would observe an inflation is.

F

That, because of the economy and Philadelphia the types of jobs we have here, you.

J

Know it's a result of a lot of different things. You know just generalized increasing cost of things and I think in the case of Philadelphia you're, one of the things that goes into that sort of calculus about whether or not it got wiped out or not is what's your driving factor so which sectors what you know.

J

What does our economy have in terms of the nature of the jobs that are here and are those the kind of jobs that are going to fuel income growth, greater than inflationary rates in this case, particularly for those folks who are in the stress markets or in the middle market, you know moat of the income would have been just eaten away by in place.

F

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your testimony today. Thank.

A

You all so much Rachel will ask you to call the next panel, but I just have to give a personal plug for each of you again, as we advocate strongly for it, and I want to use hobro fees, a language sort of an mark and intentional. You know structured and organized strategy to specifically address these middle neighborhood.

A

You know we as a city will not be able to do it without chamber private sector reinvestment fund data, next city, research, journalism and list, just your history and knowledge of community development, so I think we'll be knocking on your doors. We have to sue so answer when we call thank you today, Brad.

B

Copeland Mr Mitchell, Diane, Richardson and Jill Robert and I.

A

Know each of you have prepared a testimony to the next panel that is coming I want you to feel comfortable, because you know we are under time constraints. I will give a pass to one person, and that is Diane. Who is our is our community representative here today, but we would act if you would. You know just feel free to summarize your testimony to the best of your ability and.

A

Okay and Brad, we'll ask you to start.

I

For the rest afternoon, thank you. My name is Brad Copeland I'm, the executive director of Mount Airy USA, just want to thank the panel this morning and thank you in particular to councilman Parker for bringing this really important issue to the fore. Just some brief context about our organization. Mount Airy, USA started in the mid-1980s helped improve business and quality of life conditions along Germantown Avenue. Over time. We've engaged in a range of activities aimed at addressing additional needs identified by the community for the community, so we do housing, counseling and financial wellness work.

I

We do a lot around neighborhood business and entrepreneurship development. We support our local public schools, we do neighborhood branding and community programming and we do blight remediation through real estate development and infrastructure development. As a community Mount Airy squarely fits the resolutions, definition of the middle neighborhood as a relatively stable real estate market, high levels of home ownership and a large percentage of residents with an average household income in the forty to fifty thousand dollar range. It's also a community where blighted properties negatively impact home values.

I

It's a place where there are significant pockets of crime that make neighbors feel unsafe. It's also a community with an aging population in need of supports for seniors, as well as a vision for how to replenish itself and as such, non area could certainly benefit from a cohesive set of city policies and strategies that are aimed at bolstering middle neighborhoods. So, as council reflects some things that could be done to support middle neighborhoods throughout the city, I'd like to offer up just two items for a special consideration.

I

These kind of views come from lessons that we've learned through the work that we've been doing, and the first I think is one that's been stated. A couple different times here is a focus on schools.

I

Neighborhoods like Mount Airy need Healthy Schools in order to thrive. I think that's true for every neighborhood in the city and every child deserves a you know: a quality education, but I think this is especially salient issue for middle neighborhoods. So the largest reason that young families leave our community is because parents believe there's a lack of affordable and quality housing, I'm, sorry, education options. The irony here is that Mount Airy has some absolutely wonderful public school options.

I

Many of our schools have gifted administrators and passionate and involved teachers, the work of principal Tammy Thomas and our staff at elementary school sort of shines like a beacon in this respect. Yet one of the things that we've discovered through our work, organizing and running the monitor Schools coalition, is that the the public reception of the local neighborhood school is really largely overshadowed and weighed down by the mostly negative narrative surrounding the Philadelphia public school district as a whole and finding some way to shift.

I

This narrative is going to be very important for our neighborhood as well to think other middle neighborhoods and we've been dealing realtor tours for all six of the local K through eight schools for the last three years, and it does it does a nice job of raising awareness but I think even with that, we're still experiencing census decline some of our schools. So there's there's more than just that. That's needed.

I

The second item I just like to draw everyone's attention to, as we think about areas to think about policy for for middle neighborhoods, is strengthening relationships between neighbors in non area.

I

We recently completed a neighborhood planning process that looks forward to the year 2025 and, as part of that process, we did a comprehensive resident survey and one of the very sort of most interesting pieces of data that came out of that was that we discovered there's a really direct correlation between how people feel about their neighbors and their overall satisfaction levels with the neighborhood it sort of makes intuitive sense when you think about it. But it's not necessarily the most obvious thing.

I

So if someone had a good feeling about their neighbors, then they were likely to say they were very satisfied: the community as a whole and if they had feeling like their neighbors, were less than desirable their satisfaction levels. The community of the whole we're down so trying to find ways to create positive interactions between neighbors, becomes really important when you think about how you mark it and share a neighborhood and how you create a sense of community in these middle neighborhoods, and you know, I appreciate it. Mr.

I

fish cause comments about the rebuild initiative and the importance of that I think it's really when you think about infrastructure projects. You often think about the physical component of it and in the opportunity that rebill presents to have a social component. That really makes these civic spaces places for neighbors to get to know. Each other is really important and that's that's where I think I'll end my comments. There are a lot of other things we could talk about in terms of housing, preservation and economic, developing business development.

I

It could be useful, but I'll answer any questions you have about this later.

N

Good afternoon, chairman Tom vice chairwoman, Blackwell and committee members, my name is Diane Richardson and I'm. A lifelong resident of Philadelphia, my family moved to West Oak Lane from North Philadelphia in 1972, I purchased, my first home in Mount, Airy and owned and lived in the same home for 40 years.

N

I, take great pride in being involved in my neighborhood and thus have served on various neighborhood recreation advisory councils for the past 15 years, I've served as the block captain on a 79 hundred block of Gilbert Street and for the past two years a committee person in my ward I, am also a small business owner and president of the Frankfurt business and professional association. I am a vested member at my community and a home owner who is committed to seeing my city thrive.

N

What I think of the concept of middle neighborhoods, I, think of the relationship between governments and the people, which should represent both having a significant role in neighborhood preservation and the stability or instability in our communities. Government roles is the government role is to provide access to resources and opportunities that will give residents the tools to preserve our neighborhood I know from experience that my neighbors could benefit for many programs, foreclosure programs, emergency management, training, food markets which was spoken about earlier, and the basic system home care.

N

We, our programs, our quality of life, is important to us, but because we live in mountain area, traditionally thriving community policymakers outside of our neighborhood can't be fast, the clean street and the mowed lawn. We too need access to programs that would help us preserve our homes, create high quality schools, recreation, centers and libraries maintain clean blocks and build strong families. This may or may not call for completely new creations. It may simply require we exam Kermit, current models and retooling the utilization of funds, for example, on my block. More than 60% opponent.

N

Homeowners have installed home along long systems and we all pay $50 a year to the city of Philadelphia just to have functional home protection devices, and we all wonder whether some money go instead of wondering it's our recommendation that the city creates a residential camera program that will allow organized blocks to receive some form of assistance, either in subsidy or reimbursement similar to that other business camera program operated via the commerce department or why not allow us to use the points we accumulate through the recycle bags to purchase these much-needed cameras.

N

This initiative would not only allow us to protect our blocks in homes. It would also give us the tools to support our local law enforcement agency. In my middle neighborhood, we're facing driveways and sidewalks and steps and retaining walls they can't get don't have all the means for repairs. Meanwhile, my council warmish well Parker, continues to make this a priority for for her district. We need our local leaders to understand the snowball effect that it that is developing as a result of our lack of access to resources.

N

This may seem trivial to some, but our homeowners oftentimes are legacies to our family. It is the larger cash that we hold for our future generation. Another example of a useful tool to target middle neighborhoods is actually supporting and funding Community Development CDC's are the organizations that connect people to government. They addressed middle neighborhoods from holistic perspectives by offering resources related to home ownership, housing preservation, educational opportunity, family engagement programs, after-school support, Neighborhood Development and never neighborhood, a commercial corridor management, all issues that are critical to neighborhood to middle neighborhood. These issues are also interconnected.

N

Equally impacting our community today and in active, well-funded CDC's can help us. The residents began to tackle these challenges today. We could also benefit from a neighborhood business grant that will provide us you with the action items that would help our communities grow. We are looking for a government to solve all of our problems, but we are asking for immediate attention. We, the people of Philadelphia, also play a role in preserving in our neighborhood, and we, the residents in neighborhoods, have taken action as I mentioned.

N

I am a block captain and we do organize and give several events. Our block, cleanups I, get to know your neighbors day. We provide turkeys and food baskets for neighbors in need and we share results information to one another. We also share the responsibility of keeping a lookout in the neighborhood and we call each other when something seems to be wrong or something strange as police in our community. It's also vital. We are not rich, some of us identify as middle class and some were seniors on fixed incomes.

N

We, but we mow lawns, plant flowers and remain organized. We take pride in our community and it is our responsibility to have skin in the game. We have, we do and we have done the work in closing. We are continuously planning for future generations as a community, and at this stage it is called for helping hands in our local state and federal government. We, but we must work together to address issues and problems within Middle neighborhood before they come catastrophic. I must reiterate this. This I must reiterate.

N

This conversation is about preservation before intervention and identifying applied policies, programs and legislative remedies that will create a boom in these middle neighborhoods before they burst I. Thank you for this opportunity.

O

We have kanoon chairman, dom and members of the Committee on housing, Neighborhood, Development, the homeless and council.

O

My name is HJ Omar, Mitchell and I'm here to testify on resolution number one: seven, zero, two five two I've been a resident of Philadelphia for thirty years, I'm, a small business owner and also before I begin.

O

I would like to thank Councilwoman Parker for introducing this important resolution and holding this hearing, which we hope will bring much-needed attention to Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods I'm here representing Medina CDC, with a 501c3 organization located in the ninth district west of Lange, section of Philadelphia I'm, the organization's treasurer we're the community arm the community development arm of Mastana law, which is a religious institution who has served the West Oakland and the broader Philadelphia community for more than 30 years. As a relatively new CDC.

O

We find one of the challenges we face as access to capital, financial, human and intellectual, dedicated to helping CDC's, build a solid infrastructure to manage the operations of the organization and to effectively engage the various challenges. Our community faces solid internal support, increases capacity. Capacity, allows CDC's to operate more efficiently and effectively as they gained as they engage the various challenges our communities face. These challenges are economical for both the business and the private citizen, educational. We need and disparities impact. The entire community social support is needed on all levels from infants to the elderly.

O

We found looking at any challenge in a vacuum or silo we're usually not remedy the challenge. The challenges are interrelated and need be mitigated with a holistic approach. You can't just throw money at things. You can't just throw promises at things and think that they're going to be solved. It's a it's a group. There are multiple causes, so there has to be a wide based solution.

O

We strive, we being Medina, CDC and master. The law strive to be a conduit between the needs of our communities and the available resources. Some of these challenges and some suggestions that may help mitigate them are Neighborhood Stabilization and that's finding a way to create sustainable economic growth, the economic drivers that are critical for neighborhoods and the cities in the region.

O

Some of these are commercial corridor upgrades such as storefront, revitalization, enhanced lighting overall, cleanup and I'm happy to say that partnering with Councilwoman Parker we're working on a project now and Vernon Road that we believe will be critical to the improvement of that that neighborhood and we're not just doing that along with partnering, with Mount, Airy, USA and I think together and I think that's a key component. We can't do this individually together, we're going to be able to really bring a long-lasting, both aesthetic and and social improvement to the area to that area.

O

Some of the results are going to be specifically it's going to create an attractive and inviting and safer atmosphere. That's going to increase customer traffic, and you asked about a quantifiable information.

O

Increased customer traffic increases sales, increased sales, increased tax base. Increased tax base makes everybody a little bit happier in the city and the district. Another thing that we need to to to to recognize challenges that we face often middle neighborhoods, are kind of. It's been a theme they're overlooked. The people are making money. The neighborhoods are nice. We have fairly nice homes, things of that nature, but there are challenges and struggles that have been existing for many years home and business owners. Access to traditional and subsidized funding. Improvements can be very challenging.

O

Some of the challenges, equitable application underwriting and approval processes for traditional funding. We all know about the predatory lending practices we all know about the discriminatory underwriting practices. Well, when are we and I do mean we, because it's the citizens and the people we elect responsibilities to jointly not allow these things to happen, to work against these things and then that's traditional funding subsidized.

O

Why can't we create a self-subsisting financial resource pool, initiated initially funded by local state and federal resources, and this pool is dedicated to individuals and middle neighborhoods? Borrowing, these funds that modified interest rates, making improvements and then the principal is repaid, along with the modest interest rates, go back into the pool that creates a self-sustained self-sustaining of fund of resources that that will consistently be available for other homeowners and business owners and what I think, because sometimes we know that managing these types of things are not necessarily government area of expertise.

O

This is where CDC's come in, and what we can do is, as adjoining together manage the resources where we can actually do a triage where we can disseminate information in take an initial look at the applications, give some assistance, some guidance to individuals filling out letting you know what they need to qualify for some of these loans, and then final approval would naturally be by whomever the issuing entity would be whether that would be city, state or federal government, but working together.

O

We can help to create these improvements that are needed in the city and then also de limonade eliminate some disparities and housing valuation. You go to certain parts of the city and look at the same asset and when you look at the market value of similar homes and and relatively close vicinity to each other, there's significant differences in values, sometimes due to zip code, sometimes in the same zip code. But it's just because of the ethnic makeup of the area, and we may not want to address this. But it's redlining. It's existed.

O

It's continued to exist and I think we need to recognize that by suppressing economic vote anywhere in the city, it impressed it.

O

It impacts economic growth throughout the city and another issue is modifying housing tax liability resulting from increased value. Due to the improvements we see that when there are individuals on fixed incomes and fixed income, doesn't necessarily mean that they're they're receiving some type of assistance, but just that the amount of money that they're making is is it's fairly flat when they utilize resources to improve the value of their asset, then they are taxed on the value of that asset that can be mad. That can make it have a significant impact on their ability to survive.

O

Sometimes you fix you, you invest $20,000, say at a 6% tax rate that requires, and if you're, if you're, if your asset is increased by twenty thousand dollars, you pay twelve hundred dollars more a month annually in taxes that twelve hundred dollars can be significant.

O

By making a modified tax liability, it promotes care and maintenance of the home and the neighborhood in general by reducing or eliminating a significant tax increase and, finally, stakeholder accountability. We realize that in this, in this whole scenario, there are multiple stakeholders and all of them need to be accountable. Neighbors must be accountable and hold others accountable.

O

We must also do the work of holding their elected officials accountable, and what I mean by neighbors is is looking out keeping your neighborhood clean, looking out after your neighbors reporting, when there's vandalism reporting when people aren't acting the way they're supposed to act, that, if that maintains the value of your of your asset, your neighborhood, your homes and it will invite others to move in and elected officials. You need to make sure our leftist officials are accountable to the constituents other than during the election time.

O

That means showing up initiatives such as this one and and coming in and following up and and meeting with neighbors and and having a report card. As for car, let's say halfway through your term: let's see what you promised and let's see what you've done with respect to your promises and finally, businesses and these businesses are not.

O

This doesn't just apply to the lending institutions will also you need to be regulated with respect to the resources they make or do not make available to individuals, but also individuals who are in the neighborhoods doing businesses responsible management, the products they sell, the prices they charge and both financial and human capital investment in the neighborhoods that that that they do their business in and some of these things I'm talking about is. Why is it that we have neighborhoods?

O

Where and and especially in the West Oakland section and in other areas of Milan area, where you can go to almost any store and buy a 40-ounce? This is not necessary. This is not healthy for neighborhoods or you can go to stores and buy leaflets of tobacco. Now I, don't know I guess there are still people who roll their own cigarettes and that's fine, but not too many of them.

O

We know what these types of products are used for and I think we need our legislature and our neighbors to to speak out against these types of things, and thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions. You might have.

A

Your that I know you're going to sell Roger tell you.

P

Know that I'm going to fly through this, it's because I know you want to speak to these other folks good afternoon, chairperson DOM and other esteemed members of the committee I'm Jill, Roberts executive director of the healthy row house project healthy row house project was an initiative begun in 2015 to research and propose innovative financing and programs service delivery methods to bring home repairs to scale in Philadelphia and improve the health of residents living there deteriorating homes impact the families who live there and the house next door, and eventually the entire block and the block.

P

Next to it, often an entire neighborhood is affected. As expert colleagues like Paul Brophy have shown us. Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods are critical of the future of the city 40 to 45 percent of Philadelphia's lives in middle neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, like Germantown to County West Oak Lane, are affordable, attractive and offer a good quality of life. They are also in danger of decline. The quality of their housing stock defines the look and feel the neighborhood one. Key threat to middle neighborhoods is the fact. Some home owners cannot access the home improvement loans.

P

They need to repair, preserve and improve their older properties. Lenders are reluctant to provide credit in these critical neighborhoods and, as a result, we have a home improvement application loan denial rate of 62% in the city between 2012 and 2014. This compares to 37% for the rest of the country. That is why I'm here today to testify on the merits of the need for a home repair loan program.

P

That's about the 8th, whereas in the resolution it has been championed by Councilwoman Cheryl Parker, as well as council president Clark, and is being designed by Greg Heller at the Redevelopment Authority. A key feature of any model to improve mental neighborhoods or just about any neighborhood in Philadelphia, must include the participation of lenders and foundations to make home improvement loans available on favorable terms to owners. Some middle neighborhood residents are able to access grant programs, but many do need access to private capital to rehabilitate their homes.

P

That is exactly what the city loan program will do. The loan program being designed by the PRA will give middle neighborhoods access to private capital repair to repair their homes, by providing incentives to banks to provide low interest rate loans to households with lower incomes and credit scores. The goal is to provide hundreds of loans in the first year and grow the number of repairs each year.

P

The loan program is directed to homeowners, who have incomes above the maximum eligibility to qualify for the city, grant programs such as the SRP and weatherization each property owners, actions in the attractiveness and viability of the neighborhood. Each investment encourages more investment. As the president, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Patrick Harper, stated in a May in Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed banks can leverage their Community Reinvestment Act commitment to support healthy outcomes such as rehabbing housing to remove lead paint or mold.

P

As we said, this is all about return on investment stabilizing the housing and Philadelphia's middle neighborhoods in all Philadelphia's neighborhoods will ensure current homeowners can remain in their neighborhoods.

P

Current homeowners can remain in their neighborhoods and support the city. It also invites new residents to move in. We thank City Council, the Kenny administration and Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority for this extraordinary new loan program that will make needed home improvement loans available to our homeowners. Thank you.

A

Thank you all so very much for your testimony. Councilwoman Beth yeah thank.

Q

You very much madam chair, so I just wanted to. Thank you all also for your testimony and for you know it's almost like a with brand. If I go stroll down memory lane, so to speak with Mount Airy USA, you know I've been engaged with Mount Airy USA for so long. It's almost like you know an entity that that's almost like family.

Q

If you want to think of it that way, because we've worked on so many issues and I, remember people don't remember but I remember when Mount Airy USA, particularly to stretch the 7100 block, that particular stretch was very much a stress neighborhood. When I looked at the charts of areas that was stressed, that area was very very stressed and people look at it now and they say. Oh it looks so great and everybody wants a business there. People want to shop there.

Q

People want to go there and I remember when they were corner boys there, and there was gambling you had to walk in the street because they were shooting that student dice on the sidewalk and then- and you had you know a few other interesting activities that were happening along that particular corridor. And you know if you went there in the evening, it was shut down. There was nothing going on in the evening.

Q

There was no restaurants, no shopping no strolling along the Avenue, and so I just really want to thank all of your organizations and as individuals, because it really does take. You know folks to come together to address these problems. To you know, get them to go away. They don't go away on their own. It really does take the work of people like yourselves and being engaged and being involved, and so I just really wanted to. Thank you all and and again going back to Mount Airy USA.

Q

The proof is really in the pudding, because you can walk on that Avenue now you would never imagine what it used to be so I just really wanted to mention that. Also,.

Q

Mr. Mitchell, as you were mentioning you know, I know you were talking about triaging and referring to loans and lending in our community and I wondered if you could expound upon that just a little bit of what you were thinking. I had brought up something somewhat similar to our L&I Commissioner around the idea of triaging and I'm. All about you know trying to rush into a situation to figure out.

Q

What can we do before we make a step, that's irreversible, and so one of the things I had mentioned to the revenue of the L&I Commissioner was before we tear down a house because we know in a middle neighborhood that can almost instantly turn it into a stressed neighborhood that we should triage those situations before we tear something down.

Q

We need to run in take a look see if we can get it in the hands of a developer, don't be so quick to tear it down, but you know, let's see if we can invest a couple of dollars and so stabilizing it until we are able to find someone look paid. You know within a week two weeks 30 days, a relatively short timeframe, but how can we, you know, stop the tear, downs and triage that situation, but you are so talking about something completely different, which was about lending and loans.

Q

I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. Yes,.

O

Gladly, um actually it applies to both situations and what I'm merely meant by trios, because we're in the neighborhood we're located there, and if there are individuals who who are looking for funding, they could come to Medina. We can provide them with the information to let them know who the lenders are.

O

Here are some of the qualifications that you're going to have to meet here's the paperwork that you need and they can come to us and naturally we can't approve anything, but we can say yes, there are five requirements that you have to fulfill in order to be for them to really be able to underwrite this loan effectively and so to make sure that they're ready when they walk in they have the information, we're just disseminating information to people.

O

I think the same applies to the example that you just gave with respect to housing before destroying a house apparently down to boarding it up. Whatever the case may be, we are, we are CDC, so we're a developer. Is it possible that we know other individuals in the neighborhood who may want to to take this to stress business and and create a new business, and what are the requirements for them to do that? What type of funding do they need?

O

They may have funding themselves and just need to go through L&I, and maybe the process not be as as laborious, and it can be. You know the kind of fast-track it so it so to speak. So this is this is what I mean just actually preparing people, giving them information and then preparing them, for whatever the formal process is that they may need to engage and.

Q

And I, thank you for that, and also, as you mentioned, businesses, you know. One of the things I know councilman Parker has talked about this extensively is that we need to stop patronizing businesses that disrespect our community and that lead to structural conditions in our neighborhoods and.

L

Q

Know selling products that you know are, in my opinion should be illegal. You know.

D

Q

Used for illegal purposes, you you, you know you go in, and someone just told me the other day because I try to you know, but not frequent. You know these stop and goes, and those type of businesses that are gonna be good for our neighborhoods. But someone was telling me about you know a product that you can purchase and you know turn it into a essentially like a crack pipe, and this is perfectly legal to purchase and store within. This is often goes.

Q

It's like a little glass vase that comes with a rose inside you take out the roses, you throw it in the trash and then you've got your little. You know glass case that you can use to them begin. You know smoking crack or whatever you want to smoke, and so businesses that are operating you know in this fashion are working against the efforts of all of us all of us as individuals as organizations as businesses.

Q

You know, and we need to make sure that we spread spread the word and stop patronizing businesses who are operating in such a manner. So again, I just want to thank all of you all for being here today and for your testimony, and you know I know particularly the ladies. You know whenever we go and have our protest and have our meeting you know we have so many women who come out and support our efforts and who really represent our neighborhoods and so I.

Q

Just really want to thank you, ladies as well for being here for your testimony and all that you do for our communities. I do have to apologize. Madam chair I have to leave for another commitment, but I really am happy to receive all this information and promise you I will digest it all and I know. Shiro will offer me a test. Thank you. So much Thank.

A

You councilman DOM Thank.

F

You councilman Parker I just want to thank you to the panel I just wanted to mention something that is very I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. The Earned, Income Tax Credit I just want to make sure how we can make this a part of the whole program, because last year, I think we still left close to 100 million dollars in Washington DC.

F

That could have gone to forty thousand families in Philadelphia who qualified and we're talking about people that are in seven a quarter to twenty three dollars an hour and we're talking about you know with no children, I think the checks $506. You can file back three additional years.

F

So that's about two thousand dollars, but when you have two children, if you're a single parent of a forty four thousand dollar income with two kids or a couple with fifty thousand two kids, you can get a chest up to six thousand and you can fall back three additional years. You're talking about twenty four thousand dollars and in these neighborhoods these middle neighborhoods. This is huge money.

F

So one of the one of the things we have to do is incorporate the EITC into this whole program because that's free money in Washington that we leave on the table. 100 million it breaks my heart at forty thousand people to get these checks. We have four hundred thousand people in poverty. 10% of our population can get federal help and we don't get it. They don't get it. So we got to get the word out.

F

I just want to give it a little comment to make sure you continue to get the word out about that special. Thank you. Thank you.

A

Thank You councilman table burger. Yes,.

G

I'm, madam chair, thank you very much. I just want to recognize the panel for their expertise collectively and the fact that you came down here to help our our city. The information you have all given on an individual basis could collectively be used to resolve a lot of problems. I just want to thank you for your time. It was very enlightening to sit here and to be part of it. So thank you. Thank you. Then.

A

We also just thank my colleagues for the record. This is very lengthy for a City Council hearing. I. Just want a note for the record that we have all members of this committee present and they say two to three and I've. You know see the two super you know super geniuses that we have here so I want to. Thank them all. Thank you for your patience.

A

We have our final final panel and listen because they are the administration because they are the administration they're going to zip through this testimony, because they know how to summarize so arrive their testimony, so they'll, zip through and we'll make sure we have it entered into the record. Thank you all so very much.

B

Kathy Califano and Sylvie Gagne Howard.

R

Good afternoon councilman down Councilwoman Parker and members of the Committee on housing, the Neighborhood Development I'm, here Katherine Califano, to represent the administration at the hearing on middle-market we're just in quick summary, the city and the administration are committed to working in middle markets. We have a variety of programs today to serve households living in middle markets.

R

Many of our programs have helped to ensure and preserve housing stability and, with the help of City Council, we'll be able to expand these programs further with both a loan and grant program, and we try and assess people become new homeowners as well.

R

That earned income housing tech, the Earned, Income Tax Credit, is a priority and, as you can see on the table second table in the testimony that our services, our Housing and Community, Development programs serve people that our people are neighbors of are a variety of income levels and they live in all different types of neighborhoods throughout the city, and we are always open to improving the work that we do looking at new ways and to expand and improve upon our programs and in the face of losing significant federal resources.

R

Over time and have helped the city to leverage additional private state and local resources, we'd be remissed with noting that those federal resources haven't had an impact locally. And lastly, we just want to notice part of the range of strategies that Paul Brophy and the team has suggested today.

R

Neighborhoods improved by working with existing residents and those members are a huge part of what happens in our neighborhoods. Today, our citizens, Planning Institute, has been trying to cultivate more grassroots leaders over time and those graduates have gone on to improve their communities. Write grants, start new programs and really engage in zoning and planning processes.

R

So we thank you for the opportunity and we have traditionally not for aggregated our data by middle stress and strong neighborhoods, and it's a good way for us to be able to report out, and we look forward to continuing to work with you to improve the work that we do today and start your program. Thank you.

S

Good afternoon my name is Sylvie Galya Howard and she just asked for the Department of Commerce Thank, You, councilman, Parker or elevating this issue I'm going to you have my written, which I'm going to summarize it a little bit so from the comments carbon perspective for many years, the majority of our effort. We wrestled on how to provide more support for milla neighborhoods to the majority of our programs. This is due the fact that many of our programs are funded through federal dollars which have income eligibility criteria.

S

We've made strides in the last few years and we have found ways to make investments in middle neighborhoods as we recognize that this is a very important category of neighborhoods and a large percentage of our neighborhoods. But this, and so, despite the shrinking, a restrictive nature of those funds, we have had some great success stories.

S

Councilman Baskin and manera USA and I also remember investing early on and we continue to support the manner you'll say, but that is an example of an organization where they no longer qualify for a corridor manager position and they found other to support that we, the comm experiments, played a key role and making successful investments to stabilize to sustain commercial corridors in middle neighborhoods areas such as mine, aerodrome ton, Avenue, Frankfort, Avenue and Mayfair 54th and first in Winfield, and this is in great thanks to in partnership with our CDC's.

S

As you mentioned, we could not do it without the CDC's and we need to continue to find ways to make sure that they are strong and vibrant. So we recognize the needs of middle neighborhoods are broad but not insurmountable, and much has already been done. The right set of policies and supports cuts across government agencies, organizations and communities, and for that reason commerce would be interested in exploring possibilities for partnerships and additional resources to better support middle neighborhoods, thereby contributing to Fidel fia's economic stability.

S

We look forward to working with council and other city departments and the private sector to meet this end, and we commend I, commend you, councilman Parker, for your leadership in elevating this issue. I'm joined by two of my colleagues Dennis Murphy, and cheering that who can assist with any questions as well. Thank you, councilman Deluth.

A

F

You Council on Parker, just a question for the I'm, not sure for either one of you, but you can carry it back since we talked about EITC area. Everyone in the government, who's collecting money, especially from people at middle or low income, should be asking the questions over the phone. Are you aware of EITC? Do you have the information? This is free money for us, everyone across the board, an enormous in the administration should be asking that question is this.

F

This is like putting 100 million dollars back into the hands of 40,000 people because of the economy of the city. So whatever we can do, I mean carry the message back every area whether it's councilman Sanchez talk about the warm in the sewer issues, whether it's real estate taxes, whatever the program is, we should make sure that that message, nice crowd. Thank you both for being here kinetic testimony. Thank you.

A

This is just for the record, let me say a special thanks to the administration, along with the Commerce Department, for your testimony, and we look forward to working with you in the future to figure out what vehicle it is and I. You know quickly want to go back to Paul, Brophy or even marks language. I can't remember who stated it, but they talked about being very intentional, and so, whatever solutions that we are able to sort of work together to create to implement, we want to make sure that they are not.

A

They are not a footnote and another story about another issue in the city of Philadelphia. You know consistent contributors to the tax base, high civic engagement and participation, but usually a nipple over the income guidelines or some occasions, but I'm also happy that you mentioned that there are several programs that we already have in existence in the city of Philadelphia and actually congressman Evans started off his discussion and talked about those neighborhoods and people who benefit from programs that we do offer in the cities, because I don't want anyone to be.

A

You know sort of have a misconception that we're seeing saying that residents who live in these communities don't benefit from any support from the city. That is not what we're saying.

A

What we're saying that has not happened is that you know usually we're either trying to incentivize a major corporation to come to invest in the city and create jobs or we're trying to find a way to come up with a solution to, as we rightly so, to eradicate the city of the deep poverty and those people in the middle have never had sort of intentional strategically directed plan that will decide. How do you deal with the challenges in those neighborhood? So I? Don't know how we're going to do it.

A

I'm, hoping that working with our council president members of council, along with the administration, we can come up with the solution to do it. I had to state for the record that the Commerce, Department and I've been working with commerce councilman down before I got elected dog catcher I was a staff person in this body, so I've been working with the Commerce, Department and neighborhood commercial quarters for a very long time. The team that is there now thank you all so very much for paying attention to detail. Thank you for understanding.

A

Even before we read this that these neighborhood matter, we just need you to be a part of developing an intentional solution that includes that Chamber of Commerce, the private sector, along with local state and federal government, and come up with a way that we can change life, preserve and enhance those middle neighborhoods. So thank you so so very much for your testimony. I.

F

Guess we're in closing there right right.

A

Well, I see a gentleman who was here: we all adjust.

F

A

Access in do we have anyone else and I. Thank you from Caponi. Okay, all right.

F

I'm gonna say that now wait till he comes up.

A

Testimony and just for the record I need to know. Where are we okay? Is there anyone else here to testify on this resolution,.

A

Thank you. Please state your name, sir. Up on a record and I know you come from calling CBC and I know. You know how to summarize it. Thank you. Thank.

P

You Councilwoman Parker, my name is Alex balloon from I'm the executive director of the County Community Development Corporation I'll make this as brief as possible. Five years ago towards the Avenue and Saucony was confronting significant problems. Businesses were closing, many blighted, buildings were vacant and we were basically in a disinvestment spiral out of public concern. Businesses, neighbors and partners got together to start a Main Street program with councilman Keenan.

P

We worked with the Commerce Department on a turnaround plan and today, five years later, Taccone as a growing neighborhood welcoming new residents and unprecedented new investment, councilman Dom, the Taccone model demonstrates the opportunities for intergovernmental cooperation in middle neighborhoods. Over the past five years, we've welcomed fifteen new businesses resulting in a conservative estimate of 6.6 million of new economic activity, generating nearly three hundred and thirty thousand dollars in local taxes. For the city of Philadelphia, Councilwoman Sanchez asked about how much one dollar in commercial corridors generates. It generates.

P

18 in private investment, we've renovated more than thirty storefronts through a mix of public private investment and outright private investment with no public subsidy. Private investment is expanding into our housing market. Where we're renovating more than 100 homes that have been renovated to produce workforce housing with no public subsidy, we work together with key partners to improve our neighborhoods appearance through targeted, low-cost, high-impact matching grant programs. We promote our neighborhood as a place to invest in a neighborhood to love through marketing and targeted events.

P

We organize projects with partners such as the Commerce Department, free library and mural arts, and we welcome everyone to participate in the planning and the implementation. Middle neighborhoods need programs like the store for an Improvement Program and the business security-camera grant program. They need low-cost, high-impact investments that entice the private market to invest further. They need high-performing organizations to implement and build consensus. The city's Community Development Corporation tax credit program is a perfect match to fund an effective Main Street program and the best dollar-for-dollar return. The city of Philadelphia can make in neighborhood economic development.

P

We would encourage the city to concentrate the Economic Development Program on proven strategies such as Main, Street and commercial corridor, work which generate real economic returns, permanent jobs, taxes and private new investment. We welcome the attention to our city's middle neighborhoods and hope to deepen intergovernmental cooperation in the future. Thank you so much Councilwoman Alex.

A

Thank you and I. Look I, don't know how you do it, but you did do it and actually you know you all I have.

P

Handouts for the committee as well to sort of erisa a graphic way. You.

A

All are also the model, the model of the success that we're talking about and as we move forward and work to form an intergovernmental sort of cooperative planning strategy that is really driven by the private sector, because government can will not be able to solve this, particularly local government. You know sort of on its own shoulders.

A

We intend to make sure that you are part of what ever solution that that we're working to come up with to address this I want to say thank you and I want to as councilman Calvin, Berger first and then we'll close. What councilman down thank.

G

You very much and thank you very, very much for your testimony and once again for all the folks that testified, including the administration, but really those that are really volunteers and care deeply about their neighborhood. We thank you and council and Parker. Your leadership on this issue is very very important and I will have to tell you and I told you privately I'll tell you publicly. This is one of the finest hearings we've had. We all learned a lot. We really did so I. Thank you. I.

F

Want to thank you for testifying it's a great job in the county and we can learn a lot from what you're doing there. I want to thank everybody else who has testified and specifically I, want to thank my colleague, councilman Parker, for bringing this issue forward and conducting this hearing today and as my colleague councilman Coburn mentioned, we did learn a lot so I look forward to working with my colleagues and hopefully getting the situation moves forward in a better place. Thank you.

A

Just for the record, let me note that the hearing of resolution number one seven, zero, zero four eight has been cancelled and it will not be held during this hearing. Is there anyone else here who would like to testify there being no one else here to testify on this resolution? This concludes the business of the Committee on housing, Neighborhood, Development and the homeless. For today, this public hearing on resolution number one seven, zero. Two five two is recessed to the call of the chair. Thank you all.

A

So very much for your participation have a good day.