By Marissa Ramirez The past five years have been the warmest ever recorded on record globally, and spring flooding, hurricane and wildfire seasons are once again upon us, with summer months and their expected warmer-than-average heat not far behind. Between hurricanes in the southeast and wildfires in California, over 1.2 million people were displaced by […]

Click here to download the full report. Click here to download the executive summary. Since its formation in 2017, the Strong, Prosperous, and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) has had an exacting goal – help shift decades of racially discriminatory policies and investments that have resulted in harmful disparities in health and climate resilience in communities […]

  Proposed changes to federal regulations in community development and lending are an assault on decades of work in fighting the impacts of racial segregation, discriminatory and race-based investment practices, increased risks from pollution and climate change, and unchecked government power in approving projects. The threats are real and they are coming fast. Related Content: […]

Proposed changes to AFFH, NEPA, and CRA taken together compound the many racial, environmental, health, and economic injustices faced in housing and community development. National and local partners in the SPARCC network have shared how these proposed changes might negatively impact their communities if implemented. Related Content: Regressive Federal Rules Would Set Back Decades of […]

We’ve compiled a few resources from across the country that help explain what each of the proposed rules mean and how it could impact communities. Please see below for deadlines and templates to support drafting your own comments. Related Content: Regressive Federal Rules Would Set Back Decades of Progress in Housing and Community Development Perspectives […]

by Mariia Zimmerman, MZ Strategies It’s estimated that there are as many as two billion parking spots in the United States, while there are 200 million cars on the road. Cars cruising for on-street parking in U.S. cities contribute significantly to congestion and pollution, and parking covers huge amounts of urban land area. “Free” parking […]

SPARCC is excited to announce that we will continue work and investment in our original six sites–Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Memphis and the San Francisco Bay Area. It will continue to partner with the national organizations, Enterprise Community Partners, the Low Income Investment Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council with funding support from The […]

This article originally appeared in LIIF’s 2019 Impact Report and is written by Hannah Taylor It’s a chilly, clear October day when a crane swings over a single-family home in West Denver, CO, lifting the frame of a studio apartment into the air and lowering it into a backyard. This aerial delivery will soon become […]

Dr. Hanaa Hamdi, Director of Health Impact Investment Strategies and Partnerships for New Jersey Community Capital, sat down with NRDC’s Stephanie Gidigbi of the SPARCC national team to expand on a SPARCC Virtual Learning Conversation event highlighting the vital importance of parks in the health and well-being of communities. “Every community has a right to have access […]

Public planning processes have evolved in recent years from being a one-time, mostly one-way effort to inform the community about a proposed investment or policy change, i.e., a new highway project or a zoning change, to more community involvement to shape and design projects and policies. Equitable community engagement practices can take this even further […]