SPARCC’s flexible capital helps Denver nonprofits build wealth, stabilize neighborhoods, and minimize displacement In the nonprofit world, it can take up to a year or more to get the money together to fund a program or development. So, when Jose Esparza, executive director of BuCu West Denver, a local economic development nonprofit, saw an opportunity […]

By Sasha Forbes There is a frustrating truth in the world of community development: new large-scale development, no matter how much it is designed to support the existing neighborhood, often displaces or alienates some longtime residents. Whether it’s a transit project, housing project or large-scale park project, the outcomes are typically the same. Assets in […]

You can tell a lot about a community by the state of its parks. No parks? That says something. Neglected or dangerous parks? A clue that residents are struggling to raise healthy families. We tend to think that the state of the neighborhood dictates the state of its parks. But what if the reverse were […]

How a $40,000 SPARCC grant helped community organizers show Google what was needed to prevent displacement of working families in San José Google has announced it is committing $1 billion for new housing across the San Francisco Bay Area. The tech giant promises to build 20,000 new residences (including 5,000 affordable homes) over the next […]

SPARCC provides a path to building “the muscle of collaboration” for more equitable investments in LA communities As the city of Inglewood plans for construction of three major sports arenas, the developments are ushering in new shops, restaurants, hotels, parks, and high-end housing, leading to the gentrification of the area and potential displacement of over […]

With SPARCC, racial equity guides new infrastructure projects in undervalued neighborhoods Last fall, when construction crews were excavating land beneath the elevated MARTA tracks in Atlanta’s historic West End neighborhood for new soccer fields, they found what appeared to be kitchen floor tiles buried in the rubble. It’s easy to imagine the family scenes in […]

By Anna Cash and Miriam Zuk Many cities around the country are struggling with the same question: How do we invest in ways that help to curb greenhouse gas emissions without displacing residents? The stakes of this question are high: Displacement has lasting impacts on physical and psychological wellbeing, community cohesion, and long-term economic mobility. […]

By Mariia Zimmerman Across the Bay Area, local leaders from the public sector, philanthropy, the tech sector and other regional employers, and community advocates have forged a new regional housing compact. The CASA Compact, released in December 2018, is a 15-year emergency policy package to confront the region’s housing crisis head-on with strategies designed to […]

Community organizations and fast capital are integral to building and preserving affordable housing in the Bay Area Last spring in Oakland—an epitome for the nation’s affordable housing crisis—Bay Area for All (BA4A) was hoping to prevent two families in East Oakland from being displaced by an institutional investor. The investor had purchased the families’ homes […]