The Foreclosure Response team – formed by the Center for Housing Policy, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Knowledgeplex, and the Urban Institute – has come together to provide resources for neighborhood stabilization and foreclosure prevention efforts in communities, the first installment of which can be viewed here on HousingPolicy.org.
These purpose of these resources is to aid states and localities engaged in an expedited process to determine how to allocate nearly $4 billion the federal government is providing to help stabilize the communities that have been hardest hit by the mortgage foreclosure crisis.
Decisions about how to use these funds, distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), must be made quickly: Initial Action Plans are due by December 1, 2008, and all money must be obligated for use on a specific project within 18 months of receipt.
To help states and communities make informed decisions about how to allocate and spend these funds, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has developed a dataset with foreclosure “needs scores” for CDBG-jurisdictions within each state. These scores incorporate measures of subprime lending, foreclosures, delinquency, and vacancies to help state and local officials quickly assess the relative needs of different jurisdictions for neighborhood stabilization funding within each state and allocate funds accordingly.
This resource represents the first release from the Foreclosure Response project, and the team plans to release additional materials that can help communities with the process of developing foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization programs. A full set of resources, including a policy guide, interactive discussion forum, and customizable data reports, will be released in the first part of 2009.