The Obama Administration recognizes that the interconnected challenges in high-poverty neighborhoods require interconnected solutions. The Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative is a community-based approach to help neighborhoods in distress transform themselves into neighborhoods of opportunity.

1. white house
neighborhood revitalization initiative
UNCA Neighborhood Revitalization Conference
August 2, 2012

2. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
what is it?
Launched by the White House
in September 2010
supporting
communities with
• Five federal agencies tools • enabling local-level
working together to solutions for
align place-based comprehensive
• across education,
investments neighborhood
housing, public safety,
revitalization
health, and human
services
to transform
interagency effort
neighborhoods
Responding to increases in
concentrated poverty across the
country

3. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
why are we working together?
Number of Americans living in neighborhoods with
more than 40 percent of residents in poverty
The effects of the
recession drove median 14 11.5
household income to its 10.3 million
lowest level since 1996. 12
million
In 2010, 46.2 million 10 7.9 million
Americans were
8
living in poverty.
6
The poverty rate is
highest among children, 4
with nearly 16 million
children growing up 2
below the poverty line.
0
1990 2000 2006-2010
(avg.)

4. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
why are we working together?
When it comes to addressing poverty, place matters:
a child’s zip code should never determine his or
her opportunities.
The stress children Sustained exposure to
experience from living in disadvantaged neighborhoods is
poverty can cause long- associated with a 60-to-80 percent
term impairments to decrease in the odds of high
cognitive development. school graduation.
Improving opportunities in neighborhoods
can have substantial impact on a child’s
future.

5. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
why are we working together?
The aggregate impact of child poverty
Poverty and social in the United States leads to reduced
skills development and economic
isolation not productivity, increased crime, and
only make it poorer health…
hard for ….all of which is conservatively
individuals to succeed, estimated by recent research to cost
but affect the the United States more than $620
billion per year.
welfare of
the country and economy as a whole.

6. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
how are we working together?
Interconnected Access to
quality
challenges education
in neighborhoods require
interconnected Jobs and
Affordable
economic
solutions. vitality
housing
Neighborhoods
of opportunity
Access to
Safe
quality
streets
healthcare

7. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
how are we working together?
Centerpiece programs share a common theory of change
Promise Byrne Choice
Neighborhoods Criminal Neighborhoods
Justice
NRI is working to
Innovation connect these
programs to the
federal Health
educational revitalizes distressed
community-oriented Center program
opportunities to housing to drive
strategies to address
revitalize neighborhood and Community
violent crime
underserved transformation
Development
neighborhoods
Financial
More than $365 million invested by the end of 2012
Institution (CDFI)
Fund.

8. housing plan includes 624 units (504 onsite and 121 offsite senior building). 1100 homes are planned for the site, with that balance the current responsibility of
neighborhood revitalization initiative:
innovation on the ground
Choice Neighborhoods:
San Francisco’s Eastern Bayview
Private-public consortium includes:
neighborhood. High vacancies, poor • McCormack Baron Salazar
40 percent of residents live in poverty to job
schools, and inadequate access •San Francisco Housing Authority,
centers have hindered revitalization. •Lennar Urban
•City of San Francisco,
•School District,
•Urban Strategies
Plan includes public,
affordable, and market
rate housing….
….as well as strategies to support residents and improve
opportunities in the neighborhood:
improving school quality and access to high-quality early
education programs;
working with local organizations to provide job training
Improve streetscapes
new commercial assets, fresh food stores, and bus rapid
transit
DOJ Public Safety Enhancement funding to address crime

9. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
how are we working together?
In addition to a shared theory of change, NRI has aligned
programs to target resources and cut red tape.
• Competitive grant preferences
• Streamlined grant requirements and performance
metrics
• Aligned technical assistance across programs and
dual site visits
• Sharing best practices across grantees

10. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
innovation on the ground
Tulsa Boston
•Created unified metrics for the •Choice grantee capitalizing on the
neighborhoods’ Choice & Promise grants Promise grantee’s strong capacity to
•Partnership with local health center to engage the community by contracting
increase access of neighborhood residents with them to engage residents in the
Choice grant.
•Using a DOJ Public Safety
Grantees receiving funds from Enhancement grant to bolster crime
multiple centerpiece programs reduction efforts in the Choice
neighborhood
are developing a community
of practice to share their
successes, challenges, and offer San Antonio
support to other communities •Shared governance structure for the
that are working to braid multiple neighborhoods’ Choice & Promise grants
•Working towards complete alignment of
funding streams
education strategies for Choice and Promise

11. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
building neighborhood capacity
NRI meets high-poverty neighborhoods
where they are—at varying stages of
readiness and capacity
Stakeholders told us that federal funds leave gaps unfilled: support is needed
for essential infrastructure and capacity to achieve the results residents
want: jobs, affordable housing, good education, safe streets and others
The Building Neighborhood Capacity
Program brings together the resources
and expertise of the 5 NRI agencies and
key partners to bridge gaps in capacity of
neighborhoods that have experienced
persistent poverty.

12. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
building neighborhood capacity
Help neighborhoods develop the capacity to undertake
comprehensive planning and revitalization activities.
Intensive Training and Technical Assistance:
On-the-ground TA for persistently distressed
communities with capacity challenges
BNCP will
provide:
BNCP Resource Center:
Open to all communities and will provide
guidance, offer online resources, and
identify existing federal TA

13. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
building neighborhood capacity
The NRI agencies drew on research and 30 years of field experience to develop a
framework of capacities that are essential to creating successful and sustainable
neighborhood transformation.
The capacity building framework includes:
Strong
Strategies neighborhood
Strategic,
based on leadership
accountable
best available and
partnerships
evidence organizational
capacity
Financing
Data for
that aligns
decisions,
and targets
learning, and
resources
accountability

14. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
supporting local leaders nationwide

15. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
Innovation on the ground
Promise Neighborhoods:
Minneapolis Northside Achievement Zone
50 organizational and school partners with a shared goal
to prepare all NAZ children to graduate from high
school ready for college.
Cradle-to-career continuum of comprehensive supports
through family engagement and opportunity alignment, an
educational pipeline, and whole family support.
As a Promise Neighborhood, NAZ is scaling up its successful
strategies with a goal of reaching 1,200 families with 3,000 children
– all successfully on a path to college, and each experiencing a
transformation in their lives.

16. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
where are we going?
Scaling up the NRI approach: Performance Partnerships
 Fill key gaps in neighborhood revitalization funding by providing
flexible federal funding
 Expectation: Braid, leverage, and target
multiple funding sources
 Doing more with less: Creating
flexibility within existing pools
of funding
President’s FY2013 Budget: $70-130 million
The Administration will identify between
7-13 partnerships nationwide based primarily
on capacity to use funds to make significant strides
in neighborhood and resident outcomes

17. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
where are we going?
Scaling up the NRI approach:
working with other place-based
federal programs to take
investments to scale.
Regions
Aligned Cities
federal
investment
Neighborhoods

18. neighborhood revitalization initiative:
online resources
NRI web page and report:
 http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/oua/initiatives/neighborhood-revitalization
 http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/nri_pb_agencies_final_9.pdf
 http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/resources.html
Centerpiece programs:
 Choice Neighborhoods:
 http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/programs/ph/cn/
 Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation:
 https://www.bja.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?Program_ID=70
 Promise Neighborhoods:
 http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/index.html
 Building Neighborhood Capacity Program
 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/11BNCTTAsol.pdf
 Health Center Program:
• http://bphc.hrsa.gov/
Memo from OMB describing the Administration’s Place-Based Focus:
 http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-21.pdf