Equity in Action – Summit of the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group (PCRG) Shows Us how to Revitalize Communities

Last week, the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group (PCRG) held its 15^th annual summit entitled “Equity in Action.” Indeed, this summit showed all stakeholders – community organizations, banks, and researchers – how to achieve equity and revitalize communities. The keynote addresses and the conference sessions were among the most informative I have attended in my three decades in this field.

Andre Perry, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, presented the opening keynote address that focused on his recent book, Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It. He compared the experiences of African Americans across the country and measured their success in terms of life expectancy. Not surprisingly, his econometric analysis found that higher levels of wealth, homeownership, and small business ownership corresponded to higher life expectancy. Importantly and counter to the ideology of the Trump administration about the ills of immigration, he also revealed that higher shares of Black immigrants also increased life expectancy of native African Americans. Other indicators of human capital such as higher educational achievement also boosted life expectancy. Additionally, lower levels of air pollution and increased levels of bicycling and walking bolstered life expectancy.

The upshot of Perry’s discussion was creating and building upon public policies that increase homeownership and small business ownership in the African American community, and those that decrease air pollution and improve the walkability of communities.

Zeke Hernandez, Associate Professor at the Wharton School, expanded upon the positives of immigration when presenting the major findings of his book, The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers. As I write this, the Trump Administration has brazenly rounded up immigrants in Los Angeles, arrested a labor leader opposing the roundups, and has threatened to arrest the California governor, who has sued the Administration over federalizing the California National Guard. I challenge everybody to read Hernandez’s book and to then consider whether the Trump Administration is protecting our country or engaging in cruel and counterproductive crackdowns.

Hernandez cogently addresses the misperceptions associated with immigrants and demonstrates how immigrants increase the economic pie in America through their ingenuity, talent, and hard work. He described to us not only how Salsa was invented through a collaboration between immigrants and natives but how this cultural innovation boosted the economy. He pointed out that immigrants contribute to the economy to the tune of trillions of dollars and how immigrants are vital in several industries including construction. Good luck alleviating the housing shortage and the high cost of housing if our country drives out the immigrant construction workforce.

Rohit Acharya, Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Founding Partner at Common Good Labs, demonstrated quantitatively and through mapping, how communities can move from poverty to prosperity without experiencing displacement. He indicates that regional conditions conducive to inclusive prosperity include overall regional economic growth and lower homicide rates (which can be achieved through interventions at school keeping kids involved in extracurricular activities). He then identified neighborhood specific conditions that promote revitalization without displacement; these include increases in homeownership rates, lessening residential vacancies and blight, increases in housing density, greater rates of self-employment, and presence of community organizations.

I had the good fortune of following these scholarly presentations in a panel with PCRG’s Executive Director Ernie Hogan and PCRG Research Analyst Druta Bhatt. The panel focused on how the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is vital for the development of traditionally underserved communities. I pointed out that CRA promotes banks financing homeownership, small business ownership, construction of affordable housing, and increases in community organizations including health and childcare centers – all of these were preconditions for increasing the life expectancy and prosperity of neighborhoods identified by the keynote speakers. I also addressed major themes for invigorating CRA through by boosting community participation in the CRA process as discussed in my recent book, Ending Redlining through a Community-Centered Reform of the Community Reinvestment Act. Ernie shared his decades of experience advocating for neighborhoods and how PCRG’s relationship with banks evolved. Druta moderated the discussion and shared her expertise as a community-based researcher.

All the keynote speakers were highly engaging, enthusiastic, insightful, and desirous of working with and learning from underserved communities across the country. If the conference only consisted of the keynote addresses, it would have been a terrific event. However, the conference built upon the themes in the keynotes by hosting a wide variety of illuminating and inspiring sessions on topics ranging from city planning, housing and aspects of community development.

I attended break-out sessions on affordable housing development, water and food justice, and preventing evictions. The practitioners during the affordable housing session focused on developments financed by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). I am always amazed how professionals put together these deals that involve several funding sources in addition to LIHTC. It is not the most efficient financing system we could build, but it is a major source of funding affordable housing in this country, so these learning sessions are critical about how to improve its efficiency and equity. One issue that emerged during the session is that large-scale developments are needed for LIHTC to be economical in the Pittsburgh region. While the large-scale approach works in some neighborhoods, others have needs for scattered-site, infill housing. Thus, LIHTC cannot serve all needs or neighborhoods. CRA will need to be used in creative ways to leverage a variety of financing approaches on the part of banks.

Water and food justice are not issues thought about much by the layperson as he or she goes about their day but are critical to the health and economic prospects of neighborhood residents. Food deserts, or the absence of healthy food, are pressing concerns in lower income neighborhoods across cities. I was impressed by the efforts of local advocates to put food needs on the policy agenda through creating regional collaborations including the Greater Pittsburg Food Action Plan. Likewise, advocates working on water justice recently defeated a proposal to privatize water services in Pittsburgh. Cities will not have healthy food systems if water is delivered through contaminated pipe systems, which was an issue in the campaign to prevent the privatization of water.

Developing affordable housing will not be sufficient if a lack of protection and mediation services leave lower income tenants vulnerable to evictions. A breakout session described the impressive eviction prevention services in the Pittsburgh region that include mediation, outreach, and right to legal counsel. Preventing evictions is often as beneficial to property owners as it is to tenants and is a vital way to stabilize an affordable housing stock by maintaining revenue flows.

One takeaway from this valuable conference was that CRA is not one dimensional. It is not solely focused on promoting homeownership – which is a mistake that is sometimes made by stakeholders not acquainted with CRA. Homeownership, as demonstrated by this conference, is vital to the revitalization of communities but it must be provided in tandem with several other facets of community development including the promotion of small businesses, affordable rental housing, healthy food and water systems, eviction prevention, and more. The smartest CRA staff at banks are those that attend conferences like these and gather new ideas and partners for financing community development – I met some of them at the conference.

Lastly, it occurred to me over the two days of the conference that if media would not only regularly cover conferences like these but also the ongoing efforts of community development, perhaps we would have a country less riven by partisan and extreme politics. Instead, we could have a country more focused on mutual aid and mutually reinforcing prosperity that welcomes immigrants as a key ingredient in our collective wealth and health building. And financing locally owned media should be promoted as a CRA activity dedicated to small business and community development.

Thank you PCRG for a thought provoking and valuable “equity action” conference!