"Finding Place in Community Change Initiatives: Using GIS to Uncover Resident Perceptions of their Neighborhoods," by Claudia Coulton, and Tsui Chan of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, and Kristen Mikelbank of the Cleveland Food Bank, has been published by the Journal of Community Practice, released March 4, 2011.

A recent journal article "Getting the Most Out of Service Learning: Maximizing Student, University, and Community Impact" in the Journal of Community Practice, is by professors Mark Chupp and Mark Joseph, is outlined in this |think magazine blog article. Additional articles about their work, and the efforts of Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences students can bee see in the August and July 2010 articles here. Both Mark Chupp and Mark Joseph are faculty associates of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development.

A new report from Case Western Reserve’s Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development documents the problem of so-called bank walkaways in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The report, titled Stalling the Foreclosure Process: The Complexity Behind Bank Walkaways, takes an in-depth look at stalled foreclosure cases in Cuyahoga County in order to describe the factors involved in delayed foreclosure cases. Foreclosure cases that remain unresolved for long periods of time can result in serious spillover damages, incurring costs like unpaid taxes, unpaid utility bills, nuisance abatement assessments, maintenance, and in the most severe cases, could include fire damage or demolition. The researchers examined the court records of 999 stalled foreclosure cases (cases where a decree of foreclosure has been granted but the property did not go to sheriff’s sale for over 180 days), finding that 56 percent of these stalled foreclosure cases could possibly be considered bank walkaways. The researchers also found that the possible bank walkaways are more likely to be vacant, tax delinquent, and demolished. When considering the status of a foreclosure case in court, the researchers determined that cases where a plaintiff (the mortgage lender or subsequent note holder) took no action for 180 days or more after receiving a foreclosure judgment, and cases where a plaintiff dismissed a foreclosure judgment for reasons that did not involve resolving the mortgage lien, among other scenarios, could possibly be considered bank walkaways. “It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what’s going on with a foreclosure case,†reports Michael Schramm, co-author and Research Associate at the Center on Urban Poverty. "Paper and electronic court records might be missing details, and plaintiffs often only give boiler-plate reasons for their actions. But defining the problem and outlining how to recognize it is the first step in finding the solution.†Click here to download the file. For questions or comments about this report, please contact Michael Schramm at 216-368-0206. This work has been possible using the Center's freely available, social, economic, neighborhood and property information database, NEO CANDO, can be found on the web here.

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development in partnership with the United Way of Greater Cleveland, has released a series of 12 data briefs on key social demographic and population dimensions of Cuyahoga County. The data briefs address issues related to United Way’s core community priorities, with specific attention to changes in indicators over time. Using data from a range of Census and local sources, the briefs highlight important dimensions of life in Cuyahoga County that can inform approaches to address community needs. The briefs examine shifts in population (changing demographics, child population, mobility), indicators of risk ( poverty, child maltreatment, teen/ unmarried births, educational attainment, adult literacy), and indicators of opportunity ( employment, public schools, safety net supports, housing affordability). The United Way of Greater Cleveland used these demographic analyses as a discussion launching point for their request for proposal committee process for the 2011 year. The United Way of Greater Cleveland used these demographic analyses as inputs for their request for proposal committee process for the 2011 year. This social research is available on our website as individual briefs or one combined .PDF. They are also shared on the United Way server here.

Doctoral Candidate Diwakar Vadapalli presented a paper in India, at two separate occasions on collecting, analyzing, and using Social and Economic Indicators, based on the Center on Urban Poverty’s NEO CANDO database model. The paper: "Indicators, actionable data, and ‘model villages’: NEO CANDO as an example for similar systems in India" by Diwakar K. Vadapalli, and Claudia J. Coulton was presented at: The National Seminar on ‘Building of Model Villages through Panchayat Raj Institutions’ on 10th August, 2010 at The National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Hyderabad, India The second presentation on this same research was titled, "Indicators, actionable data, and local decision-making: NEO CANDO as an example for similar systems in India" also presented by Diwakar K. Vadapalli on Aug 18, 2010 at the invitation of the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore, India.

A new report from Case Western Reserve University's Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, Cleveland State University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, documents the foreclosure crisis and community responses in Greater Cleveland. The new report " Facing the Foreclosure Crisis in Greater Cleveland: What happened and How Communities Are Responding," weaves together updated research from Pathways to Foreclosure, Foreclosure and Beyond, and Beyond REO with over a dozen examples of community responses to the foreclosure crisis that range from government reform and legislation to counseling and prevention initiatives. The report finds that in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, subprime mortgages, in some sections of the city and suburbs, rapidly supplanted conventional loans as the primary product for home purchases and refinances. By 2005, more than 10,000 foreclosures were filed on residential properties in a single year. A growing number of properties entered prolonged periods of vacancy, stuck either in the foreclosure process or in REO—real-estate portfolios of mortgage companies and servicers. Untended properties deteriorated and were vandalized. The value of housing stock plummeted, leading speculators to buy REO properties in some neighborhoods in bulk and for pennies on the dollar. Neighborhoods with large African-American populations were particularly hard hit by foreclosures and the negative spillover effects. But Greater Cleveland did not sit idly by; this report also documents our response. Local governments, non-profit organizations, and community groups mobilized to educate potential home buyers, prevent foreclosures, and rehabilitate vacant properties. They have coordinated their efforts and responded strategically, using data to drive their actions. In addition, groups have worked to mediate issues on-the-ground and at the policy level, working to prevent this crisis from ever happening again. Download the "Facing the Foreclosure Crisis in Greater Cleveland: What happened and How Communities Are Responding" report