Issue Areas
NNIP Partners make important contributions to their communities on a variety of issues. The pages below highlight and organize the work NNIP partners have done, bringing together activities, published products, and cross-site projects related to each topic. We'll list additional issue areas as our partners add new examples, so check back often.
If you are interested in topics not displayed here, use the site's general search box.
Absenteeism is an important indicator of how well children will perform in school. A number of our partners are helping school districts understand chronic absenteeism in their communities. [read more]
Community groups and policy makers have expressed a strong interest in maintaining and improving the stock of affordable housing in NNIP communities. Our partners research and report on the availability of affordable housing, the costs and benefits of gentrification, rent control, and reflect more broadly on how access to affordable housing ... [read more]
Many partners have focused efforts to help to improve the well-being of children in low-income neighborhoods. Project examples include school readiness initiatives, child indicator reports, analysis on home visiting and support of promise neighborhood programs. [read more]
The community development field has recognized that just building housing is not enough, and many now invest in other critical assets such as schools, businesses, and parks. They also increasingly use market conditions and typologies to make decisions about where to invest. [read more]
All of the NNIP partners have recurrently updated neighborhood data systems covering a variety of topics. In some cities, communities use the data from the NNIP partners to develop community indicator projects. In this approach, indicators are selected either across topical domains or with a focus (like children) to collectively track trends in ... [read more]
Almost two-thirds of NNIP partners have crime data at the address-level. They use the data to help neighborhoods identify and address public safety issues and investigate how crime relates to other neighborhood indicators, like foreclosures and collective efficacy. [read more]
Partners contribute to improving the education systems in their cities by analyzing high school graduation rates, enrollment projections, school spending and test scores. If you are interested in test scores specifically, type student performance in the site's main search box. [read more]
Information on employment and the local labor market are vital to understanding the economic situation faced by people in our communities. In the "Welfare to Work" cross site project, NNIP partners reported on how welfare reform affected the ability of recipients to find jobs and achieve economic independence. Other activities involve ... [read more]
The founding NNIP partners were created in the 1990's in response to neighborhood disparities in their cities, and partners still seek to highlight and address inequities among different areas and racial groups. Several partners have created "regional equity atlases" to map disparities and propose actions to move toward more ... [read more]
Access to healthy and affordable food is a growing issue area and related to several aspects of residents’ and neighborhoods’ well-being including obesity rates, economic development, environmental concerns, and family economic success. Examples of local work include studies of potential markets for a new grocery store, addressing child ... [read more]
Over two-thirds of the NNIP partners are collaborating with their local networks to improve their communities' response to the foreclosure crisis. They are engaged in a wide range of activities, including analyzing the patterns and causes of foreclosures, helping practioners to tailor strategies to fit neighborhood contexts and rapidly ... [read more]
Our communities are only as healthy as the people living in them, and NNIP partners have conducted a wealth of research on local health conditions. Examples of local work include studies of local health disparities, compiling new neighborhood-level health indicators, and creating web applications that disseminate health information to a wider ... [read more]
When it's looking at the reconstruction of post-Katrina New Orleans or using data to help end homelessness in Sacramento, NNIP partners have brought much attention to the importance of housing to our communities. Other local efforts include reporting on property values and the availability of affordable housing, combating blight, and ... [read more]
Housing markets and their intricate relationship with neighborhood conditions and economic growth, have been of growing interest since the foreclosure crisis. NNIP partners have looked at housing market data to track and fight the spread of blight, examine the effects of foreclosures on our communities, and strategically target new areas for ... [read more]
We live in a highly mobile society, and while changing residences can be a family's way of getting to a place with better neighborhoods and schools, frequent mobility can also be a sign of family instability and a great cause of stress. NNIP partners report on mobility and its effects on employment, children's education, health, and ... [read more]
The Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was established by HUD to help stabilize communities that have suffered from foreclosures and abandonment. NNIP partners have been highly involved in the effects of foreclosures on their communities, and some have realized their work with NSP resources. [read more]
The open data movement seeks to improve government transparency and empower citizens with pertinent information about their cities and neighborhoods. NNIP partners understand how to use public data to engage and benefit low-income communities, and help ensure that the increase in data availability does not widen the information gap between rich ... [read more]
NNIP partners are increasingly taking advantage of advances in open source software development. Using open source tools eliminates the cost of ongoing licenses and increases the chance of replicating the application in other places. Weave offers the most mature example of open source software related to NNIP, but individual partner ... [read more]
Performance measurement refers to tracking metrics about the outputs provided by a government agency or nonprofit organization. Many NNIP partners are helping local organizations develop ways to measure their services, review their own progress, and improve their programs. [read more]
The challenges of returning to one’s community after incarceration are high, and the solutions are not simple. Eleven NNIP partners were part of the “Reentry Mapping Network” cross site project working to map and analyze prisoner reentry and related issues in their communities. Through this and other work, they have been able to help local ... [read more]
The U.S. Department of Education launched the Promise Neighborhood grant program in 2010. Inspired by the Harlem's Children's Zone, the program seeks to improve the educational and developmental outcomes of children in the most distressed communities by building a continuum of academic programs and family and community supports. The ... [read more]
The school readiness system encompasses a broad array of programs and policies that prepare children for school so that they are healthy and ready to succeed. From tracking early education program such as Head Start to monitoring quality in child care, to evaluating home visiting programs, NNIP partners are committed to improving the chances ... [read more]
Some NNIP partners were recipients of the first round of HUD's Sustainable Communities Grants and will be implementing the grant by engaging in a comprehensive regional planning process to foster sustainable and equitable communities. [read more]
The transportation mix in neighborhoods and their regions affects residents’ housing choices and access to jobs and services. Our partners have looked at a range of transportation issues, including commuting patterns, the impact of new light rail lines, and the disparities in transit access among neighborhoods. [read more]
A surplus of vacant homes, especially when abandoned or blighted, can detract from a neighborhood’s health in several ways. Poorly maintained structures and lots can drag down surrounding property values and signal a neighborhood’s acceptance of other types of disorder. Unsecured buildings are hazardous in themselves, plus may provide shelter ... [read more]