Data Used To Select New Investment Areas For Neighborhoods Initiative

The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) produced a report for the Executive Director of Baltimore’s Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, Inc. (HNI, Inc.) that was used to guide the selection of new investment areas. HNI, Inc. targets neighborhoods for improvement that have a strong housing stock, and seem likely to rapidly improve if they receive an infusion of new investments.  

BNIA produces quarterly reports as well as a year-end report for HNI, Inc. These reports detail trends for housing indicators for target blocks in HNI, Inc. neighborhoods. BNIA tracks six key housing indicators:

• median sales price,  
• number of housing units sold,  
• median number of days a house is on the market,  
• percent of residential properties that undergo mortgage foreclosure,  
• percent of residential properties that are vacant and abandoned, and  
• the percent of residential properties with building permits for rehab investment over $5,000.  

This story was written by staff at the Urban Institute, drawn from documents and interviews with Peter Armstrong of BNIA and Carol Eshelman of the Brooklyn and Curtis Bay Coalition. Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance is the Baltimore partner in the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, a learning network in 30 cities coordinated by the Urban Institute. All partners ensure communities have access to data and the skills to use information to advance equity and well-being across neighborhoods.