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How a neighborhood-focused Baltimore initiative is employing patience, partnership, and resident leadership to drive long-term change

At the corner of North and Cecil Avenues in Central Baltimore sits the newly constructed home of a community-based organization, Roberta’s House, which…

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9 months ago

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By Darius Graham

At the corner of North and Cecil Avenues in Central Baltimore sits the newly constructed home of a community-based organization, Roberta’s House, which provides mental health and grief counseling services to residents who may not otherwise get these much-needed services. The building represents a transformational investment designed to bring new life to a vacant block that was previously occupied by rowhomes.

When construction on Roberta’s House broke ground in 2018, the two sides of Cecil Avenue at this corner were divided, both physically and symbolically. The juxtaposition of abandoned rowhomes on one side and hope rising from the ground on the other side, sparked a thought among staff at Baltimore’s Weinberg Foundation: What if this building were to be the start of a ripple of redevelopment and opportunity in the neighborhood?

And so, the revitalization of this one building on this one corner would soon become part of something bigger—a philanthropic-funded effort to improve the health and life trajectory of Central Baltimore residents. This piece tells the story of lessons from the Greenmount Life, Opportunity, and Wellness (GLOW) Initiative, a new effort to concentrate financial and social investment in select neighborhoods that have long experienced underinvestment.

Developing a hyper-local strategy rooted in strength

Created in 1990, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation had been funding Baltimore-based nonprofits for 30 years when, beginning in 2018 and following many conversations with stakeholders, the foundation adopted a hyperlocal, place-based strategy (while continuing to provide grants across the Baltimore region). The premise was that by focusing some of the foundation’s financial and social capital in a compact geographic area, it could drive positive outcomes in an even more targeted way. Out of this decision came GLOW.

We knew that one of the most important factors in getting GLOW off the ground was choosing the right area on which to focus our efforts. Several factors led to our selection of four Central Baltimore neighborhoods, Midway, Barclay, Harwood, and Greenmount West, including:

  • Need: Many residents of our target neighborhoods had limited economic opportunity and poor health. Midway, for example, had the highest unemployment rate of any neighborhood in the city, the sixth lowest life expectancy, and one of the city’s highest concentrations of children living in poverty.
  • Concurrent investment: While Baltimore City, despite decades of disinvestment, had designated the area as one of its “Impact Investment Areas,” other major developments, including a large nonprofit makerspace, were already underway or forthcoming in the area. Meanwhile, a coalition of funders had also recently launched the Central Baltimore Future Fund to catalyze commercial redevelopment. We recognized that GLOW would be more successful if it aligned with those efforts.
  • Partners: The area also is home to four public schools and many nonprofits, including Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP), a nonprofit collaborative of over 100 organizations dedicated to the revitalization of Central Baltimore neighborhoods. These partners already had meaningful relationships and capacity that if brought together could help achieve more positive outcomes for the neighborhoods around GLOW’s goals.

With all of this in mind, Weinberg Foundation saw an opportunity to improve Central Baltimore’s economic and public health outcomes by working with CBP to physically transform the four neighborhoods, while placing special emphasis on health and educational outcomes for their residents. In this way, the Foundation was able to tap into existing organizational infrastructure—essentially building from strength instead of building from scratch.

Strong and glowing: From an idea to implementation

The central purpose of GLOW is to mobilize and coordinate an array of organizations to improve the health and life trajectory of Central Baltimore residents by improving access to, and utilization of, primary health care, nutritious food, and enriching educational or career opportunities for youth. While the long-term goal is to make an impact on key indicators like unemployment and life expectancy, we know that those will take years. In the interim, we are squarely focused on supporting the initiative as a platform for aligning multiple organizations, sourcing and advancing residents’ goals and desire, lifting up residents as leaders, and attracting additional resources to the neighborhood.

We’ve had some early wins. For example, GLOW has established a network of more than 30 service providers, including a national organization it recruited to the neighborhood, which will connect 125 families with housing, employment, financial, and supportive services that help increase economic mobility. Other wins include expanding paid summer youth opportunities in the neighborhood by partnering with Banner Neighborhoods to operate a YouthWorks site, and catalyzing the development of several key capital projects including an outdoor education and community health hub along with a teaching kitchen. Along the way, we’ve also learned a lot of lessons relevant for any equity-focused place-based initiative, including:

  1. The lead organization for a place-based initiative—CBP in the case of GLOW—must be adept at navigating a range of efforts and stakeholders. Specifically, it must be capable of both strategic and tactical efforts and have trust and relationships with a range of stakeholders, including funders, government leaders, and residents. The organization must focus on strategy at all levels and not get bogged down in the day-to-day of providing services and activities in the neighborhood.
  2. Genuine partnership means more than ‘partners on paper’. Partnership, like collaboration, is a term that gets used a lot and can mean different things to different people. With GLOW, we have found that true partnership requires more than regular meetings or information sharing. It demands building trusting relationships rooted in an “if you win, I win” mentality instead of in the scarcity mindset that often pervades the nonprofit sector, especially when it comes to working with foundations. It means jointly applying for funding, being clear about expectations and roles, and navigating conflict.
  3. Community leadership is as important as community engagement. For place-based initiatives like GLOW, it’s critical that residents not just be engaged in typical ways like surveys or public meetings. Instead, residents should have genuine leadership and decision-making authority— meaning equal or greater representation on the committee overseeing the initiative, with compensation for their time and insights.
  4. Planning takes time and resources. Place-based initiatives require coordinating across city agencies, nonprofit organizations, and resident leaders—as well as including visible wins in early months to build trust and buy-in with residents and partners. This took us two years and required flexibility as the COVID-19 pandemic extended timelines and shifted our attention. Even under normal circumstances planning requires significant staff time to thoughtfully engage residents and stakeholders in small group and one-on-one conversations.
  5. Patience is essential. Place-based initiatives require a long-term commitment due to the nature of developing the infrastructure across sectors to create systemic, long-term change. Phases include understanding the challenges and opportunities in the community, building the infrastructure across multiple partners, and capacity building for anchor institutions—all before achieving neighborhood-level outcomes.

With these lessons in mind, we are continuing to invest in and build GLOW so it can serve as a platform for convening resident and stakeholders to drive change in Central Baltimore for many years to come. By focusing on strategy, building true partnerships, centering residents as leaders, investing in planning, and operating with a sense of flexibility and patience, we believe other funders and community-based organizations can build similar initiatives to help transform underinvested neighborhoods.

Photo credit: Banner Neighborhoods, Inc.

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Homes listed for sale in early June sell for $7,700 more

New Zillow research suggests the spring home shopping season may see a second wave this summer if mortgage rates fall
The post Homes listed for sale in…

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7 hours ago

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March 11, 2024

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  • A Zillow analysis of 2023 home sales finds homes listed in the first two weeks of June sold for 2.3% more. 
  • The best time to list a home for sale is a month later than it was in 2019, likely driven by mortgage rates.
  • The best time to list can be as early as the second half of February in San Francisco, and as late as the first half of July in New York and Philadelphia. 

Spring home sellers looking to maximize their sale price may want to wait it out and list their home for sale in the first half of June. A new Zillow® analysis of 2023 sales found that homes listed in the first two weeks of June sold for 2.3% more, a $7,700 boost on a typical U.S. home.  

The best time to list consistently had been early May in the years leading up to the pandemic. The shift to June suggests mortgage rates are strongly influencing demand on top of the usual seasonality that brings buyers to the market in the spring. This home-shopping season is poised to follow a similar pattern as that in 2023, with the potential for a second wave if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates midyear or later. 

The 2.3% sale price premium registered last June followed the first spring in more than 15 years with mortgage rates over 6% on a 30-year fixed-rate loan. The high rates put home buyers on the back foot, and as rates continued upward through May, they were still reassessing and less likely to bid boldly. In June, however, rates pulled back a little from 6.79% to 6.67%, which likely presented an opportunity for determined buyers heading into summer. More buyers understood their market position and could afford to transact, boosting competition and sale prices.

The old logic was that sellers could earn a premium by listing in late spring, when search activity hit its peak. Now, with persistently low inventory, mortgage rate fluctuations make their own seasonality. First-time home buyers who are on the edge of qualifying for a home loan may dip in and out of the market, depending on what’s happening with rates. It is almost certain the Federal Reserve will push back any interest-rate cuts to mid-2024 at the earliest. If mortgage rates follow, that could bring another surge of buyers later this year.

Mortgage rates have been impacting affordability and sale prices since they began rising rapidly two years ago. In 2022, sellers nationwide saw the highest sale premium when they listed their home in late March, right before rates barreled past 5% and continued climbing. 

Zillow’s research finds the best time to list can vary widely by metropolitan area. In 2023, it was as early as the second half of February in San Francisco, and as late as the first half of July in New York. Thirty of the top 35 largest metro areas saw for-sale listings command the highest sale prices between May and early July last year. 

Zillow also found a wide range in the sale price premiums associated with homes listed during those peak periods. At the hottest time of the year in San Jose, homes sold for 5.5% more, a $88,000 boost on a typical home. Meanwhile, homes in San Antonio sold for 1.9% more during that same time period.  

 

Metropolitan Area Best Time to List Price Premium Dollar Boost
United States First half of June 2.3% $7,700
New York, NY First half of July 2.4% $15,500
Los Angeles, CA First half of May 4.1% $39,300
Chicago, IL First half of June 2.8% $8,800
Dallas, TX First half of June 2.5% $9,200
Houston, TX Second half of April 2.0% $6,200
Washington, DC Second half of June 2.2% $12,700
Philadelphia, PA First half of July 2.4% $8,200
Miami, FL First half of June 2.3% $12,900
Atlanta, GA Second half of June 2.3% $8,700
Boston, MA Second half of May 3.5% $23,600
Phoenix, AZ First half of June 3.2% $14,700
San Francisco, CA Second half of February 4.2% $50,300
Riverside, CA First half of May 2.7% $15,600
Detroit, MI First half of July 3.3% $7,900
Seattle, WA First half of June 4.3% $31,500
Minneapolis, MN Second half of May 3.7% $13,400
San Diego, CA Second half of April 3.1% $29,600
Tampa, FL Second half of June 2.1% $8,000
Denver, CO Second half of May 2.9% $16,900
Baltimore, MD First half of July 2.2% $8,200
St. Louis, MO First half of June 2.9% $7,000
Orlando, FL First half of June 2.2% $8,700
Charlotte, NC Second half of May 3.0% $11,000
San Antonio, TX First half of June 1.9% $5,400
Portland, OR Second half of April 2.6% $14,300
Sacramento, CA First half of June 3.2% $17,900
Pittsburgh, PA Second half of June 2.3% $4,700
Cincinnati, OH Second half of April 2.7% $7,500
Austin, TX Second half of May 2.8% $12,600
Las Vegas, NV First half of June 3.4% $14,600
Kansas City, MO Second half of May 2.5% $7,300
Columbus, OH Second half of June 3.3% $10,400
Indianapolis, IN First half of July 3.0% $8,100
Cleveland, OH First half of July  3.4% $7,400
San Jose, CA First half of June 5.5% $88,400

 

The post Homes listed for sale in early June sell for $7,700 more appeared first on Zillow Research.

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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2 days ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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3 days ago

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March 8, 2024

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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