Data Resources on Preventing Foreclosures

Here's a resource I thought you might be interested in:

Foreclosure Response
Resources on preventing foreclosures & stabilizing communities -- Available through HousingPolicy.org

Across the country, states and localities are engaged in an expedited process to determine how to allocate nearly $4 billion that the federal government is providing to help stabilize the communities that have been hardest hit by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Decisions about how to use these funds, distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), need to be made quickly: Initial Action Plans are due by December 1, 2008, and all money must be obligated for use on a specific project within 18 months of receipt.

To help states and communities make informed decisions about how to allocate and spend these funds, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has developed a dataset with foreclosure "needs scores" for CDBG-jurisdictions within each state. These scores incorporate measures of subprime lending, foreclosures, delinquency, and vacancies to help state and local officials quickly assess the relative needs of different jurisdictions for neighborhood stabilization funding within each state and allocate funds accordingly.

This resource represents the first release from the Foreclosure Response project - a new collaboration of the Center for Housing Policy, Knowledgeplex, LISC, and the Urban Institute. Expected to launch formally within a few months, Foreclosure Response will help practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to access data, analysis and information on foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization.

Direct links to these resources are provided below:

Overview - A brief introduction to the data included in the spreadsheet and how they can be used.

Neighborhood Stabilization Data (Excel) - A detailed spreadsheet showing the relative need for neighborhood stabilization funding among CDBG jurisdictions within each state. This spreadsheet has four tabs:

• Table 1. LISC's Foreclosure Needs Scores for CDBG jurisdictions within each state, along with data on individual components that make up the score.
• Table 2. Data that help states estimate the share of need among communities that fall outside formal CDBG jurisdiction limits.
• Data Definitions. Descriptions of the data shown in each column of Table 1.
• Appendix A. A list of the small number of changes in CDBG jurisdiction boundaries that have taken place since 2005. The data we have provided do not reflect these changes.

Methodology (PDF) - A detailed description of the methodology used to calculate the LISC Foreclosure Needs Scores.

As the Foreclosure Response team continues to prepare information for initial launch of our information portal, we plan to release additional materials that can help communities with the process of developing foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization programs, such as lessons learned from existing programs and more detailed data for local jurisdictions. A full set of resources, including a policy guide, interactive discussion forum, and customizable data reports, will be released in the first part of 2009.

Please check back soon, and let us know if you have suggestions or program examples we should know about by contacting us at feedback@housingpolicy.org .

Best regards,-- The Foreclosure Response Team

(Hat tip: NNIP)