Techical Assistance
Introduction to TA
Demonstration Program
Fee-for-Service
Team of Experts
Initiate Request for TA

Introduction to TA

Our work with Cleveland, OH illustrates what positive results can occur when a community is motivated to act. Within a few hours of the release of the Campaign’s assessment report, Cleveland at the Crossroads, the mayor announced a new “Zero Blight Initiative” to aggressively address the city’s vacant property issues. Seven major city and county agencies and local community development intermediaries created the Vacant Property Coordinating Council to carry out the report’s recommendations. The members of the Council have each adopted the findings of the report, coordinated their efforts to reduce inefficiencies, and identified their collective priorities from the study. The Coordinating Council is now seeking funding to implement these priorities.

To ensure that municipalities don’t struggle alone in solving the problems associated with vacant and abandoned properties, we engage our partners, practitioners, and national experts in a range of training and technical assistance services. In the past two years, the Campaign has convened workshops and conducted in-depth policy assessments throughout the country, from Las Vegas, Nev. to New Orleans, La., from Waterloo, Iowa to Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio. The Surdna Foundation is funding work in seven additional cities in 2005 and 2006.

Building on its technical assistance services, the Campaign is compiling a collection of best practices and lessons learned from many different communities across the country. While our assessment reports provide a series of specific regional or local policy actions, they can also guide other communities with similar issues.

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The Campaign offers the following services to address the needs of jurisdictions across the country:

  • Vacant Property Systems Assessments: This essential first task provides the basis for documenting current systems and processes. The team conducts thorough assessments of a city’s vacant property policies, practices, inventory, and goals to identify the primary challenges and appropriate strategies for addressing them.
  • Vacant Property Training Roundtables: Roundtables are one- or two-day facilitated workshops led by a team of national experts and experienced practitioners, to educate local leaders and practitioners about effective prevention, acquisition and disposition models, and identify potentially appropriate revitalization strategies and tools.
  • Specific Strategies Implementation: Cities can work with one or two members of a team to develop specific implementation strategies, such as reforming foreclosure or code enforcement procedures and legislation, creating land bank authorities, drafting receivership legislation, designing and implementing early warning and inventory systems, and establishing benchmarks to measure the impact of improvements over time.
  • Leadership Consultations: Peer-to-peer learning is the hallmark of the Campaign’s technical assistance efforts. We facilitate visits by officials from other cities implementing effective local programs or policies to cities seeking to improve their vacant property revitalization efforts.
  • Training: Periodic training opportunities may be available through both local and distance learning venues, including web casts, “cyber brown bags”, and conference calls to educate practitioners and policymakers on topics relevant to vacant properties.