2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Using Data for Neighborhood Improvement 213
The suit brought against these banks was to deem these properties a
“public nuisance”—unsafe, uninhabitable—and to prohibit the transfer
of properties until problems were abated at the banks’ expense. The suit
focused specifically on the problem REO properties in NPI’s SII areas
given the long-term investments in these areas. Although the lawsuit was
not a success in the courtroom, these banks did voluntarily demolish
some properties in these areas. The lawsuit also put banks on notice that
the community was paying attention and would continue to push for
practices that counteracted, not contributed, to blight.
REO disposition practices were also the focus of often-cited research
conducted by the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development.
One of their analyses showed that upward of 65 percent of the
REO properties in Cleveland were being sold out of REO for $10,000 or
less in 2008, up from less than 10 percent in 2005 (Coulton, Schramm,
and Hirsh 2008). Properties sold subsequent to being purchased out of
REO would often become tax delinquent, and if they sold again, the sale
occurred quickly, which signaled that very little property improvement
had taken place (Coulton et al. 2008).
Concerns were mounting about the increasing numbers of REO,
vacant, and abandoned properties, the condition of these properties, and
their impact on communities. By 2007, a county land bank was being
discussed as one solution. In fact, findings from the Center on Urban
Poverty and Community Development were used as evidence at a state
legislative hearing regarding the need for a land bank. Without access to
NEO CANDO’s parcel-level data on sales transactions, which included
buyer and seller names and sales prices, it would not have been possible
to document and quantify what was transpiring in these communities.
Strategic Decisionmaking at the Land Bank
The Cuyahoga Lank Bank began operations in summer 2009. According
to Mike Schramm, the land bank’s director of information technology
and research, the data in NEO CANDO are essential to the workings
of the land bank. 6 Rather than replicating efforts, the bank data system
connects directly with the NEO CANDO–NST web app to capture the
necessary property information. Having acquired over 2,000 properties
since its inception, the land bank must know the characteristics and location
of properties in its inventory as well as those of the surrounding