2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

88 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
of data on properties, including foreclosure filings and sales, subsidized
housing records, housing code enforcement records, and program data
from community development corporations and the agency managing
the Community Development Block Grant. 5 The new property-specific
applications of parcel data required more frequent updates of the data.
In a growing number of cities, these types of data are now updated at
least quarterly to support timely local action toward neighborhood stabilization
and community development goals.
While analysis combining parcel-level data sources grew more sophisticated,
other institutions in and outside of government were designing
complex systems to merge person-level data from multiple agencies.
These integrated data systems (IDSs) link individual-level records from
multiple administrative agencies on an ongoing basis while maintaining
confidentiality requirements (US Government Accountability Office
2013). A survey by a coalition of national organizations identified
30 operational IDSs across the country in early 2013: 5 at the state level
and 25 at the county or city level (Urban Institute 2013). The systems
are created and maintained under a variety of institutional arrangements.
For example, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago manages
the Illinois Integrated Database on Child and Family Programs, and the
Providence Plan developed the Rhode Island DataHub (Providence Plan
2013; Goerge 2011; Kitzmiller 2013). The data from participating agencies
vary, but they include data on health, employment, birth certificates,
education, justice system involvement, and human services (such
as child welfare, income supports, and child care subsidies). IDSs are
used to assist in compliance and program supervision, to improve case
management for individuals, or to inform policymaking and program
evaluation.
Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy, a network based at the
University of Pennsylvania, was created to support and advance IDSs
across the country. This network documents the development and use
of existing systems and is developing tools and guides to help communities
create new ones. Many other national organizations, including the
National League of Cities and the Data Quality Campaign, have recognized
the importance of these systems for their constituencies and are
also documenting practices and conducting trainings on aspects of IDSs.
Although the records that are incorporated into an IDS may contain
residential addresses, few examples exist of using these systems for
neighborhood-level analysis or of considering neighborhood-level condi-