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MEMBER NEWS
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Update
By Janet Hamer
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JANET HAMER
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As a valued partner, the Atlanta Fed's Community and Economic Development team wants to share some exciting informational resources and upcoming events. Included in this e-mail is information on the following topics:
- Highlights of the Partners Update May/June edition
- Information about upcoming events, including:
- a Southeast regional conference on CDFI capital and capacity July 18-19 in North Carolina
- a national conference on workforce development hosted by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Kansas City on Sept. 19-20 in Kansas City
May/June Partners Update
Partners Update is an electronic publication that includes articles and announcements on a variety of community and economic development topics and events. Partners Update May/June articles include:
- Federal Funding for State Small Business Programs: Don Graves of the U.S. Treasury Department discusses a new program designed to enhance small businesses, the State Small Business Credit Initiative. [more]
- Housing Trends in Rural Areas: Rural communities have historically had high unemployment and poverty rates as well as substandard housing stock. In this interview, Joseph Belden of the nonprofit Housing Assistance Council discusses housing challenges in rural areas and strategies to improve those conditions. [more]
- FEMA's New Disaster Recovery Resource Offers Support in Community Rebuilding: Identifying disaster recovery resources and understanding how they can be knit together to fund community rebuilding can be a challenge. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has responded to this need by launching an online tool. [more]
- Power in Partnerships: Addressing Workforce Development Challenges: The latest Economic Development podcast features Damian Thorman of the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation on the importance of public, private, and philanthropic partnerships in addressing local and regional workforce challenges.[more]
To subscribe to Partners Update and other Atlanta Fed resources, please visit our website.
Upcoming Events and Reminders!
- Apply by July 2 for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta's 2012 competitive Affordable Housing Program grants.[more]
- Join the July 13 Connecting Communities™ call-in session on REO Management and Disposition Policies and Procedures at 3:30 pm ET [more]
- Plan to participate in the "Defining the Future of CDFI Capital and Capacity in the Southeast" conference July 18-19 in North Carolina. [more]
- Register now! The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is partnering with the Kansas City Fed to host a national conference titled The Future of Workforce Development: Where Research Meets Practice on Sept. 19-20. [more]
- The deadline for eligible borrowers to request a free independent foreclosure review has been extended to September 30, 2012. More information about the Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR), including how to apply, is available on the IFR website. [more]
I hope you find these resources useful. If you have any questions or suggestions for the Community and Economic Development team at the Atlanta Fed, please let me know.
Janet Hamer
Senior Community Development Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Jacksonville Branch
904-632-3588
386-451-4361 (cell)
PS:
From Textiles to Turnaround: A Tale of Two Cities-July Podcast
By Janet Hamer
I wanted to let you all know about a great new jobs-related podcast we've posted to our site. This podcast features Ela Rausch of the Minneapolis Fed interviewing the Richmond Fed's community development officer Kim Zeuli.
From Textiles to Turnaround: A Tale of Two Cities
July 2012
Many cities have experienced the contraction of a once-dominant industry. The Richmond Fed's Kim Zeuli examines two North Carolina cities-Concord and Eden-that lost their textile employment base and learned to adapt to changing conditions.
View transcript on this page, under Related Links to the right, you may play the audio MP3 file.
STUDIES SHOW EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT ENCOURAGES WORK AND REDUCES POVERTY
By Jimmy Charity, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, and Chuck Marr
Some 27 million working adults with low and moderate incomes, most of whom are raising children, received the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in 2009 to reduce their taxes and supplement their earnings.[1] Studies have found that the EITC encourages work, reduces poverty, helps families meet basic needs, and improves children's achievement in school and likely increases their earnings as adults. The Child Tax Credit (CTC), a related tax credit designed to help offset the cost of raising children, also plays a pivotal role in helping low-income families.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3793&emailView=1
WELLS FARGO BRINGS NEIGHBORHOODLIFT SM TO ORLANDO By Michelle Palomino, Wells Fargo Corporate Communications Down payment assistance grants are still available for the purchase of homes in Orlando. Earlier this month, Wells Fargo in collaboration with the City of Orlando and InCharge Debt Solutions, brought the NeighborhoodLIFT SM program to Orlando.
NeighborhoodLIFT SM is a Wells Fargo grant outreach program designed to support sustainable home ownership and advance neighborhood stability in communities hit hard by the housing crisis.
More than 700 people visited the event where they were able to get preapproval for a mortgage loan, determine their eligibility for down payment assistance and attend onsite homebuyer education. More than $3 million in down payment assistance was reserved for potential buyers at the event.
The event is over but the NeighborhoodLIFT program is not. There is more down payment assistance money available. To qualify for the down payment assistance applicants must meet certain criteria, including annual income not exceeding 120 percent of the median income of the area (for Orlando, not to exceed $69,850 for a family of four). Those approved for down payment assistance may select any lender of their choice. For more information on NeighborhoodLIFT visit www.neighborhoodlift.org.
Call to Action: Save AmeriCorps and National Service By Lindsay Torrico, United Way Worldwide The House Appropriations Committee recently released a draft of their funding bill that once again calls for dramatic cuts to the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). While it preserves funding for the three Senior Corps programs, the bill directs agency staff to shut down CNCS and eliminates funding for vital programs such as AmeriCorps, the Volunteer Generation Fund, VISTA, the National Civilian Community Corps, and the Social Innovation Fund. United Way Worldwide is working with our partners at Service Nation to preserve the funding. We've been here before and - with your help - we've fought back successfully, but it wasn't easy then and it won't be easy now. CNCS has seen an 8% cut since fiscal year 2010 - that's $100 million dollars in the last two years. As you know, these programs have provided critical and countless benefits to communities nationwide, from education to nursing, infrastructure repair to disaster relief. We need them now more than ever, and we need your voice to help protect their contributions. As Congress makes critical decisions about the Corporation for National Service, we need you to weigh in: - Using our online advocacy alert, please send a message to your congressional representatives on preserving CNCS and AmeriCorps;
- Please tweet at your Member of Congress and tell them why #national service is important in your community;
- Please tell them through Facebook what will be lost if the Corporation for National and Community Service is eliminated.
We need to put steady and consistent pressure on our legislators, urging them to take a stand for national service at a time when service organizations are more relied upon than ever. Join us and spread the word to your partners and networks. | 
