Strategies

Match disadvantaged or at-risk youth with volunteer mentors in school or community settings

Provide funding for local community development activities such as affordable housing, anti-poverty programs, and infrastructure development

Purchase the land a home is on to lease to homeowners with low and middle incomes and require homeowners to sell the home back to the trust or to another resident with low income upon moving

Offer debt advice from trained providers to tenants with unpaid, overdue rent to help repay debt and increase financial literacy

Provide education on basic budgeting, bank use, credit management, bankruptcy, credit building and counseling, homeownership, retirement, divorce, etc.

Require developers to reserve a proportion of housing units for residents with low incomes via mandatory requirements or incentives, such as density bonuses

Support subsidized asset accumulation programs in which deposits by participants with low and moderate incomes are matched by program sponsors; withdrawals must be used for qualified expenses to retain matching funds

Acquire, hold, manage, and develop properties such as vacant lots, abandoned buildings, or foreclosures, and transition them to productive uses, often affordable housing developments

Delay school start times for middle and high schools to better align with adolescent sleep-wake cycles; often until after 8:30 or 9:00 a.m.

Establish locally mandated wages that are higher than state or federal minimum wage levels