ARC Projects
ARC research includes a Sponsored Research Program (funded by federal and state grants), and a Professional Practice Program (funded by planning and research contracts with municipalities & NGOs) that engage faculty and PhD students in funded research in field settings. The focus is on original research and the skills to create knowledge and shape policy at local, regional, national or international levels.
ARC's Community Practice Program is a venue for Community Practice at the School and a center for community planning, consulting, training and technical assistance designed to promote community action and development in the School’s host communities.
The Applied Research Center works throughout the US and internationally (in collaboration with partners in Africa and Latin America).
ARC's research clusters around these areas:
- Area 1: Organizational Analysis, Capacity Management
Area 2: Asset Development
Area 3: Cooperatives Credit Unions
Area 4: Demography, Economy, GIS CED
Area 5: Disability CED
Area 6: Financial Innovation
Area 7: HIV/AIDS International CED
Area 8: Housing Community Development
Area 9: Latinos CED
Area 10: Microenterprise & Microlending
Area 1: Read/Download:
Read/Download: Policies & Procedures Manual
Visit: the new Community Economic Development Corporation of Hooksett
View: The CEDC of Hooksett Annual Report
Area 2. ASSET DEVELOPMENT. Work in this area seeks to understand how asset inequality persists across racial groups, to study specific initiatives to alleviate gaps in family capacity for asset accumulation, how to bring successful program models to scale, and produce new insights into how CED may counter asset inequality.
Asset Building Strategies for People with Disabilities: IDA Effectiveness Study.
Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are temporary matched savings accounts for the purposes of saving for a first home, occupational training/education, starting or growing a business. They are premised on a strategy that argues that people move out of poverty through savings and investing, not by income alone. Anecdotal evidence suggests that IDAs are effective vehicles for this purpose. However, the effectiveness of IDAs as an asset accumulation strategy for people with disabilities has not been tested. This research looks at the effectiveness of IDAs as an asset accumulation strategy for people with disabilities, compared to other participants. It will also collect lessons learned in the planning and implementation of asset accumulation, financial literacy training, and program operations in the context of the special barriers, financial vulnerability, and support coordination key to the economic and social participation of people with disabilities.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Tobey Davies & Jolan Rivera
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation & Tax Policy Project
Funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
View: AATPP IDA Research Design
Using Tax Policy to Promote Asset Building Strategies for People with Disabilities: A Case Study of the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority
Economic development policies in support of persons with disabilities have focused on income and employment development strategies, with mixed results. These methods focus on finding jobs as the primary strategy for achieving economic security. In Community Economic Development many policies and programs focus on a mix of asset-development strategies to promote economic security for low and moderate income persons and families. This research will develop an in-depth case study of asset-building strategies in New Hampshire and the role of the Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA). The CDFA is a state chartered institution that has used tax credits to promote asset-building strategies for individuals by funding community-based organizations engaged in this activity. This study explores how can the CDFA state tax policy model may promote asset development among people with disabilities, and how this may be applied to state tax policy strategies in general.
by Michael Swack & Woullard Lett
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation & Tax Policy Project
Funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
View: AATPP Tax Policy Case Study Design
Area 3: COOPERATIVES & CREDIT UNIONS. Work in this area attends to alternative ways of community-based, cooperative institutional organization as a strategy in community economic development.
Competitive Social Advantage of Cooperative Mobile Home Park Communities.
This study explores the competitive social advantage of cooperative communities as a function of differences in models of ownership in manufactured (mobile home park) communities. The study proposes that competitive advantage is what sets cooperative communities apart, makes them more desirable and attractive to their residents, and affords those residents higher quality of community life and better outcomes. This is premised on an expanded view of competitive advantage that goes beyond economic terms (Michael Porter) to include polity and culture in a Bell techno-economic structure. This study tests its premises by looking at differences in community life between a sample of New Hampshire mobile home parks that have successfully converted to cooperative park ownership, and those that remain landlord-owned. The study intends to shed light on how individuals through their own agency, enabling institutions and policies, might strengthen the place of low-income communities and their residents in the culture, politics and economy of a region.
by Klaas Nijhuis
Sponsored by the School of Community Economic Development.
Differential Economic Benefit in Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Mobile Home Park Communities.
Description pending.
by Jolan Rivera
Sponsored by the School of Community Economic Development.
Area 4: DEMOGRAPHY, ECONOMY, GIS & CED. Work in this area seeks to understand how population growth, kinematics, changing labor market and industrial conditions affect the community economic development landscape (e.g., community needs, increased demand for housing, emerging job and business opportunity), and the impact such trends may have on CED as a field over time. Attention is paid to the interplay between CED & space, and entails applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to integrate socioeconomic profiles and demographic analysis with strategic mapping in planning applications community needs assessments, analysis of supply and demand of labor, and similar CED topics.
Latinos in New Hampshire: A Summary Profile.
This profile looks at the demographic and socio-economic impact of Latinos in New Hampshire. Analyses are presented in the context of national and regional trends to elucidate their local relevance and allow exploration of future scenarios for Northern New England. Data include 1980-2000 censuses, labor/business statistics, 2002 CPS, and interviews. Comparative analyses cover: (a) how national population trends and estimation translate regionally and impact the state and areas of high Latino concentration. This includes the expected Latino geography and the diaspora dispersal dynamics shaping an emerging Latino geography. (b) Summary population profiles comparing New Hampshire Latino characteristics at state, county and city levels. Other analyses include: interstate and inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth; settlement within enclaves and in dispersed patterns reflecting an emerging middle class. (c) Summary community economic development profiles in employment, workforce development, homeownership, business and economic development.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Gerald Karush, & Nelly Lejter
Sponsored by the The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Read/Download: Latinos in NH Profile
Latinos in New Hampshire: enclaves, diasporas, and an emerging middle class.
This chapter looks at the demographic and socio-economic impact of Latinos in New Hampshire. Analyses are presented in the context of national demographic trends to elucidate their relevance, and include: traditional settlement in enclaves as the expected Latino geography; interstate and inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth; Diaspora regional and residential dispersal shaping an emerging Latino geography; summary Latino profiles in New Hampshire, including patterns suggesting the emergence of a Latino middle class.
Camayd-Freixas, Karush & Lejter. Latinos in New Hampshire. In Andres Torres (editor). Latinos in New England: Yesterday's Newcomers, Tomorrow's Mainstream? Philadelphia: Temple University Press (2005).
Sponsored by the Temple University Press.
Read/Download: Latinos in NH Profile
Latinos in New Hampshire.
This study looks at the demographic, economic and social impact of Latinos in New Hampshire, and derivative policy implications. Analyses are embedded on national and regional trends to elucidate their local relevance and allow exploration of future scenarios for Northern New England. Data include 1980-2000 censuses, 2002 CPS, labor/business statistics, and local interviews. Comparative analyses cover: (a) How national population trends and estimation translate regionally, and impact the state and municipalities of high Latino concentration. This includes both the expected Latino geography and diasporic dynamics shaping an emerging Latino geography. (b) Population profile comparing Latinos by country, gender, class at state and city levels. Couched on current poverty and underclass debates, analyses include: inter-state/inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth, driven by cost-of-living and opportunity dynamics; settlement in growing enclaves and in dispersed patterns reflecting an emerging middle class and branching diversification. (c) Community economic development dynamics and attendant policy in higher education, employment, homeownership, business and economic development, community institutional development, and political participation.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Gerald Karush, & Nelly Lejter
Sponsored by the The School of Community Economic Development.
Emerging Occupational and Industry Opportunities in New Hampshire.
A study of under-served occupations and emerging industries in the Southern New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts area.
by Ross Gittell, University of New Hampshire
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project
Funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
Demographic Characteristics of People with Disabilities in New Hampshire.
A demographic study of people with disabilities in New Hampshire.
by Gerald Karush, Yoel Camayd-Freixas & Tobey Davies
Sponsored by the Medicaid Insfrastructure Grant Planning project.
Area 5: DISABILITY & CED. Work in this area focuses on the interface between CED and People with Disabilities. It seeks to promote interaction between these industries, and to facilitate leveraging CED expertise in the service of people with disabilities.
Asset Building Strategies for People with Disabilities: IDA Effectiveness Study.
Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are temporary matched savings accounts for the purposes of saving for a first home, occupational training/education, starting or growing a business. They are premised on a strategy that argues that people move out of poverty through savings and investing, not by income alone. Anecdotal evidence suggests that IDAs are effective vehicles for this purpose. However, the effectiveness of IDAs as an asset accumulation strategy for people with disabilities has not been tested. This research looks at the effectiveness of IDAs as an asset accumulation strategy for people with disabilities, compared to other participants. It will also collect lessons learned in the planning and implementation of asset accumulation, financial literacy training, and program operations in the context of the special barriers, financial vulnerability, and support coordination key to the economic and social participation of people with disabilities.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Tobey Davies & Jolan Rivera
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation & Tax Policy Project funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
View: AATPP IDA Research Design
Using Tax Policy to Promote Asset Building Strategies for People with Disabilities: A Case Study of the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority
Economic development policies in support of persons with disabilities have focused on income and employment development strategies, with mixed results. These methods focus on finding jobs as the primary strategy for achieving economic security. In Community Economic Development many policies and programs focus on a mix of asset-development strategies to promote economic security for low and moderate income persons and families. This research will develop an in-depth case study of asset-building strategies in New Hampshire and the role of the Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA). The CDFA is a state chartered institution that has used tax credits to promote asset-building strategies for individuals by funding community-based organizations engaged in this activity. This study explores how can the CDFA state tax policy model may promote asset development among people with disabilities, and how this may be applied to state tax policy strategies in general.
by Michael Swack & Woullard Lett
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation & Tax Policy Project
Funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
View: AATPP Tax Policy Case Study Design
- The Interface of Movements: Community Development Corporations in Partnership with Institutions serving People with Disabilities.
This project will pilot an experimental interface between traditional community development corporations (CDCs) and community-based organizations serving people with disabilities (CBODs), in a strategy to promote and evaluate project collaborations that effectively leverage CED expertise in the service of people with disabilities, and COBDs expertise to enhance CDC supports to better serve this population.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas & Tobey Davies
Sponsored by the Asset Accumulation & Tax Policy Project
Funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
- Occupational and Business Development Opportunity Targets for People with Disabilities in New Hampshire.
This study looks at underserved occupations and prospective business opportunities open to people with disabilities, identifies primary targets of opportunity, and clarifies the support elements necessary for access to these opportunities.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Gerald Karush & Tobey Davies
Sponsored by the Medicaid Insfrastructure Grant Planning project.
Demographic Characteristics of People with Disabilities in New Hampshire.
A demographic study of people with disabilities in New Hampshire.
by Gerald Karush, Yoel Camayd-Freixas & Tobey Davies
Sponsored by the Medicaid Insfrastructure Grant Planning project.
Job and Business Development Opportunity for People with Disabilities in New Hampshire: A Consumer Survey.
This study surveys people with disabilities to assess the barriers they experience in access to emerging occupational and business development opportunity in New Hampshire, and targets areas in need of attention.
by Gerald Karush, Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Jolan Rivera & Tobey Davies
Sponsored by the Medicaid Insfrastructure Grant Planning project.
Area 6: FINANCIAL INNOVATION. Work in this area promotes innovative financial strategies in CED. For example, the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority, created by enabling legislation written by School faculty and students, now offers tax credits to businesses who contribute to nonprofits; the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, incubated by School faculty, finances community development projects and provides technical assistance to borrowers; Working Capital, a peer lending organization designed and incubated at the School, has been replicated throughout the United States.
Unlocking Obstacles to Capital Markets by Community Development Lenders
This study examines the persistent obstacles, gaps and barriers to capital markets that prevent a freer flow of capital to needy communities. The analysis covers problem areas and obstacles to capital markets caused by inadequate infrastructure or nonstandard underwriting processes, the capital access landscape for small business loan securitization, and steps to improve capital market access.
by Gregory M. Stanton
Sponsored by the Financial Innovations Roundtable
Read/Download: Stanton publication, by the ARC Community Economic Development Press.
FINANCIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS: Case Studies from a Business Model Perspective
It is expensive to be poor. Low income households in the United States do not have access to a full range of financial services and pay more for many services than those with higher incomes. Thus these households pay a high percentage of their income in interest and fees. These higher payments affect asset building, their ability to move out of poverty and attain higher living standards. Estimates of the number of nonbanked or unbanked persons not served by conventional institutions range from 10% to 15% of the U.S. --much higher for low income neighborhoods, where the unbanked are clustered. The range of financial institutions that serve the community at large often do not reach low income neighborhoods. Their roles are replaced by a set of alternative financial entities --check cashers, pay-day lenders, pawn brokers, and predatory mortgage lenders-- that charge large fees and take out large amounts of equity out of homes. Their number, use, and impact on low income neighborhoods is unclear. A dual financial economy now exists as a result. This study reviews the problem using recent findings, and explores new approaches and paradigms for community development financing. It offers a business plan to review the market, its psychology and economic structure, and proposes alternatives to the present institutions to operate in combination with other legislative and community efforts and promote change in this industry.
by Daniel M. Leibsohn
Sponsored by the Financial Innovations Roundtable
Published by ARC Community Economic Development Press.
Read/Download: Financial Services Programs Case Studies, by the ARC Community Economic Development Press.
Area 7: HIV/AIDS & INTERNATIONAL CED. This area is concerned with the application of CED strategies, such as microenterprise development, to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the developing world. Special attention is given to the economic empowerment of women in these settings as a CED strategy.
CED Strategies to address HIV/AIDS in East Africa
This study focuses on the application of microenterprise development to counter social causation agents in HIV/AIDS in Africa. Special attention is given to the economic empowerment of women and girls through CED strategies.
by Catherine Rielly
Sponsored by the School of Community Economic Development
View: HIV/AIDS & CED Powerpoint
Area 8: HOUSING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. Work in this area covers research on affordable housing, real estate, and Community Development, including production, management, mixed use, and relevant areas in bricks and mortar, and best practices in Community Development.
Competitive Social Advantage of Cooperative Mobile Home Park Communities.
This study explores the competitive social advantage of cooperative communities as a fucntion of differences in models of ownership in manufactured (mobile home park) communities. The study proposes that competitive advantage is what sets cooperative communities apart, makes them more desirable and attractive to their residents, and affords those residents higher quality of community life and better outcomes. This is premised on an expanded view of competitive advantage that goes beyond economic terms (Michael Porter) to include polity and culture in a Bell techno-economic structure. This study tests its premises by looking at differences in community life between a sample of New Hampshire mobile home parks that have successfully converted to cooperative park ownership, and those that remain landlord-owned. The study intends to shed light on how individuals through their own agency, enabling institutions and policies, might strengthen the place of low-income communities and their residents in the culture, politics and economy of a region.
by Klaas Nijhuis
Sponsored by the School of Community Economic Development.
Differential Economic Benefit in Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Mobile Home Park Communities.
Description pending.
by Jolan Rivera
Area 9: LATINOS & CED. Latinos have emerged as the largest minority group in the United States, and are expected to alter the Community Economic Development landscape both in their areas of high concentration and for the field as a whole. Work in this area seeks to understand the character of this population, its evolving CED needs, effectice CED strategies, and the impact such trends may have on CED as a field over time.
Latinos in New Hampshire: A Summary Profile.
This profile looks at the demographic and socio-economic impact of Latinos in New Hampshire. Analyses are presented in the context of national and regional trends to elucidate their local relevance and allow exploration of future scenarios for Northern New England. Data include 1980-2000 censuses, labor/business statistics, 2002 CPS, and interviews. Comparative analyses cover: (a) how national population trends and estimation translate regionally and impact the state and areas of high Latino concentration. This includes the expected Latino geography and the diaspora dispersal dynamics shaping an emerging Latino geography. (b) Summary population profiles comparing New Hampshire Latino characteristics at state, county and city levels. Other analyses include: interstate and inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth; settlement within enclaves and in dispersed patterns reflecting an emerging middle class. (c) Summary community economic development profiles in employment, workforce development, homeownership, business and economic development.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Gerald Karush, & Nelly Lejter
Sponsored by the The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Read/Download: Latinos in NH Profile
Latinos in New Hampshire: enclaves, diasporas, and an emerging middle class.
This chapter looks at the demographic and socio-economic impact of Latinos in New Hampshire. Analyses are presented in the context of national demographic trends to elucidate their relevance, and include: traditional settlement in enclaves as the expected Latino geography; interstate and inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth; Diaspora regional and residential dispersal shaping an emerging Latino geography; summary Latino profiles in New Hampshire, including patterns suggesting the emergence of a Latino middle class.
Camayd-Freixas, Karush & Lejter. Latinos in New Hampshire. In Andres Torres (editor). Latinos in New England: Yesterday's Newcomers, Tomorrow's Mainstream? Philadelphia: Temple University Press (2005).
Sponsored by the Temple University Press.
Read/Download: Latinos in NH Profile
Latinos in New Hampshire.
This study looks at the demographic, economic and social impact of Latinos in New Hampshire, and derivative policy implications. Analyses are embedded on national and regional trends to elucidate their local relevance and allow exploration of future scenarios for Northern New England. Data include 1980-2000 censuses, 2002 CPS, labor/business statistics, and local interviews. Comparative analyses cover: (a) How national population trends and estimation translate regionally, and impact the state and municipalities of high Latino concentration. This includes both the expected Latino geography and diasporic dynamics shaping an emerging Latino geography. (b) Population profile comparing Latinos by country, gender, class at state and city levels. Couched on current poverty and underclass debates, analyses include: inter-state/inter-metropolitan migration underpinning local growth, driven by cost-of-living and opportunity dynamics; settlement in growing enclaves and in dispersed patterns reflecting an emerging middle class and branching diversification. (c) Community economic development dynamics and attendant policy in higher education, employment, homeownership, business and economic development, community institutional development, and political participation.
by Yoel Camayd-Freixas, Gerald Karush, & Nelly Lejter
Sponsored by the The School of Community Economic Development.
Area 10: MICROENTERPRISE & MICROLENDING. This area looks for best practices in microfinance, microcredit and microenterprise. It includes areas such as productivity, growth and scaling-up, managing risk, product innovation, market development, access to markets and other issues critical to effective microenterprise practice.
Scaling up and Mission Drift: Can Microfinance Institutions Maintain a Poverty Alleviation Mission While Scaling up?
Microfinance programs have been embraced around the world as an important strategy for poverty alleviation. Over the last decade the microfinance field has expanded both in number of institutions and the size of these institutions. While this scaling up is applauded for its progress in spreading the benefits of microfinance services to a greater number of the poor and for achieving sustainability, there is concern that scaling-up may lead to a drift from the original poverty alleviation mission. That is, that going to scale may result in larger loans to less poor clients and stricter loan screening procedures that bypass riskier and poorer clients. This study examines the experience of a major microenterprise organization in India to understand how MFIs can scale up without drifting away from the poor and their poverty alleviation mission.
by Gaamaa Hishigsuren
Sponsored by the School of Community Economic Development.
Read/Download: Scaling up and Mission Drift, by the ARC Community Economic Development Press.
Microenterprise Demand in New Hampshire: A Market Study.
A market study of the demand for microenterprise and microlending supports for people with disabilities in New Hampshire.
by Jack Northrup
Sponsored by the Medicaid Insfrastructure Grant Planning project.
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The Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project (AATPP) is a 5-year project (to October 2008) funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). AATPP unites organizations serving persons with disabilities with credit unions and other financial institutions to examine the potential of tax policy and asset accumulation to improve the economic stability of people with disabilities. The impact of financial education, matched savings accounts, expanded financial services, and increased use of state and federal tax incentives for asset and community economic development is being explored across six states and ten pilot demonstration sites.
AATPP Collaborators: the Law, Health Policy, and Disability Center (LHPDC) at the University of Iowa College of Law, Southern New Hampshire University School of Community Economic Development (Applied Research Center and Center on CED & Disability), the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, the World Institute on Disability, and the National Cooperative Bank Development Corporation. Funded by the National Institute on Disability & Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)
View: AATPP Summary
View: AATPP National Project PowerPoint
View: AATPP at School of CED PowerPoint
View: AATPP Partners
View: NIDRR Accountability
View: NIDRR Logic Model