Networks and nonprofits: Opportunities and challenges in an era of federal devolution

Abstract

Community development corporations and other nonprofit organizations are increasingly responsible for producing and managing low‐income housing in urban America. This article examines the network of governmental, philanthropic, educational, and other institutions that channel financial, technical, and political support to nonprofit housing sponsors. We analyze the relationships among these institutions and propose an explanation for their success. We then consider challenges the network must confront if the reinvention of federal housing policy is to succeed. Block grants and rental vouchers, the dominant emphases of federal policy, present opportunities and constraints for nonprofit housing groups and their institutional networks. While states and municipalities are likely to continue to use block grants for nonprofit housing, the viability of this housing will be severely tested as project‐based operating subsidies are replaced by tenant‐based vouchers. We recommend ways that the federal, state, and local governments should help the institutional support network respond to this challenge.