Publications and Research
BNIA-JFI routinely releases publications for the numerous analyses that it conducts. Listed below are several examples of recent publications and research. Please contact BNIA-JFI for more information on these or to learn about other research we can provide.
Frederick County, Maryland Human Needs Assessment
Download the Executive Summary
BNIA-JFI and Marsha Schachtel of the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies created a human needs assessment for Frederick County Maryland. This assessment was created for the Community Foundation of Frederick County and will be used to expand the Community Foundation’s strategic grant making to ensure maximum impact and create benchmarks to assess progress over the next 10 years. This human needs assessment combines research and data with input from service providers, stakeholders, community leaders, and others to determine the areas of need that are most pressing. The human needs assessment covers all areas of human services within Frederick County but pays particular attention to the Community Foundation’s core priority areas: health, youth, and basic human needs including housing and jobs. The report identifies key components in the Community Foundation’s three target areas that can be addressed with strategic funding, collaboration among funders and service providers, best practices, volunteer efforts, and community involvement. The systematic needs assessment had three parts:
- A quantitative perspective on human needs in Frederick County;
- A qualitative perspective on human needs in Frederick County; and
- An analysis of the supply of services available to meet the identified needs and of gaps between supply of services and need for them.
Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition Foreclosures
With support from the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition, BNIA-JFI collects and provides data on all mortgage foreclosure filings within Baltimore City. Filings are collected through the Baltimore City Circuit Courts and the Maryland Judiciary Case Search system and put into neighborhood oriented maps available on the web (http://www.ubalt.edu/foreclosures). Use of the map allows for interactive display of foreclosure filings for each quarter starting in 2007 of foreclosure filings in each neighborhood in Baltimore City. Spreadsheets are also made available that show information for each filing including date of filing, filing address, and neighborhood.
Foreclosure cases are often long and complex with several different possible outcomes. These outcomes include dismissal of foreclosure case, payment of mortgage debt, quick sale of property, and foreclosure of property resulting in public auction. Current and future work by BNIA-JFI is focused on determining what properties are reaching final foreclosure at auction and are being ratified by the Baltimore City Circuit Court System. Foreclosure filings that have been ratified by the court will also be displayed on the interactive map of initial filings on a quarterly basis. This will allow neighborhood and policy makers to better understand the current trends in the foreclosure process within Baltimore City.
Urban Institute - Effect of Foreclosure on Children, Schools, and Neighborhoods
The goal of the Urban Institute project is to identify public school students who may have been impacted by a foreclosure during a school year. This study spans three major U.S. cities: New York, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. BNIA-JFI's role includes analysis of trends in Baltimore City linking student data to foreclosure data from school years 2003-2004 to 2008-2009. Once students have been linked to a foreclosure, those students' records will be tracked using data from the Baltimore City Public School System to determine if foreclosures have an impact on aspects of student performance including test scores, attendance, special education, completion, and withdrawal.
Baltimore: Open City
Visit Baltimore: Open City's Website
Cheryl Knott, GIS Analyst for BNIA-JFI has acted as a mapping mentor for students in the Exhibition Development Seminar at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Their exhibition, entitled "Baltimore: Open City" features the works of scholars, activists, community-based organizations, and artists to create a series of installations, workshops, and other public programs that investigate the ways in which Baltimore is and is not an "open city".
An Analysis of the Exterior Repair Program Conducted by the Associated Black Charities of Maryland
Beginning in 2004, the Empower Baltimore Management Corporation (EBMC) began working with homeowners located in the Baltimore City Empowerment Zone to improve the quality of their home’s exteriors. Homeowners received grants, ranging from $100 to $5,000 for repairing their roofs, painting steps, replacing windows, replacing gutters, and more. The purpose of the project was to fund investment in owner-occupied properties with the belief that the initiative would have positive impacts on the quality of the housing stock in those areas and stabilize the neighborhood. The project provided an opportunity for homeowners to complete exterior improvements that matched or increased the investment of newer investors. The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance- Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore (BNIA-JFI) was asked provide assistance in the analysis of the program, using their skills and expertise to provide an evaluation of the success of the program.
The Baltimore Neighborhood Market DrillDown
The Baltimore Neighborhood Market Drilldown iis an assets-based market analysis conducted by Social Compact that combines numerous data sets,both public and private, national and local, in order to build a set of community economic indicators that are tailored to urban markets. These indicators can be used to more accurately describe the size (population), strength (income and buying power), stability (homeownership and residential investment) and investment opportunity of a given market.
The DrillDown study area is defined as the entire City of Baltimore. This summary highlights findings for the following thirteen distinct markets selected by DrillDown partners because they have discrete commercial districts and currently demonstrate strong efforts or significant opportunities with respect to commercial revitalization: (1) Belair Edison; (2) East Baltimore Development (EBD) Area; (3) Edmondson Village; (4) Govanstowne; (5) Highlandtown; (6) Oldtown; (7) Park Heights; (8) Pennsylvania Avenue; (9) Pigtown; (10) Reservoir Hill-North Avenue; (11) Station North; (12) West Baltimore MARC; and (13) West Baltimore Street.
Downtown Partnership of Baltimore
Each year the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore publishes its State of the Downtown report which is aimed at measuring the economic progress of the downtown area. BNIA-JFI supports the effort of the Partnership by updating employment information from previous year data provided by InfoUSA. Data is cleaned to ensure business data is only counted once and detailed surveys are conducted to update employment numbers and general information such as changes in contact information (business location or change in number). Changes in business data helps the Partnership identify potential new and closed businesses as well as sectors in which changes have occurred. The State of the Downtown report, as well as other Partnership publications, can be found at their website.
Baltimore City Community and Economic Development Strategy
BNIA-JFI uses an indicator based approach to track and evaluate the economic development of Baltimore City. In order to assist the Baltimore City Department of Planning, BNIA helped to collect data on indicators that provide an understanding of the economic development of the City. The goal in analyzing these indicators was to answer the following two questions:
- How is Baltimore City performing on its economic development goals relative to the existing benchmarks?
- How are the strategic focus areas (locations, people, and sectors) performing relative to the goals and why?
To answer these questions BNIA developed and collected data for indicators aimed at targeting specific focus areas including Sectors, People, and Places. These indicators were then analyzed for trends as well as cause, meaning, and significance of any reported changes to be reported back to the Baltimore City Department of Planning.
Central Baltimore Partnership
In order to assess the changing conditions within the Central Baltimore Partnership Area (CBP), BNIA-JFI developed a set of indicators for four of the CBP program areas including public safety, sanitation, code enforcement, and housing. Data for these indicators were provided to the CBP on a quarterly basis for the years 2008-2009. In addition to tracking these changes, BNIA-JFI also provided several asset maps using Geographical Information Systems that contained detailed locations of various community assets including police stations, fire stations, hospitals/health centers, parks, transit, school/colleges/universities, and religious centers.
Baltimore Community Experience Initiative
Working with the Baltimore Community Foundation, BNIA-JFI provided research and analysis on civic activity, socioeconomic/demographic data, and neighborhood information for older adults living within Baltimore City and select inner suburbs of Baltimore County. Information was collected to identify patterns in community service, population density, and economic standing of individuals over the age of 50. In addition, BNIA-JFI created multiple maps that identified areas of private senior housing, senior program locations, section 8 housing, tax incentive buildings, and additional indicators requested by the Baltimore Community Foundation.
