Reframing the Affordable Housing Challenge Assets and Neighborhoods: The Role of Individual Assets in Neighborhood Revitalization∗

This report examines the relationship between individual asset-building strategies and neighborhood development, providing a model that illustrates how the benefits of assets might affect revitalization efforts. Asset-building strategies include individual development accounts (IDAs), microenterprise programs, employer-assisted housing, and other programs that seek to help low-income individuals accumulate wealth. A key premise of these strategies is that assets will produce individual benefits, such as wealth, improved household stability, and increased concern about the future. Asset-building strategies have become increasingly popular in the past decade due to changes in welfare policy and the vitality of the housing and financial markets in the United States. Although not automatic, there is potential for individual assets to also produce benefits for communities. The model developed in this article identifies the critical “linking variables ” that connect asset-building strategies to assets, wealth, individual effects, and neighborhood outcomes. Strategies to enhance the likelihood that a program will actually produce assets include: • Helping participants avoid predatory lender