New York Affordable Housing Plan Wins Innovations Award

The New York City Acquisition Fund received a $100,000 grant to support dissemination and replication by other jurisdictions.

New York’s two-year-old $230 million Acquisition Fund is a key element of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to provide affordable housing for 500,000 New Yorkers. The fund finances the purchase of land and buildings for such housing and allows nonprofit and small for-profit developers to compete.

“We couldn’t sit back and wait for developers to act,” said the mayor, who stressed that the greatest city in the world must remain an affordable city.

Supported through a collaboration of 16 of New York’s leading financial institutions, 10 national philanthropies and the city, the fund creates a private-sector lending market that levels the playing field for affordable housing developers seeking to acquire property prior to assembly of a project’s permanent financing.

This unique collaboration demonstrates Bloomberg’s belief that innovation grows from combining public programs with the best ideas from the private and philanthropic sectors, said Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan.

North Carolina’s Learn and Earn, Arizona’s Getting Ready: Keeping Communities Safe, the U.S. Department of Transportation Global Maritime Domain Awareness program, and the Intelligence Community Civilian Joint Duty Program of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence round out this year’s honorees.

Learn and Earn allows North Carolina high school students to jumpstart their college education and prepare for the 21^st century job market. High schools located on university campuses enable students to build college credits. Other students take tuition-free courses online.

Annual $4,000 grants, when combined with other assistance, permit students to graduate from state universities debt-free. Earn and Learn targets at-risk students, those for whom English is a second language and those from the first generation in their families to attend college.

The Arizona Department of Corrections’ Getting Ready facilitates inmate re-entry into society by structuring the prison environment like that of the outside world. The opt-in initiative shifts pre-release preparation from staff to inmates and offers job training and educational opportunities.

Inmates are given unprecedented say in how the program operates. Recidivism rates are down, as are incidences of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff violence.

DOT’s Global Maritime Domain Awareness program tracks the movements of more than 10,000 vessels from more than 40 nations. An easily accessible Web platform consolidates data about speed and direction, cargo type, and embarkation and destination from transponders that ships weighing more than 100,000 tons are required to carry.

Data is updated every 10 seconds, providing an unprecedented level of visibility into transit and port activity. Officials from partnering nations use the system to enforce environmental and safety regulations and reduce port congestion and vessel collisions.

The Intelligence Community Civilian Joint Duty Program requires intelligence professionals to complete assignments outside their home agencies to achieve executive rank, with the goal of developing leaders who can break through stovepipes that prevented the community from “connecting the dots” prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Joint Duty personnel build collaborative information-sharing networks among the 16 agencies that make up the intelligence community. More than 1,000 professionals are now circulating into new agencies.

“For over 20 years, the Innovations in American Government Awards has been at the forefront of identifying government initiatives with the strongest potential for improving the lives of citizens,” said Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor who directs the program at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “Each of today’s winners produced a new, bold way of addressing a previously intractable problem.”

The winning programs were chosen from nearly 1,000 applicants. Fifty semi-finalists were named in April. Fifteen finalists were chosen in June to make presentations before a selection committee chaired by Kennedy School Professor of Public Service David R. Gergen.

Federal, state, local, tribal and territorial programs in all policy areas are eligible to apply. Applicants are judged on their novelty, effectiveness in achieving tangible results, success in addressing a problem of public concern, and transferability to other jurisdictions or policy areas.

The application deadline for the 2009 awards, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform and a new Innovations in Urban Government Award, is September 30. To apply, visit www.innovationsaward.harvard.edu. Applications submitted after this deadline will be considered for the 2010 competition.

Details: For more information on the awards, contact Kate Hoagland, communications coordinator of the Ash Institute, at (617) 495-4347 or kate_hoagland@harvard.edu.

For information on New York’s Acquisition Fund, contact Amanda Pitman at (212) 863-6166 or pitmana@hpd.nyc.gov.

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Youth Services Division Honored by Annie E. Casey Foundation

A model for juvenile justice reform that relies on small treatment centers has earned the third annual Annie E. Casey Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform for Missouri’s Division of Youth Services (DYS).

“Our system is based on the belief that the public interest is best served by helping young people turn their lives around and become law-abiding and productive citizens,” said DYS Director Tim Decker.

Youth participate in daily group meetings with 10 to 12 of their peers to talk through challenges and serve as positive role models for each other. Each young person receives individualized educational assistance and participates in volunteer and community activities.

In addition to serving youth at DYS treatment centers, many are diverted from the juvenile justice system through community-based programs supported by the division. Other low-risk youth receive treatment while living at home.

The $100,000 prize was given at the Innovations in American Government Awards gala.

Details: For more information, contact Jandra Carter, Department of Social Services, at (573) 526-0407 or jandra.d.carter@dss.mo.gov.