In Case You Missed It: 10 Resources to Strengthen Your Community & Its Residents

By:

Melissa Williams

December 28, 2023 - (5 min read)

2023 has been a busy year for local governments. In responding to the multiple needs of cities, towns and villages, NLC produced a number of resources that support local leaders and municipal staff in addressing their community’s needs. From how to support and ignite small businesses to accessing federal funding for your municipality, check out our list of some of the resources you may have missed in 2023 but are worth a second glance.

Considerations for Leaders: Intersection of Early Childhood and Environmental Impacts

Since 2017, NLC has been working to elevate the vital role of municipal government in creating and strengthening early care and education systems with an emphasis on the prenatal-to-three (P-3) developmental period. A child’s health and well-being in the first three years of life set the foundation for future learning, behavior and health. Climate and environmental health risks to children are increasingly recognized as an international problem by leaders across the early childhood field. In this brief, NLC outlines some key considerations for local leaders developing an agenda for early childhood development.

Getting Started with Key Federal Opportunities

NLC compiled key resources to help every community learn more about leveraging opportunities from major federal legislation that passed Congress in 2022 and 2023. The legislation included billions of dollars in federal funding, either as direct appropriations or through grant programs, to support recovery and rebuilding in local communities. This factsheet outlined some of the best opportunities for municipalities in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS+) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Landlord Engagement Toolkit

Mom-and-pop landlords are the majority owners of small, multi-family residential units—which are often the affordable housing options in local communities—and are critical to preventing evictions. They are also more likely to be socially and economically vulnerable and house lower-income tenants. Engaging mom-and-pop landlords is key to longer-term eviction prevention efforts, housing stability, and supporting both vulnerable renters and landlords. The Landlord Engagement Toolkit consists of a series of resources developed for city leaders interested in building or refining their strategies for engaging landlords.

Local Eviction Prevention Policy & Program Tool

The Local Eviction Prevention Policy and Program Tool is an interactive resource that aims to help elected officials, city staff, non-profits, service providers, researchers and others, better understand the landscape for eviction prevention on the local level. This tool identifies approaches cities are taking to prevent evictions based on factors such as geography, city size, and stage of the eviction process that the policy or program intervenes in.

An Overview of the Housing First Approach

Housing First is guided by the understanding that people’s basic needs, such as having a place to live, must be met before they can successfully address other challenges in life. Housing First is a proven approach and policy model to addressing homelessness that prioritizes immediate, permanent housing solutions for residents to significantly improve housing stability.

Promoting Student Engagement: An Equity Centered Tool

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the country’s landscape, as it exacerbated ongoing social and economic challenges – particularly among students of color and those from low-income backgrounds. Solutions are found in spaces where city leaders, civic organizations, and K-12 school communities can work together.

NLC MEMBERS ONLY RESOURCES

Exclusively for NLC members, NLC created a host of resources that give local leaders an insider’s view and access to original tools. From conversations with vetted partners to new resources that share examples from other municipalities to address evictions and igniting small businesses in your community. If you’re an NLC member, explore these resources today.

Interested in becoming an NLC member? Contact your regional representative today to learn more!

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Cities Innovating to Accelerate Small Businesses

This webinar, hosted by NLC and Qwally, included a roundtable of industry experts that shared how towns and cities are innovating to support their business communities and discussed strategies and new tools leaders can use to help small businesses thrive.

Local Eviction Prevention Policy and Program Tool

The tool tracks 16 different housing policies and programs across 200 cities. There are more than 600 examples of actions taken by localities of all sizes, across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Local leaders can explore the tool to get ideas on actions they can take immediately to address evictions in their community.

City Experiences Building Trust & Promoting Environmental Justice in Wastewater

This webinar offers promising practices for local leaders and municipal staff on how to both increase the public’s understanding of the decisions that leaders make and how to effectively communicate with diverse audiences. This is especially critical to providing easy access to health services, increasing community acceptance of life-saving public health communication, and building understanding of the role of data agreements for ensuring transparent and appropriate health data stewardship. The video also includes local successes.

Advancing Economic Mobility in Your City

Municipalities can impact the upward mobility of their residents, regardless of size, geographic location or population. NLC worked with a cohort of cities to strengthen and introduce programs that support economic mobility. Hear from local leaders in Charleston, SC on how their participation in NLC’s economic mobility program helped the municipality impact the upward mobility of their residents through day-to-day operations.

For more 2023 NLC highlights, check out CitiesSpeak posts featuring media highlights, top resources and research trends. For the latest updates in 2024, make sure you are signed up for NLC’s free newsletters.