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 tenantbased vouchers. We recommend ways that the federal, state, and local governments should help the institutional support network respond to this challenge.

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This article analyzes the extent to which systematic spatial variations in opportunities in metropolitan areas provide a persuasive rationale for three current strategies for stimulating the development of urban communities: enterprise zone programs, community development financial institutions, and community development corporations. It examines whether the strategies are appropriately designed to respond to serious deficiencies in opportunities in distressed inner cities and reviews available evidence about their efficacy in addressing those deficiencies.A review of the literature reveals that poor inner-city neighborhoods, particularly communities of color, have unequal access to opportunities in numerous areas, including employment, credit and financial services, housing, neighborhood shopping, and social networks and services that provide access to information and resources. The limited best-case evidence indicates that the three strategies vary greatly in their ability to address these inequalities.

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