News

How does debt aversion affect college completion for Latino students? Aversion to borrowing is both a barrier to college completion and is integrally connected to several other barriers, mostly financial, disproportionately burdening Latino students. It’s complicated! But a new report from our partner, Kate Elengold of the UNC School of Law, and in collaboration with UnidosUS and CCC staff, sheds critical light on the unique circumstances and particular challenges facing … Continued

The Center for Community Capital (CCC) condemns the killing of George Floyd as well as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many other Black people before them by the hands of law enforcement officers. While the focus is often on the acts of violence by individual law enforcement officers, these tragedies happen repeatedly because of the systemic and structural racism that has deemed some bodies more worthy of life than others. … Continued

The UNC Center for Community Capital is pleased to receive an award from the NC TraCS Institute for the 121st cycle of the TraCS $2K pilot grants. Molly DeMarco (with the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention) and Jess Dorrance will work on a project entitled, “Addressing Basic Needs Security in College Students in North Carolina: A Formative Study.”

Inequality is back on the national agenda. Over the past decade, the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in health, economic opportunity, educational outcomes, and other areas has taken on greater urgency among advocates, researchers, and policymakers. While groups like Occupy Wall Street and political candidates across the ideological spectrum have made national economic inequality a central theme in their platforms, cities have also become important hubs of action … Continued

The Center for Community Capital is thrilled to announce the launch of a de-identified, public use version of the Community Advantage Panel Survey (CAPS). This survey, the basis of much of the Center’s research over the past decade, comprises 11 years of panel survey data provided by approximately 5,000 low- and moderate–income homeowners and renters during the period of 2003-2014. The UNC Center for Community Capital has overseen CAPS data collection with generous funding … Continued

  Our Director, Roberto Quercia, was recently quoted in “The Never-Ending Foreclosure,” a story by Alana Semuels in The Atlantic. Professor Quercia’s remarks on foreclosure highlight the non-financial impacts of losing a home: One of the reasons that Professor Quercia knows about these impacts is through our decades-long project, the Community Advantage Program Study. The research behind the conclusions mentioned in the article is collected in our most recent book, A Place Called Home (published … Continued

In November, the Center for Community Capital hosted a convening for field partners working to integrate financial capability work with affordable housing, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, and Prosperity Now. The convening was meant to help field partners learn from each other about how integrating financial capability services in affordable housing can empower residents’ financial health. In attendance were representatives from the New York City Office of Financial Empowerment, … Continued

Center Director Roberto Quercia and Senior Economist Sarah Riley were featured this month in a special Cityscape symposium, edited by Carolina Reid, on the Community Reinvestment Act. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), passed by Congress in 1977, requires commercial banks and savings institutions to help meet the credit needs of borrowers in their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The CRA has been controversial since its enactment, with calls for both repealing and expanding it. Their article, “Bridging the … Continued

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s UNC Center for Community Capital has received a $1.05 million grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to develop innovative strategies and solutions that help under-resourced communities become more vibrant and economically inclusive across the nation. “This research will help us better understand how strategic community investments can enhance lifetime opportunities for low- and moderate-income families,” said Lucy Gorham, the center’s executive director. … Continued