Annie Casey E. Foundation Socio-Economic Review

For more than half a century, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has worked to build better futures for disadvantaged children and their families in the United States. Their mission is to foster public policies, human service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families.

Making Connections is the centerpiece of the Casey Foundation’s multi-faceted effort to improve the life chances of vulnerable children by helping to strengthen their families and neighborhoods. Making Connections will begin with a three-year demonstration phase in which the Foundation will work with neighborhoods in 22 cities to promote programs, activities, and policies that contribute to strong families.

After three years, sites should emerge with a stronger and more interconnected array of neighborhood-level programs and activities that promote family strengthening. At that point the Foundation expects to extend and deepen their commitment over the next decade in those sites where the policy climate offers genuine promise for meaningful and durable change.

One of the sites the Casey Foundation is considering is the Imperial Avenue Corridor, which includes the neighborhoods of Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Sherman Heights, Grant Hill, Stockton, Mt. Hope, Chollas View, Mountain View, Lincoln Park, Southcrest, and Shelltown. This area has the highest concentration of people of color and low-income households within the City of San Diego.

The Task Force, in collaboration with Steve Bouton of Bouton & Associates, prepared a socio-economic review for the Foundation that analyzed population, income, and employment characteristics, land use, housing needs, the availability of capital, and the distribution of banks within the study area.  The findings were presented to the Casey Core Partners meeting on June 6.

Key Findings

The following summarizes the key findings identified in the socio-economic review:

Review of Plans

• All communities express a need for more public improvements, such as lighting, street repair, landscaping, and maintenance.
• There is a lack of participation or recognition of the role of private sector capital in economic revitalization.
   

Population and Ethnicity

• The Imperial Avenue Corridor has the highest concentration of people of color and low-income households within the City of San Diego.
• The area will show strong growth in Hispanic and Asian populations through the year 2020.
• Hispanics will represent approximately 75 percent of the population in the Imperial Avenue Corridor in 2020 compared to only 33 percent in the county.
• 38 percent of the residents in the Imperial Avenue Corridor are 17 or younger versus only 27 percent in the county. 78 percent of those residents that are under 17 are of Hispanic descent.
   

Income Characteristics

• Most of the tracts within the Imperial Avenue Corridor are classified as either low or moderate-income.
• The area is expected to show moderate increases in the household income from 2000 to 2020, however the area will continue to show one of the highest concentrations of low-income households compared to the county income distribution.
• By 2020, almost 45 percent of the households in the Imperial Avenue Corridor will have annual household incomes below $25,000 compared to the county total of 21 percent.
   

Employment Characteristics

• In 1990 there were approximately 1.75 working people per job in the study area. By 2020 there will be 2.6 working people per job, exceeding the county ratio of 2.4.
• The employment to housing ratio is expected to decline from 1.91 in 2000 to 1.33 in 2020. This is based on a large increase in the housing stock.
• There is a larger percentage of production, construction and maintenance and professional and technical jobs in the Imperial Avenue Corridor and a smaller percentage of Services and Sales jobs.
   

Land Use

• Based on County Assessor data, there are 3,059 parcels zoned for commercial and industrial use in the study area, representing approximately 800 acres of land. There are 1,637 commercial and 1,422 industrial zoned parcels.
• Based on County Assessor data, only 8 percent of the industrial zoned parcels are owner occupied and 16 percent of the commercial zoned parcels are owner occupied.
• There are 218 vacant commercial parcels representing a total of 39 acres and 240 vacant industrial parcels representing approximately 73 acres.
• There are 576 vacant residential parcels in the study area with a total assessed value of $14,581,840. The mean assessed value for these vacant residential properties is $25,316.
• Local and regional government is the group with the highest percentage of ownership of the top 25 owners segregated both by number of parcels and number of acres.
   

Housing Needs

• The total housing stock as a percent of the population is significantly lower in the Imperial Avenue Corridor than in the county.
• The Imperial Avenue Corridor has one of the highest residential densities of any area in the county.
• The residential density is projected to increase 58 percent, with more than 23 housing units per one acre of residential land in the Imperial Avenue Corridor by 2020.
   

Access to Capital

• The Imperial Avenue Corridor is not receiving a proportionate amount of bank loans or bank loan dollars based on the business characteristics of the study area.
• The number of small business loans in the Imperial Avenue Corridor did increase 52 percent and loan dollars increased 70.8 percent from 1998 to 1999. These increases exceeded the county totals of 41 percent and 27 percent respectively.
• For every home loan denied in the study area 1.3 loans were approved – compared to the county rate of 3.2.
• 88 percent of the home loan denials were in the low-income tracts, within the Imperial Avenue Corridor, compared to 3.8 percent in low-income tracts for the county.
• Based on total applications approved and taken plus denials, 41 percent of the home loan applications were denied in the Imperial Avenue Corridor compared to a 23 percent denial rate for the county overall.
   

Bank Branch Distribution

• Total deposits within the Imperial Avenue Corridor, as of June 2000, were $55.943 million among the four banks in the area at that time.
• Within the Imperial Avenue Corridor, there are approximately 6,440 households per bank branch. This is more than 3 times greater than the county average of 2,025 households per branch.