More Savings and Asset-Building Projects

Community Capital Investment Initiative

The Insight Center is on the Steering Committee of the Community Capital Investment Initiative (CCII), comprised of representatives from the business and community sectors. CCII is a regional effort to attract private investment capital to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The initiative promotes "smart growth" by supporting projects that meet environmental, economic, and social-equity goals while providing market-rate returns to investors. This combination of economic and social returns is referred to as a “double bottom line.”

The Mission Asset Fund

Insight Center provides legal assistance to the Mission Asset Fund, the first neighborhood-based, community-governed, asset-building resource in the nation aimed at supporting a full continuum of asset-building opportunities for low-income and immigrant families, in a way that engages them in every step of the planning and design process.

Community Assets Legal Services

Insight Center also provides support to legal-services programs that form assets such as community land trusts and affordable housing.

Access to Financial Services

Insight Center is working to increase the availability, affordability, and appropriateness of financial services in low-income communities by researching and partnering with credit unions.

Low-Income Car Ownership

From 2002 to 2006, the Insight Center hosted the low-income car ownership (LICO) information clearinghouse. This clearinghouse is now hosted at www.opportunitycars.com. Currently, the Insight Center is conducting research on how LICO programs might be able to access the federal Job Access and Reverse Commute funds. The Insight Center published the following  reports related to this work: