ACHIEVEability: Local Economic Impacts

Our firm was retained by ACHIEVEability to estimate the impact the organization has on the City of Philadelphia Our firm was retained by ACHIEVEability to estimate the impact the organization has on the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in addition to individuals and families associated with the program. Based in West Philadelphia, ACHIEVEability develops and manages affordable housing, provides a wide variety of supportive services to families and the community, and engages in community organizing, commercial corridor development, and community-based participatory research in partnership with local universities. Special focus was placed on quantifying ACHIEVEability’s impact by examining property values, construction work, operating expenditures, programmatic impact and its effect on retail corridors.

The impact of ACHIEVEability’s construction activities on nearby property values was estimated by employing hedonic regression techniques to isolate the effect of proximity to an ACHIEVEability home on property values over time. Specifically, the analysis considered whether there was a statistically significant increase in property values, after controlling for other potentially explanatory variables. After analyzing the results, it was determined that houses within a quarter-mile of an ACHIEVEability-developed home appreciated at a rate 1.4 percentage points higher than the average house in West Philadelphia.

In estimating the total economic impact associated with ACHIEVEability’s housing development activities, an input-output model was used. The model, using multiplier data provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce, calculates the composition and scale of total expenditures, employment, and earnings resulting from aggregate direct expenditures from all qualifying projects. It was determined that these efforts stimulated additional economic activity, resulting in jobs created (in construction and other industries) and tax revenues generated.

Overall, ACHIEVEability’s work generates a significant economic return to the families it serves, in the form of increased earnings and decreased reliance on public subsidies. It also generates a significant economic return to the City and the Commonwealth as a whole, in the form of household wealth gains, jobs created, government expenditures on public subsidies reduced, tax revenues generated, and retail corridors strengthened.