Case Study: Keys to the City

Keys to the City: Neighborhood Pathways Insights Platform

Role: FUSE Executive Fellow, Department of Community Development, City of Cleveland Category: Policy Strategy / Data Platform Architecture / CRA Accountability Framework

The Brief

A city says homeownership is a priority. A bank hears the word "priority" and files it under "not our problem." My fellowship had one deceptively simple mandate: expand access to capital and resources for equitable homeownership. What that actually required was building the case, the data architecture, and the accountability system that turns a written goal into an executive mandate lenders can't shrug off. The Work

• Diagnosed three structural failures blocking accountability: an unsignaled priority, unsocialized demand, and diffused accountability buried in private compliance reports

• Designed the Neighborhood Pathways Insights Platform as one shared data system with three tailored views: deep analytics for City leadership, CRA and CBO scoring tools for lenders and philanthropic partners, and a simplified mobile-friendly resource guide for residents

• Built the CRA/CBO integration framework connecting HMDA data, CRA activity, and Cleveland's Community Benefits Ordinance into a neighborhood-level scorecard, so commitments become geographic and trackable instead of living in a PDF

• Benchmarked five peer city models (Chicago, Detroit, LA, San Francisco, Boston) and identified the gap none of them close: pairing investment transparency with direct resident navigation

• Sequenced a phased build: MVP with a limited KPI set, a Hough/Superior neighborhood pilot to prove the model, then a 2.0 layer adding predictive analytics and cross-agency data

• Delivered all of it independent of two collaborative roles that sat vacant since before the fellowship started, a housing fellow and a banking relations manager, which is a diplomatic way of saying I built a lender accountability system without a lender relations person in the room Continued below.......
  

The Strategy Cities don't change lender behavior by asking nicely. They change it by making behavior visible. Lenders respond to risk, reputation, and demand, and a publicly backed, executive-named priority creates all three at once. So the design brief split cleanly: build something a CRA examiner recognizes as legitimate on sight, and build something a resident can actually use to find a repair grant on a Tuesday. Most civic dashboards pick one audience. This one refuses to.

The Outcome A structured MVP ready for neighborhood piloting, a peer-city analysis showing Cleveland has a real shot at leading rather than following, and a fellowship deliverable that reframes CRA accountability from something that happens to a city into something a city can operate on purpose. Case study prepared by Delanie West, Founding Principal, Be Super Creative.