We are ringing in the New Year with new and updated data on PolicyMap and celebrating the innovative ways in which new clients are bringing data rich maps to their own websites!

Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)

The most recent mortgage data from HMDA is now available for you, for free, on PolicyMap. As one of the first indicators we began providing our users, this update now allows you to explore how markets have changed between 2004 and 2010 – or any time period in between. Data is available down to the census tract giving you a good, on-the-ground picture of the markets in which you work.

HMDA’s definition of “high cost” and “prime” loans, however, changed in 2010 making it inaccurate to compare these two particular indicators to previous time periods. As a result, we give you information for 2004 through 3rd quarter 2009 and then provide you with a separate look at 2010 for these two indicators.

You can check it out by going to PolicyMap and clicking on the Lending Activity tab along the top of the map. Zoom in to your area of interest, click to an area to see its actual values or use the Table feature to make comparative charts. Subscribers can also access an updated Mortgage Report allowing them to draw a custom region and pull out mortgage information for a particular area of interest. Check out this and all reports by signing up for a 7-day free trial.

Area Median Income (AMI) for 2012: HUD’s latest release of AMI data for the nation is now available. You’ll find it for free under the Money and Income tab. The data, released annually by HUD, is available for County Subdivisions across the nation back through 2008.

National Center for Educational Statistics: Check out the Education tab to find a significant amount of new data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), relating to elementary and secondary education in public school districts. All new data is available for school districts and includes:

• Pupil/Teacher Ratio
• Graduation Rate
• Total Revenue from Local, State, and Federal Sources
• Total Expenditures per Pupil

Check out our blog for more information on these datasets and other updates including monthly unemployment and bankruptcy rates.

In the News!

American Public Media’s “MarketPlace” hosts unemployment widgets powered by PolicyMap. The widgets, full of unemployment data for states and metros, are updated monthly bringing their readers the most current unemployment data available. December 2011

Citi Community Development (CCD) launches a new data mapping tool powered by PolicyMap. CCD’s PolicyMap Data Tool provides Citi’s community partners and stakeholders with an interactive map showing demographic data, housing statistics, education trends and information about jobs and the economy. The information is provided in an easily-accessible and user-friendly way. November 2011

The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), with support from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and in partnership with the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, the National League of Cities and the New America Foundation, launches a new-and-improved Bank On website and selects PolicyMap as the platform to power its interactive online maps. October 2011

The Florida Public Health Institute and the Community Health Network launches an interactive mapping tool to clearly identify areas that are at risk of poor health due to a lack of access to health care facilities. The new interactive map, powered by PolicyMap, highlights clinics and healthcare facilities by location and cross references them with several demographic and other indicators to tell the “visual” story about the county’s health needs and resources. October 2011

For More Information

Interested in having data rich maps on your own website? Just contact us. Remember, the data warehoused in PolicyMap is accessible to you not just through the www.policymap.com application but can be pushed out to your own website through widgets or the Data API. Already have Google or Bing maps on your website? Need to make them more valuable to your users by adding relevant data? Just give us a call at (866) 924-MAPS or info@policymap.com.

Look for more data and feature updates soon and happy 2012!

PolicyMap Powers New “BankOn” Mapping Tool!

PolicyMap is more than just a website – it is a robust platform bringing data-rich, interactive maps to new websites everyday. Finally, a tool that allows you to stop worrying about how you are going to bring maps to your website and instead lets you focus on what you want to show your visitors.

This month, we put the spotlight on one of the newest websites to use PolicyMap and bring you an update of new data now available.

Customer Spotlight: CFED “JoinBankOn”

The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), with support from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and in partnership with the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, the National League of Cities and the New America Foundation, launched a new-and-improved Bank On website and selected PolicyMap as the platform to power its interactive online maps.

One of the newest features of JoinBankOn.org is Research Your Community, a tool to get estimates and maps of a very unique dataset showing the number of unbanked and underbanked households in your local community. Knowing the size of the unbanked and underbanked population in your community is helpful in understanding the needs of your local market.

(Unbanked households are those with no checking or savings account, and underbanked households are those with an account but a reliance on alternative financial services such as check-cashing services, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements or pawn shops.)

Kasey Wiedrich, Senior Program Manager at CFED explains why they chose PolicyMap: “PolicyMap made it simple for us to share the extensive data we have on the unbanked and underbanked populations in America….Access to this data is particularly important to anyone working to develop effective strategies aimed at increasing financial access for those who may be living outside of the financial mainstream.”

Census 2010 Summary File 1 (SF1): Although the Census 2010 summary file does not contain all of the indicators found in previous years, the recently released Census 2010 SF 1 data on PolicyMap has more information than ever for 2010, including age, home ownership, and renter information, along with race and ethnicity categories. Find the data in our Demographics, Owners and Renters, and Neighborhood Conditions tabs.

Also New on PolicyMap in November:

• Home Sale Data for 2011 Q1 (Real Estate Analysis)
• NCES Education data such as graduation rates, student/teacher ratios, and district revenues and expenditures for various years (Education)
• Monthly Unemployment Data for September (Jobs & Economy)
• Building Permits Data for 2011 Q3 (Real Estate Analysis)
• Supplemental Security Income Data for 2010 (Demographics)

In the next few weeks we’ll be highlighting other clients who are using PolicyMap in new and exciting ways. We’ll also release some new features to improve your PolicyMap experience, begin mapping to the new 2010 Tiger files, and bring you updates to the datasets you rely on most often, including Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and Small Business Lending data. Need something more? Just let us know at pmap@policymap.com or call us at (866) 923-MAPS

New Geo Tools through PolicyMap!

Turning the complex into something simple means continually improving what we do. It means giving you the right tools and the most relevant data – at the moment you need it.

New this month on PolicyMap -

A Full Screen Map Widget Layout: Everyone making online maps today is taken with the “full screen” view – so we’ve created this option for those using our widgets to power their interactive maps. Widgets are the simplest way to bring interactive maps to your own website – and now you can bring them to life in full-screen. Click here to learn how to turn this on for an existing widget or how to build your own.

A Custom Report Builder: Generating on-the-fly reports has always been a useful feature in PolicyMap, both for standard geographies, and for custom areas drawn on the map. The reports give you instant access to in-depth demographic and market information in an easy-to-understand format. Now, you can customize how these reports aggregate data. Need a report detailing demographic information for your hand-drawn target area? Generate a report by aggregating block group data or zip code data. It’s your choice.

A More Attractive Color Ramp: Our purple and orange maps have undergone a small makeover. The oranges, which represent negative ranges, are now more vibrant, making it easier to distinguish between colors. It is a small but powerful change, resulting in even better looking, more useful maps.

As always, you’ll find the most up-to-date data on PolicyMap. This month, look for the following – all of which are FREE on PolicyMap:

Bank Closures from the FDIC: You’ll find these address-level closures under the Add Sites menu.

Monthly Unemployment: Every month we bring you the most recently monthly unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can look at county level data for the nation on an annual or monthly basis dating back to 2000. You’ll find it under the Jobs & Economy tab. And, remember, if you want to bring these maps to your own website, just embed our free unemployment widget.

Fair Market Rents for 2012: The latest FMRs established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for 2012 are now available. You’ll find this under the Owners & Renters tab.

Homelessness for 2010: The most recent state level count of homeless persons from the Department of Housing and Urban Development is available for 2010. Annual counts are available back through 2006 so use PolicyMap to see how numbers are changing in states across the country. You’ll find this under the Demographics tab.

DHS Immigration for FY2010: This data, from the Department of Homeland Security, can provide you with the number of people applying for green cards within each state. Data is available back through 2004. You’ll find this under the Demographics tab.

CDC Obesity for 2010: This state level data from the CDC provides you with the percent of the population considered to be obese dating back to the year 2000. Look for it under the Health tab.

CRA Eligibility for 2010: Tract level status for Community Reinvestment Act eligibility is available under the Federal Guidelines tab for 2010. You’ll also find this data for 2009.

Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Eligibility for FY 2011: Updated block group level status for CDBG eligibility as established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is now available in the Federal Guidelines tab.

And, there is more data coming right around the corner. Look for more from the Census for 2010, updated mortgage statistics from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the latest quarterly home sale update.

We will also be releasing a ramped up Data API and simple pricing structure allowing you to pull just those pieces of information that you need into your own platform. You’ll also get to try out a high-end data loader designed to allow you to upload your own data into our cloud based application – and leverage it against the over 16,000 indicators already available for your use in PolicyMap. And, we’ll be announcing some very exciting new partnerships which will allow you to leverage the PolicyMap platform within other online applications.

Call us at (866) 923-MAPS or email us at info@policymap.com to learn more! To stay abreast of all of our updates, check out our blog or follow us on Facebook! Or register to make sure you receive these monthly emails.

The PolicyMap Team

"Our data and your web-based platform are a hit in Minnesota."

- John Patterson, Director of Research & Evaluation, Minnesota Housing Finance Agency

• Health Data Initiative Forum widget


• American Community Survey from the US Census widget


• The Flood Map Widget

PolicyMap client Novogradac & Company worked closely with the PolicyMap team to develop a highly customized widget for their website for users interested in determining if an investment area is eligible for New Market Tax Credits. On the Novogradac widget, users can not only click onto a census tract to determine if it is eligible for a NMTC investment, but can also see multiple eligibility criteria such as poverty rate, family income, and unemployment rate. The second tab of the info bubble has additional criteria such as whether or not it falls in an SBA HUBZone, Hot Zone, Medically Underserved Area, or if it contains Brownfields. The multi-indicator information bubble is a new feature now available to our widget clients.

One of the best ways to share your data on PolicyMap is through widgets and embedded maps. All users can easily add an interactive map onto their website using the free Embed Map feature. Contact us for more information and how we can build a custom widget for you.

• FBI Crime Data for 2009 (Neighborhood Conditions)


• Small Business Lending for 2009 – now at both the Census Tract and county level (Lending Activity)


• Obesity Data, and SNAP (Food Stamp) and WIC (Women Infant and Children) Data, as well as Diabetes Rates from Food Environment Atlas for various years (Health)


• Bank Failure locations from the FDIC, updated weekly


• Building Permits from Census for January 2011 (Real Estate Analysis)

• Census 2010 – coming in early April!


• Area Median Income for 2011


• More American Community Survey estimates


• Farmers’ Market locations

• How has population changed since 2000?
• Where are concentrations of foreign born populations?
• Where are families living in poverty?
• How have incomes changed in my community?

ACS data is available for free on PolicyMap and can be identified in the data menus by a star. The star is a new PolicyMap feature. You can click on a star in any map title to select it as one of your “favorites” and the menu will display a star next to that indicator so that you can find it again. You’ll also see a star tab (next to the Real Estate Analysis tab) through which you can access those favorites in one central place. We are introducing the star feature by highlighting all of the ACS indicators we’ve updated, but you can always customize it to meet your specific needs.

• Home Sale Data for 2010Q2 (Real Estate)
• Election Data for 2006 and 2010 Midterm Elections (Demographics)
• Unemployment from the BLS for December 2010 (Jobs & Economy)
• Superfund Sites as of 2011
• Additional HMDA 2009 calculations (Lending Activity)
• Bank Failures from the FDIC, updated weekly
• Building Permits from Census for December 2010 (Real Estate Analysis)

• Food Environment Atlas update with new data on local food systems
• Census 2010
• More American Community Survey estimates for each category of data
  

The star in the menus is also new to PolicyMap. It’s dynamic, so that you can pick and choose the indicators that you care about that you want to remember. If you click on a star in your map title, indicating that it’s one of your “favorites”, the menu will display a  next to that indicator so that you can find it again. You’ll also have a star tab next to the Real Estate Analysis tab in which you can access those favorites in one central place. We’ve chosen to introduce the star feature by highlighting all of the ACS indicators we’ve updated, but we know you’ll want to customize it to meet your specific needs.

www.policymap.com

Happy Holidays from TRF’s PolicyMap! Perhaps your grant proposals were more compelling. Perhaps you better understood the market dynamics in neighborhoods you care about. Perhaps you were able to share key geographic information with others in your field. Whatever your use, we hope PolicyMap made your work this year a little simpler, a little more efficient and a lot more powerful. Best wishes for a Happy Holiday and New Year from the team at TRF’s PolicyMap. (Please click the image to watch our holiday message)

www.policymap.com