The California Rural Assistance Technology Education (CRATE) Project has been designed to support affordable housing and community facilities programs and projects in rural areas of the state, with an emphasis on promoting opportunities for homeownership, especially for low-income and minority families. To achieve this goal, the CRATE Project seeks to help recipients (rural cities) to improve and increase their capacities to provide homeownership assistance by incorporating heretofore financially and technically prohibitive GIS data mapping technologies into their housing initiatives. Through CRATE, recipients will be trained to utilize a package of free web-based GIS programs – Neighborhood Knowledge California (NKCA), DataPlace, California Infill Parcel Locator – that has been developed specifically for community and rural users. Key features are:

• Map at the Census Block Group, Census Tract, City, County, State levels
• Map by State Assembly & Senate or Congressional District, Zip Code, and many more
• Create customized neighborhood data maps
• Easily create and map Excel or Access datasets
• Create map overlays and themes using preloaded 2000 Census and HMDA data
• Section 8 Expiring Use properties
• Low-Income Housing Tax Credit developments
• Infill parcels
• Maps, charts, and user data sets stored online

CRATE will assist recipients in using web-based GIS to support their housing and community facilities programs and projects. Some of the areas in which GIS technology can make critical contributions are:

• Lists of potential properties for housing development activity using online tools.
• Community asset and resource mapping.
• Data mapping of serious community problems such as code violations, crime statistics, public health problems and tax delinquent properties.
• Funding applications that incorporate the use of online data and mapping tools
• Community education and interactive planning
• Home mortgage lending analyses of their service region, identifying opportunities for working with the financial institutions to expand lending opportunities

Recipients will have the skills to:

• Develop a housing plan, including geographic targets for development opportunities.
• Use online and offline tools to identify the best property acquisition sites.
• Use data and mapping tools to support funding applications
• Conduct HMDA analyses to identify areas most in need of mortgage lending.
• Map community resources that provide a network of services for housing beneficiaries.
• Train others locally in the use of internet-based information, data analysis and mapping tools to expand overall community capacity to secure resources and development opportunities.

Recipients can expect to receive free onsite training and hands-on technical assistance in integrating and utilizing web-based GIS technology into their housing and community facilities initiatives.

A dedicated Website, documentation and training modules will be available to recipients for internal capacity development and training of beneficiary organizations in their communities.