30 Years - A Winning Team!

30 years ago, the vision of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement was born, rather humbly, in the rectory of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Waterloo. CCI was conceived by a handful of clergy who believed that ordinary people, when given the chance, can be a powerful force for justice.

That vision and spirit of justice proved true and marches on today. CCI has developed a 30-year record of organizing and winning on the issues that matter most to our members. Chances are if you live in Iowa, you've seen the results of our work...

• Housing
• Utilities
• Neighborhood Preservation
• Community Reinvestment
• Farm Credit
• Transportation
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Crime & Drugs
• Factory Farms
• Mandatory Pork Checkoff
• Predatory Lending
• Immigrant Rights

Housing

1978: Organizing by Iowa CCI resulted in the passage of the Iowa Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. This law spells out the rights and responsibilities of both tenants and landlords and provides tenants with additional options to obtain decent housing.

1979: Waterloo CCI mobile home owners were asked to testify regarding issues they faced in their court. Their testimony helped pass the Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord and Tenant Law.

1979: Sioux City CCI (CCR) halted the expenditure of $650,000 of Community Development Block Grant funds on a proposed civic center and re-channeled the funds for housing loans in low-income neighborhoods.

1991-1994: Des Moines CCI conducted a campaign to enact the Full-Court Press -- a housing code enforcement policy to direct inspection efforts at the worst landlords. The policy was eventually passed as the Habitual Violators Ordinance and allows the city to concentrate housing enforcement on landlords who appear before the Housing Appeals Board 3 times in a 12 month period for housing code violations.

1991-1999: Provided home ownership education and counseling that assisted over 1,220 people in preparing for home ownership.

Utilities

1979: Sioux City CCI (CCR) initiated a statewide campaign that resulted in a winter moratorium on shutoffs of heat and electricity.

1982-1984: Iowa CCI's organizing resulted in InterNorth, Iowa's main supplier of natural gas at the time, providing $1.5 million in weatherization grants on a matching basis for low income people in InterNorth's multi-state service area.

1983-1986: Iowa CCI's educational efforts on excess electric capacity convinced utility companies to discontinue plans to build an unneeded electric generating station in Guthrie County. The savings to consumers was estimated at $1 billion.

1987: CCI organized the Coalition for Affordable Energy (CABEL) to push for legislation that would help lower income Iowans pay for their utility bills. CABEL won passage of the Affordable Heating Payment Plan which allocated $500,000 in heating bill assistance and eventually became a permanent law.

Neighborhood Preservation

1978: Working with residents concerned about the late night noise from car racing at the State Fairgrounds, Des Moines CCI won passage of an anti-noise ordinance which limits the level of noise permitted in residential areas.

1979: Des Moines CCI won passage of an ordinance which makes it illegal for a sex-oriented business to be located within 750 feet of a school, playground, or residential area.

1979: Des Moines CCI members, upset with flooding of their basements since the 1940's by the "7th Ward Ditch", got the city to commit $2 million and build a large holding basin which prevented flooding of a 100 square block residential area in the city's northeast side.

1981-1985: Cedar Rapids CCI organized a down sizing campaign in 3 neighborhoods to prevent speculators from dividing up single family homes, depreciating properties, and ruining the neighborhoods.

1982-1983: Organizing by Sioux City and Cedar Rapids CCI prevented the closing of 3 inner city schools.

1983: Cedar Rapids CCI, working with residents of neighborhoods whose basements often flooded because of inadequate storm and sanitary sewers, won $6.8 million in bond money to rebuild the sewers in ten different neighborhoods.

1983: Des Moines CCI stopped a proposed plan by the State Fair Board to demolish 100 homes to provide additional parking for the fairgrounds.

1989: Waterloo CCI's organizing efforts convinced R&M Metals, a metal burning business located in a residentially zoned neighborhood, to move to an industrially zoned area of the city.

1999: East side Des Moines neighbors, concerned about the potential negative impacts of the newly created Agribusiness Enterprise Zone, developed and won city council approval of a policy requiring Enterprise Zone businesses to sign a Good Neighbor Agreement with surrounding neighborhoods before receiving economic development assistance.

Community Reinvestment

1978: Organizing by Iowa CCI on the issue of mortgage red-lining resulted in the passage of the state Neighborhood Revitalization Law. This law gave each Iowa city the power to declare a designated part of its community an "urban revitalization area." The area was then eligible to receive tax breaks for making home improvements as an incentive to upgrade housing.

1987-1999: Des Moines CCI negotiated lending agreements with 10 lending institutions that resulted in over $60 million in mortgage loans in low to moderate income neighborhoods.

1989: Iowa CCI became the first group in the US to use the Community Reinvestment Act to negotiate family farm loan agreements with banks. These agreements helped more than 1,200 small and mid-sized farmers in 27 Iowa communities obtain nearly $37 million in credit for a variety of agricultural purposes.

1993: Iowa CCI began providing technical assistance to groups in other states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, and South Dakota, that wanted to learn how to use the CRA to address rural credit issues.

1999: Des Moines CCI convinced the city council to establish a policy whereby the city uses a bank's record of lending in lower income neighborhoods as 1 of 2 main factors in determining where city funds are deposited.

Farm Credit

1986: Because of Iowa CCI's organizing, the state Farmers Home Adminstration office reversed an earlier decision to send out "adverse action" letters to 2,200 Iowa farmers beginning foreclosure proceedings.

1985-1990: Iowa CCI helped farmers save their farms through lender negotiation meetings that resulted in interest buydown loans, debt restructuring agreements, operating loans, lease agreements, and subordination agreements.

Transportation

1985: Council Bluffs CCI stopped the misappropriation of $400,000 of government funds for construction of a storage building on unstable, swampy land and saw that the funds were reallocated to senior transportation and meal site programs.

1987: After continued decline in financial support for bus service, an increase in bus fares, and a proposal by the city council to discontinue Saturday bus service, Dubuque CCI started a campaign to improve public transportation. CCI won the rescinding of the increased bus fares, defeated the proposal to end Saturday bus service, won commitments from the business, educational, medical, and religious communities to encourage ridership among employees, and doubled state aid for public transit in Dubuque and statewide.

Sustainable Agriculture

1987-1992: Iowa CCI held over 80 farmer-to-farmer workshops to promote farming profitably with fewer chemicals.

1993: CCI's organizing helped bring $6 million in additional Emergency Conservation Program funds to Iowa to assist farmers who had been hurt by record floods and rains. The ECP provided cost-share funds to eligible farmers for repair of conservation practices and structures (waterways, terraces, etc.) that had suffered weather-related damages.

Crime and Drugs

1991: Des Moines CCI won passage of the Specified Crime Property Ordinance. The ordinance allows for fines for landlords who fail to take action against drug dealers in their buildings. Waterloo CCI passed a similar ordinance.

1994-1996: Des Moines CCI members won passage of a new state Drug Free Zone Law that provides for the option of increased penalties if a person is caught with possession of drugs and intent to deliver within 1,000 feet of a school, park, public recreation center, school bus or park.

1998: Because of Des Moines CCI's organizing, Des Moines has a conditional use permit to deal with unruly bars. Now when an owner wants to expand or open a bar, they must first obtain a conditional use permit which allows the city to put conditions on the operation such as providing adequate lighting and making sure no illegal activity occurs on the premise. Before, the city lacked the tools to close unruly bars because the control of liquor licensing was at the state level.

1999: Des Moines CCI members wanted to stop the drug dealing children faced on their way to and from school, so they developed a patrol where adult volunteers equipped with cell phones monitor the streets near King Elementary School in Des Moines and develop rapport with neighborhood youth.

Factory Farms

1995: Iowa CCI members helped convince a DNR rule-making committee to vote for public disclosure of hog factories' manure management plans. Groups like the Iowa Pork Producers and the Iowa Farm Bureau didn't want the plans opened to the public.

1995-present: Iowa CCI members have stopped 4 dozen factory farms from being built or expanded, passed county ordinances, and pushed the Department of Natural Resources to issue fines and violations.

2000- 2005: Iowa CCI members collected over 6,000 signatures supporting clean air & won a standard that set limits on the toxic emissions of factory farms.

Mandatory Pork Checkoff

1997: Iowa CCI and other Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment (CFFE) groups forced the National Pork Producers Council to reimburse $51,300 in pork checkoff funds that had been mis-used to "investigate" Iowa CCI and other family farm groups opposed to hog factories. The controversy led to a full-scale audit of NPPC's checkoff spending.

1998-2005: Iowa CCI, as part of the CFFE, launched a national petition drive in 1998 calling for a hog farmer vote to decide if the mandatory pork checkoff should be terminated. We won a national vote and two federal court decisions saying that the checkoff is unconstitutuional and should be ended before the Supreme Court ruled against our cause. The New York Times called our pork checkoff fight "one of the major battles in American farming."

Predatory Lending Practice

2002 - present: Negotiated agreements with the top 4 subprime lenders in Iowa to stop using predatory lending practices and won over $4 million in restitution for families.

2003 - 2004: Stopped the largest contract real estate seller in Iowa from victimizing buyers and sellers.

Miscellaneous

1977: CCI members in Waterloo got the city to extend water lines to a lower income neighborhood where residents had to depend on contaminated wells for their drinking water.

1987: When the city of Council Bluffs and the railroad both refused responsibility for taking care of abandoned railroad tracks, CCI members and neighbors claimed the land, fenced it in and expanded their back yards.

Under construction - to be updated soon!!