Miriam Axel-Lute

Shelterforce spoke with Race Forward’s Leslie Grant-Spann to find out what it means to have a community benefits agreement for an event, and why it’s important to think about the local impacts of large events.

Nonprofits advocate for local transit spending, but annual conference logistics don't typically include bus route information for attendees.

Thinking of abandoned properties as merely problems we wish would go away feeds into some of the less productive ways vacant properties have been handled.

Abandoned and vacant properties seem like a quintessentially local problem. But state policies have a huge effect on how well municipalities can fight it.

In discussions around closing the racial wealth gap, we should be reminded that a very large portion of wealth gained by white Americans should be seen as ill-gotten.

Every once in a while someone says: "What would it look like if we came together and were united on a federal policy for housing?" It seems like the answer to "who would actually do it?" might currently be Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Rent regulation is no longer being discussed as a vestigial holdover from a previous age, but actively debated and organized for by renters and activists.

Sexual harassment is a topic that’s not often addressed in the community development field, but it should be.

Some social determinants of health are concrete and physical. A substandard house with mold and pests, for example, will lead to more asthma and...

How would you measure someone making progress toward escaping poverty? If you've been tuned in to the asset-building movement you might look at their accumulation of assets and preparation for a financial emergency. You might also want to look at cash flow. But can poverty-fighting be solely measured by money?

An interview with Bob Annibale of Citi Community Development and Rebecca Foster of the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, which aims to to preserve or develop 1,500 affordable housing units in its first five years. 

Whether it’s the need to recapture some momentum in the 2018 election season, or the growing effect of the housing crisis on a wider range of people, the Democratic Party has proposed investing $70 billion in public housing.

When we put out a call for essays about the meaning of community control of land, we expected we might get a handful of responses. Instead we got dozens and dozens, coming from all different parts of the country, from residents and researchers, activists and advocates. We clearly touched a nerve.

In the face of accelerating gentrification, along with ongoing speculation and eviction, the idea of putting a substantial number of homes outside of the reach of the speculative market has been gaining momentum across the country.

A new program invests in the belief that community land trusts can become more than a boutique housing solution.

Disney's Black Panther-inspired gift to Oakland children is great, but there is a way it could be better.

Shelterforce took the occasion of Michael Bodaken's retiring from the National Housing Trust to speak with him about how he got into housing, some of his favorite projects, and his recommendations for the field going forward.

A new funding collaborative, Funders for Housing and Opportunity, has just launched. The collaborative, officially a project of the New Ventures Fund, involves (so far) nine large and well-known foundations.

The fight for health equity—for everyone to have a roughly equal shot at the potential and choice that good health offers—is of course, similar to the fight for economic justice and the work of community development.

Mark Constantine gives us a view of one foundation’s attempt to learn to walk the walk and how that commitment can influence the work one organization does to create a culture of health in its community.

Shelterforce spoke with MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award" recipient Nikole Hannah-Jones about her research into the persistence of racial segregation, and how without government intervention, average Americans have done an excellent job of enforcing "separate but unequal" schools.

When it comes to neighborhood-based health activity interventions, how they are carried out is often as important as what is offered.

It was only two and a half years ago that Jake Blumgart opened his article, "In Defense of Rent Control," by saying: "Rent control...

Using artistic expression to de-stigmatize and treat trauma.

Adding housing doesn't correlate with increased school enrollment, according to a new study. But will housing advocates be able to make use of this information?

This issue represents a great cross-section of what community development is. We have stories of organizing, housing, health, and arts. Stories of affordable housing challenges in strong and weak markets; we have pieces on policy, program, and resistance; and more.

We heard about Ed Nakawatase and Tamio Wakayama's experiences as volunteers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the American civil rights movement, and the extraordinariness of their witness to the history happening at the time compelled us to pursue a conversation.

How do social justice, organizing, and mental health interact? Shelterforce chats with clinical social worker Dawn Belkin Martinez to find out.

Imagine if hosting a transitional tiny home village became the norm for all suitable vacant land—dare I say even an expectation?

New York seems poised to move the concept of community land trusts in new and exciting directions.

Here's something we don't talk about enough: developing affordable housing in a tight, high-cost market also increases overall affordability through filtering! Just in the other direction—it trickles up.

Against the back drop of 2017's California wildfires, a quickly organized session took place to discuss disaster response and recovery from the perspective of being a housing organization.

If you own and/or manage affordable housing, do you know what to do if ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) shows up on your doorstep looking for someone? If you haven’t thought it through yet, now’s the time.

This summer, Eve Ewing, a sociologist of race and education at the University of Chicago, wrote an article called “The Chicago Negro and the...

Housing is on the radar of racial justice activists.

Race affects everything in American society. Working to fight racial injustice is a large part of what the community development field does. And yet, that doesn’t get us off the hook.

Community development corporations are surprisingly short on executives of color. Why? And how can the field do better?

The Trump-era increase widespread racial terror, as was on display in Charlottesville, is going to affect community developers' work at least as much as as his legislative and funding agenda.

What's not to like about colorful art on utility boxes? Well, in some places that drab infrastructure might be performing informal community functions...

There was much speculation last year about whether and how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would enter the affordable housing space. We got our first peek today . . .

Shelterforce recently spoke with Angela Mingo of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Rev. John Edgar of Community Development for All People to learn more about their health/housing partnership and how it came to be.

Though it seems the connection between health and community development is on everyone’s lips these days, the two sectors are really still at the beginning stages of learning how to work together.

On a recent trip to Seattle, I picked up a copy of the weekly paper The Stranger. As I...

You know what doesn’t help lower the cost of affordable housing? Spuriously blaming some of the organizations that are working hardest to create it in the most difficult situations.

We need some standards to explain what “enough” means. Here's a breakdown of the Family Budget Calculator, the Self-Sufficiency Standard, and the Housing Poverty Measure.

Housing crises are health crises. Toxic mold causes asthma. Lack of heat weakens immune systems. Unaffordability causes stress. Forced choices between paying the rent and paying for medical care or food lead to poor health. Around the country, health care institutions that recognize this have started to employ lawyers onsite to help patients fight landlords for better housing conditions or qualify for housing subsidies (plus a range of other legal supports that will generally have direct effect on their health).

The simplicity of the 30 percent standard is also its downfall. We don’t expect people of differing incomes or family sizes to pay the same percentage of their income in taxes—why would the same percentage work for housing costs?

In the Spring 2017 issue of Shelterforce, we talk about something that comes up daily for many people working in the community development field—what does housing affordability mean? Crafting practical policies to back up our vision requires that we be thoughtful about all of the pieces.

If you live anywhere with a substantial resistance to the current administration's attacks on immigrants, you may have seen...

We recently published both an article and an Answer column that shows how one group in Philadelphia, WPRE/NR, is...

We gathered some people who have done a lot of thinking and studying on regulation to discuss what it might look like to actually remove obstacles that get in the way of developing less expensive housing options responsibly. What's possible? What are the trade-offs?

The Washington Post reported today that a preliminary HUD budget cuts $6 billion—eliminating Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and...

Ben Carson has been confirmed as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to the weak...

Amidst the chaos of the past couple weeks there has been at least one positive change—a lot more people...

In those exhausting and frightening days right after the election in November, I had the good fortune to catch Rinku Sen for a few minutes at the end of a long day of her organization’s biannual Facing Race conference. Though she must have been running on next to no sleep by that point, Sen was insightful, earnest, and eager to talk about the road ahead.

Triage is in effect among those opposed to the incoming administration and the president-elect's cabinet picks. This morning’s Senate...

Let's raise the standard deduction and lower tax rates to give everyone a tax cut!It should not surprise you that since this is a...

Who has been behind the large increase in financial support for and attention to what has been termed "creative placemaking" over the past couple years, and why?

Having had the experience of public art with no public involvement, a community organization set out to show there could be another way.

Coming mere days after the election, the reference to the famous Audre Lorde declaration, “Art gives us tools other than the master’s tools,” felt apropos. The people in the room were ready to hear any message of hope. I was no exception.

If you look at what Rip Rapson has accomplished and the insight he brings to his current work, you'll get a much better picture of who he is and the challenging work he spearheads at the Kresge Foundation.

Airbnb, as with some other of its fellow peer-to-peer “disruptive” tech solutions, has come under fire from a few...

Attention has been rightly focused this past week on the fact that the...

At the Opportunity Finance Network conference in October, I finally got a chance to sit down and talk with...

Nearly to a person, the 2,300 attendees at last week’s Facing Race conference—and most of the speakers—said, at some...

Last week I attended the Opportunity Finance Network conference, the annual gathering of Community Development Financial Institutions and those who work with them. As usual,...

Last week, while in Atlanta for the Opportunity Finance Network conference, I caught a glimpse on a bus tour...

Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year to stimulate economic development. Is it going where we think it’s going?

The housing affordability crunch is being felt by ever more people. As this year's State of the Nation's Housing...

East Cleveland, a struggling suburb of Cleveland, has ended up in so much fiscal distress that it is considering allowing...

The second article in our New Frontiers series, “Getting Beyond the Developer Fee“ has spurred some discussion. ...

While I am a firm believer in equal access to higher education for all, it’s over-emphasized in our individualistic culture as a solution to society’s woes.

Periodically in the affordable housing world, a few of us acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of low-income people live in unsubsidized rental...

In a world of growing financial complexity, predatory products, stagnating wages, and escalating inequality, financial insecurity is a dramatic problem. We gathered a group of leaders who are combating financial insecurity for a conversation on how it all relates.

What does it take to achieve financial security for the millions of American households without it? Clearly full employment, higher wages, and a more robust safety net would be some major components. But as important as those are, they aren’t the full picture. Assets are an important counterweight to income.

Children's savings accounts for higher education, even those that have accumulated only small amounts of money, can change expectations for low-income students and they might also provide a vehicle for larger wealth transfers.

Crowley has led the organization through dramatic times, keeping a focus on those with the most pressing housing need when many wanted to just talk homeownership.

In tough financial times, community developers are hanging on to their developer fees despite competition, but many are also diversifying their programs and revenue streams.

I was prepared to dislike Sheryll Cashin’s Place, Not Race, just based on the title. However, the author largely won me over.

One of the many roles for arts and culture in the community development world is catalyzing interest, vitality, and...

“I'm tired of feeling rural America is so alone,” said Lisa Mensah, USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development to...

Compared to the worst examples of urban design that have physically isolated low-income families, mixed-income housing seems like an intuitively healthier, more equitable way to go about designing neighborhoods.

“There’s still time to get the nation’s housing and urban crisis on the presidential campaign radar,” wrote Randy Shaw...

In our recent interview with long-time urban planner and racial equity advocate Chester Hartman, he told us he thought...

The discussion about how much building more housing will help with affordability, and the nuances of the neighborhood and regional effects and what to...

With Evicted, Desmond is taking a powerful argument that housing matters beyond the usually circles where that is discussed.

Last week, I submitted the following letter to the editor of the LA Times in response to a vicious, and...

In the community development field there are innumerable conversations about improving a struggling neighborhood or moving toward economic equity that have been ended abruptly...

Flint’s water crisis started long before corrosive river water starting running through its pipes. Though there’s no question that those who signed off on...

A core environmental justice fight has long been the fair distribution of necessary nuisance uses throughout a city. Poor neighborhoods tend to be over-burdened...

At the PolicyLink Equity Summit the last week of October, Orson Aguilar of the Greenlining Institute was taking a...

“Place matters, but place changes,” Univ. of Southern Calif. professor Manuel Pastor observed at the opening plenary at PolicyLink’s...

Comparative income quintiles don’t tell us very much about the material conditions of people’s lives. When someone rises into the top fifth, someone else falls into the bottom fifth.

People are not made to sit in windowless rooms breathing recycled air and squinting at tiny writing on screens for days on end. If...

I'm in Lexington, Ky., this week for the National Community Land Trust Network conference, hosted by the Lexington Community Land Trust.The Lexington CLT had...

When I visited New Orleans last June for the NeighborWorks Comeback Cities event, many of the people I spoke with were ambivalent about the...

What happens when organizers win a campaign for community control of land? That depends a lot on the choices they make about how to exercise that control.

City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis, edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb. N + 1. 2015, 496pp, $18 (paper). Purchase here.