Miriam Axel-Lute
Miriam Axel-Lute is editor of Shelterforce and associate director of the National Housing Institute. She lives in Albany, New York, where she serves on the Community Development Alliance board.
Tiny Houses: Does Size Matter?
The suggestion of tiny houses as a solution to housing unaffordability is both condescending and impractical. Here's why.
The Ticket to Opportunity
An Indianapolis-based organization successfully campaigned to bring more funding to the mass transit system in Marion County. How did the organization balance the tension between expanding rail line service and improving bus service, and ensure race was at the forefront of the conversation?
Connected Neighborhoods
Transportation is the second largest direct expenditure for American households, after housing. Of course transportation costs vary widely based on where you live, how...
The Opposite of Deficit-Based Language Isn’t Asset-Based Language. It’s Truth-Telling.
How do you describe the people you work for and with, or the neighborhoods you work in? Do you use primarily “deficit-based” language like...
The Inside World of ‘Change Makers’
Reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman alongside Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas is a fascinating thought experiment.
Talking About Revitalization When All Anyone Wants to Talk About Is Gentrification
Strategies for turning the conversation back to places where gentrification is not only *not* present, but not impending.
New Communities Inc. at 50: Thoughts on Identity and A Different Way Forward
The story of the nation's very first land trust shows that sometimes it takes people who have been repeatedly left out of systems to shake us into remembering to aim big, consider new strategies, and leave no one behind.
Is Success Making CDFIs Too Risk-Averse?
Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute in conversation with Ed Gorman of NCRC on whether community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are taking enough risk, and therefore, falling short of their mission.
Changing the Way We Think About Poor Rural Communities
Rural communities are very different places—separated by climate, geography, and often race. But in many other ways, these communities are far more similar than different.
Shifting our Thinking About Rural Coverage
Shelterforce has had its comfort zones, and we’ve largely stayed within them. But it was time to shift our thinking so rural areas were more clearly part of the fold.
Behind the Scenes of NCRC’s Gentrification Report
A conversation with an NCRC senior research analyst about the organization's report on gentrification, what its findings show and don’t show, and what the policy implications might be.
It Doesn’t Matter if Your Neighborhood Is Going to Eventually Gentrify
“We could use some gentrification here.” Let's never say this—we must refrain from debating the long-term likelihood of gentrification in distressed places.
Using Theater to Envision Racial Equity Solutions
Techniques from the arts world can help us envision and re-envision relationships and systems to spot stress points and opportunities within communities.
From Sustainability to Resilience
My first reaction to the emergence of “resilience” as a lens for viewing community development was mostly informed by skepticism.
Time to Delink Homeownership from Asset Building
Using homeownership as an asset-building mechanism and retirement plan might not be a great thing for our society.
Carson Lies Again as He Announces Plans to Leave HUD
HUD secretary Ben Carson told the right-leaning outlet Newsmax on Monday night that he intends to leave his cabinet post at the end of...
Closing the Divide Between Fair Housing and Affordable Housing
The Regional Affordable & Fair Housing Roundtable pulled off something that has often been elusive—building enough trust between fair housing advocates and place-based community developers to lead to their signing on to a joint agenda.
Housing Markets Vary—So Must Our Tactics
There is widespread understanding about the vast differences in life outcomes that statistically come with different neighborhoods.
YIMBYs: Friend, Foe, or Chaos Agent?
The relationship between pro-building “Yes in My Back Yard” activists, longtime housing advocates, and anti-displacement organizers varies across the country, but has often been fraught with difficulties. Is there a way forward?
Is Local Control Good or Bad?
And how do we get more of the good and less of the bad?