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Miriam Axel-Lute

504 Posts

Miriam Axel-Lute is CEO/editor-in-chief of Shelterforce. She lives in Albany, New York, and is a proud small-city aficionado.
Men in topcoats and hats with rent increase protest signs.
Housing

Could Rent Control Come Back?

It was only two and a half years ago that Jake Blumgart opened his article, “In Defense of Rent Control,” by saying: “Rent control is basically dead.” Mind you, there […]

Child showing a story book to another child.
Health

How This Museum Supports Community Integration and Trauma Recovery

Using artistic expression to de-stigmatize and treat trauma.

Aerial view of roofs
Housing

Adding Housing Doesn’t Overcrowd Schools

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?

The front cover of the Fall 2017 edition of Shelterforce magazine.
Editor’s Note

Community Development Potpourri

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.

A historical photo of a burned cross with the word "Freedom" in white across it.
Interview

“You’re Not Colored”: The Story of Two Civil Rights Activists of Japanese Descent

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.

Members of Boston Liberation Health hold a banner that reads, "Capitalism, racism, and heteropatriachy are making us sick. Join Liberation Health."
Interview

How Organizing for Justice Helps Your Mental Health

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

tiny homes
Housing

Tiny Homes for the Homeless—Would You Host a Village?

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

NYC skyline painted on brick wall.
Reported Article

New York City Becomes a Hotbed of Community Land Trust Innovation

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

Upside-down image of a faucet dripping.
Housing

Trickle Up Housing: Filtering Does Go Both Ways

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.

Smoke over California hills.
Community Development Field

Not If But When: A Disaster Preparedness Conversation

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.

Boarded window with "Resist Immigration Raids" sprayed.
Reported Article

What to Do When ICE Comes to Your Buildings

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.

Black and white photo of a row of police cars.
Community Development Field

The Problem with “We Have to Do Something”

This summer, Eve Ewing, a sociologist of race and education at the University of Chicago, wrote an article called “The Chicago Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto: Antiblackness at the root of gun […]