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Miriam Axel-Lute

503 Posts

Miriam Axel-Lute is CEO/editor-in-chief of Shelterforce. She lives in Albany, New York, and is a proud small-city aficionado.
Editor’s Note

The Housing-Education Intersection

Stable, healthy, decent affordable housing sets children up for educational success, and allows schools to be able to focus on what they do best. Shelterforce’s Miriam Axel-Lute breaks down the housing-education connection and what you can expect in our new series.

Opinion

Winning Tenant Protections Isn’t Enough

When tenant protections are popular, opponents know better than to try to repeal them. But they can damage them just the same.

State & Local Policy

How Policy Can Help Tenants Purchase Their Homes, a Webinar

Laws that give tenants the ability to purchase their own apartments are popping up across the country. In this webinar, a panel of folks who have been reporting on, fighting for, and using these policies offer their perspectives on this powerful anti-displacement tool. 

A green road sign at a T intersection in very open, flat, and dry-looking terrain, with white arrows pointing to the left and right, but without any city or town names. A black pickup truck has turned left at the stop sign. In the far distance are low hills, very hazy and indistinct.
Opinion

Community Development: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?

One of the major questions for the affordable housing world in the next couple of years will be how well its various segments come together.

Interview

Not Only Building Buildings: The Black Community Developers Group

A conversation with Leatrice Moore, executive director of Black Community Developers Group, about the need for BCDG and plans for the future.

Reported Article

New Research Gives Different—But Complementary—Looks at the Community Development Field

Three fascinating research projects take very different approaches to learning more about the sector, but many of the storylines they are surfacing are related.

On the top left, "Moving Community Development Forward" in white and orange letters. Below are orange and purple houses and buildings. On the right, a big hand holding a gold compass that has small people gathering in a circular table.
Editor’s Note

Which Way Community Development?

The community development field is in an interesting and challenging spot right now. Our new Under the Lens series zooms in and explores this moment in the field.

An ancient mural of a female deity, in tones of green and rust/brick, with some blue. Her face is green, her eyes wide open and staring, and her hands held out to the sides. She wears an elaborate headdress made of feathers with a birdlike visage on it.
Review

A (Much) Older Example of Social Housing Than Vienna

History often feels like a depressing account of the worst things people can do to each other. But a recent book contains reminders that nothing is inevitable, and sometimes people have done better than we’re doing now—even in terms of housing and social equity.

A young family of three seen from the back as they look at a house. From right: A light brown-skinned man with shaved head and chin whiskers in a blue chambray shirt and khakis points to the house, at something out of frame. His other arm is around a black-haired woman in a narrow-striped button-up white shirt over blue jeans. One of her arms is around the man's waist; with the other she holds a small dark-haired child in a pale blue top and black leggings and no shoes. The house is white with brown window trim, and a sold sign in one window.
Opinion

Targeting First-Generation Homebuyers Is a Great Way to Direct Downpayment Assistance—And It Could Be Better

The proposed program could shrink the racial homeownership gap while serving a wide cross-section of people. But it only addresses some of the results of past discrimination.

LIHTC

LIHTC: Are Little Changes Enough? A Shelterforce Webinar

There are reforms and expansions of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit afoot. But some in the field argue that we need to change the tax credit model of financing housing more deeply—or move away from it entirely. Join scholars and organizers as they discuss these issues and explore a path forward.

Image description: Webinar title “Getting to More Accessible, Affordable, Inclusive Housing" in a yellow banner.Below, from left to right are headshots of the speakers: Anita Cameron a woman with brown skin and dredlocks, Chelsea Hayman, a woman with pale skin, straight light-brown hair and glasses, Hunter Herrera-McFarland, a woman with long straight black hair, dark-framed glasses and light skin, Shelly Richardson, a woman with short reddish hair, clear-framed glasses, and Miriam Axel-Lute, a woman with curly dark medium-length hair, angular purple glasses and earrings.
Disability

Getting to More Accessible, Affordable, Inclusive Housing, a Shelterforce Webinar

Four disability advocates and experts explain what’s needed to house Americans with disabilities and some of the work that’s being done to get there.

Close up view of rock, scissors, and a sheet of white paper on a red table or desk. The rock is oval gray rock with a band of white quartz through it, the scissors have purple plastic grips and metal blades. The scissors are positioned such that they appear to have just cut the paper, and the rock is resting on the paper, half concealed by a portion of it.
Opinion

Legitimate Debate or Short-Sighted Complaints? 5 Reasons Affordable Housing Is Expensive to Build

There’s no denying that affordable housing can be expensive to build. But we need to look at the long-term benefits of those investments to see the bigger picture.