Sandra Larson

In the face of teacher shortages and out-of-reach housing prices, efforts to provide educators with affordable housing options are taking shape across the U.S. Shelterforce looks at some of the emerging models and how they’re working so far.

Shelterforce spoke with community-lending leaders and experts about the current mood across the sector. What, if anything, are organizations planning to do to avoid becoming the next target?

Housing and policy experts agree that LIHTC has successfully increased the supply of affordable housing. But they also believe there’s room for improvement.

Accessibility for this challenging disability can look different from other measures—but addressing it could help improve everyone’s health. 

City Life/Vida Urbana is known for successful tenant union organizing and anti-eviction actions, but every individual action springs from a larger vision of system and policy change.

Access to counsel in evictions is now funded statewide, and several other tenant protections have passed, but the Maryland effort shows that solidifying tenant protections can be a multiyear process.

Pandemic evictions heightened the urgency. Then the campaign succeeded by finding local champions, presenting cost and benefit data, and spotlighting tenant narratives.

Responding to tenants’ top concerns, organizers pivoted from affordability issues to landlord accountability and won a package of new tenant protections.

Organizers drew broad support with a multi-pronged campaign and found ways to get signatures in a pandemic to win rent stabilization and a slate of other progressive laws.

Cities, court systems, citizen groups, and affordable housing operators are crafting ways of responding to emergencies that reduce the risk of negative police interactions.

Support at all stages of an eviction could help vulnerable tenants navigate the process, avoid being removed from their home, or if they are evicted, help them catch their footing.

For children who have asthma, pests like cockroaches and mice can trigger allergic reactions and lead to recurring and expensive hospital visits. Could insurers save money by investing in housing-based improvements like pest management services?