Residents Owning Their Local Economy
In the face of extractive "investments," communities are exploring creative models that let them both exert control and earn returns themselves.
Affordable ADUs: How It’s Being Done
In the face of limited financing options, local governments, nonprofits, and social enterprises are experimenting with ways to make affordable ADUs a reality.
Are Urban Planners Staying Silent on Climate Gentrification?
Holmdel, New Jersey, moved its affordable housing to flood-prone land, raising a question about planners' ethical obligations to speak up against such moves.
Putting in the Labor to Support Affordable Homes
With notoriously high housing costs in San Francisco pushing workers across occupations out of the city and into long commutes, the value of alliances between housing advocates and labor organizers are becoming increasingly clear.
Push Back on the Racial Wealth Gap
Authors from Shelterforce’s recent series about the racial wealth gap and other experts talk wealth building, wealth extraction, and the tools available to help close the gap.
Say It With Your Chest: Race Matters in Lending
The Community Reinvestment Act was created to address racist lending practices, but it doesn’t specify race. Special purpose credit programs could help.
Dot’s Home, a Computer Game, Addresses History of Housing Discrimination
A new video game aims to educate players on the various housing barriers facing Black Americans through history. How well does it do that?
Rethinking the Racial Wealth Gap With Anne Price
A lot of conversations about the racial wealth gap focuses too much on homeownership as the only solution. It's much more complex. Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute talks with Anne Price, president of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.
Maurice Jones on Job Creation, Community Development, and Wealth Building
Seventy-one percent of jobs that pay $40,000 and above require a four-year degree, says Maurice Jones. That requirement is "having a huge, huge adverse impact on Black talent earning their way into the middle class."
‘We-Making’: How Arts and Culture Build Social Cohesion
In Oakland, the Black Cultural Zone ties together art and community ownership to prevent gentrification and heal trauma.
In Defense of Asian American Neighborhoods
How do you address a history of anti-Asian housing discrimination? Not by destroying Asian American communities.
Realtors Reckon with Race
A new generation of real estate agents are aiming for meaningful change in an industry most famous for championing and enforcing segregation.
Anti-Eviction Advocates Want the DOJ to Support the Right to Counsel Movement
The revival of an office within the Department of Justice that is focused on equitable legal representation has tenants’ rights advocates calling on the federal government to do more to strengthen the right to counsel movement.
How to Get Racial Equity into Biden’s Infrastructure Plan
Congress has an opportunity it must not squander to acknowledge the racial inequity built into our failing infrastructure and put into operation the promise of equity in Biden’s infrastructure plans.
How LISC, Enterprise Hope to Bring More Capital to Developers of Color
Two large community development intermediaries have announced major racial equity initiatives that emphasize how affordable housing gets built—and who builds it.
Improving Racial Equity via Emergency Rental Assistance
Five ways to ensure that rental assistance reaches communities of color with high levels of need.
Inclusionary Housing: Secrets to Success
A new survey of unprecedented scale gives us insight into the diverse range what of inclusionary housing programs look like and which ones are successful.
Did America Vote to Tackle Race and Health Inequities?
The ushering in of a new administration is a good time to reflect on some key 2020 ballot measures that have either advanced or hurt racial and health equity.
A Bolder Future for Housing Justice: ‘These Times Call for Radical Actions’
Housing advocates working at the local, state, and national levels discuss new research and policy recommendations for advancing housing justice.
Housing Policy Needs Abolition Too
Abolition—as a mode of mobilization and social change directed at the criminal legal system and elsewhere—remains widely misunderstood.