Equity

Property taxes were set up at a time when cities were regional centers of wealth. Times have changed. We need to another look at how we’re funding cities.

It looks like President Obama and his administration kept most of the great ideas explored with the Grow America Act, last year's transportation initiative. The total investment is increased to $478 billion and expanded to six years in the latest iteration of the budget released yesterday. A few of the best pieces for low-income communities […]

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a very important fair housing case, and the Justices’ comments from the bench have had court watchers buzzing ever since. Here’s my take on what the legal back-and-forth in the case does and does not mean. It’s safe to say that the oral argument in […]

Women are an increasing percentage of veterans, and of homeless veterans, but their experiences of homelessness differ from their male counterparts, and so must the solutions.

In our work to build communities of opportunity where low-income people and people of color can thrive, we must acknowledge that income is how you get out of poverty, assets are how you stay out.

It’s important to remember, as Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project reaches the Supreme Court of the United States later this month, the actual people who bear the brunt of Texas’ history of housing discrimination. As Alan Jenkins’ earlier post on Rooflines points out, on January 21 the Supreme […]

The debate about Ferguson continues: The grand jury decision is unfair to many; policing practices seem discriminatory and dangerous; and local court systems have been shown to prey upon low-income people. The sheer scope of the problems can be overwhelming. But let’s take a step back. Richard Rothstein’s “The Making of Ferguson“ links some modern […]

In a recent Rooflines post, Sarah Treuhaft holds up new, reputable data that finds that inequality is not a circumstance of economic success, after all, but that it actually has a dampening effect. Specifically, the widening gap between the poor and lower middle class (households in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution) and […]

When a housing policy has the effect of perpetuating racial exclusion, and that policy is unnecessary or unjustified, it must be set aside or changed under the Fair Housing Act, whether or not the politicians who passed it were intentionally focused on racial discrimination. But now, that important principle is at risk.

It’s not unusual to read a press release from a governor’s or mayor’s office celebrating a deal to bring a new company to a neighborhood or city. Typically we’d be talking about a new manufacturing or tech firm, and the press release would speak glowingly of the prospects for economic development. Which makes a bit […]

Recently I was honored to receive the Ned Gramlich Award for Responsible Finance during the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) Conference in Denver. To be recognized by the national association of investors dedicated to aligning capital with justice was a humbling experience—one made more so by the courageous legacy of the late Federal Reserve Bank Governor […]

Comparing and contrasting both the impact and response to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, through storytelling.