Tenant Rights in Our Backyard—A Panel Discussion
Tenant activists discuss how the housing movement can do better at aligning itself with the tenants' rights movement.
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.
ADUs: Defined, Disambiguated, and Debated
Accessory dwelling units are being touted as a way to provide more affordable rental units for tenants, and additional monthly income for homeowners. But some cities allow them, others don’t. So what are ADUs exactly?
How Tax Assessments are Racist
Between biased property appraisals that undervalue Black-owned properties and biased tax assessments that levy an unfair burden, homeowners of color are flanked by a double-whammy of racism.
How an Obscure HUD Definition Is Leaving Housing Dollars Unspent
Agencies are required to set aside a percentage of their HOME grants for projects led by community housing development organizations. But changes HUD implemented in 2013 have made it harder for nonprofits to receive those funds.
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.
Making Affordable Housing Easier to Find
We talk a lot about needing more affordable housing—but the affordable units that do exist can be very hard to locate, which hampers fair housing.
Backsliding Support and Backfiring Messaging: The Homelessness Conversation Needs a Reframe
Research shows that common messages supporting permanent solutions to homelessness are not working. But there are other ways to frame the discussion.
Eviction Reduction Should Be an Explicit Goal of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit...
The largest source of subsidy for building affordable housing doesn’t come with meaningful eviction reduction requirements, or even incentives. But it could.
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.
Mattye Berry-Evans, a Member of the Resident Action Network
“Each and every person should have the opportunity to have safe, secure, adequate, and affordable housing. I wasn't able to have it, but I can help others have it.”
How Hidden Property Owners and Bad Landlord Patterns Are Revealed in NYC
Housing tools in New York City demystify building ownership information and help renters, policymakers, and housing advocates spot and address problematic landlord behavior. Could tech-savvy groups outside The Big Apple replicate these tools in their communities?
How Rent Control Helped Create East Palo Alto
The story of East Palo Alto’s incorporation is one marked by great contention among local stakeholders, but also provides valuable lessons for organizers in forging and mobilizing local coalitions.
A Home’s True Worth—Getting Beyond Appraisal Bias
Homes owned by people of color are appraised for less than identical homes owned by white families. Nationwide, that’s led to more than $150 billion in lost equity. How can we stop appraisal bias?
When the Unemployed Fought Back
During the Great Depression, unemployed people organized and put their lives on the line to keep each other in their homes.
What if Vouchers Aren’t the (Only) Answer?
Rather than continue to find ways to make Section 8 work better, some affordable housing and tenant advocates argue the federal government should instead invest heavily in addressing the affordable housing shortage at its root.
Does RAD Privatize Public Housing?
How exactly does RAD work and why is there a raging debate over whether it’s putting tenants’ rights and housing affordability in peril?
Living in a Bubble: Development When Community Doesn’t Matter
How suburban luxury high-rises are lowering everyone’s quality of life.
Philly’s 1970s Fight to Revive Rent Control
As rent control reemerges as a strategy to address an intense housing crisis, we go back 50 years to examine the lessons learned from past struggles in Philadelphia.