Opinion

A 1953 postcard advertising a model home, a small Cape Cod with a stone front and two dormer windows. The side of the house is painted red.

Reforming Zoning in a Racist Market Still Worth It

In a racist society, markets cause racist housing outcomes, but nonetheless the influence of land use regulation shouldn't be ignored.
At left, tall apartment towers. At right, trees, In foreground, several mostly submerged cars in brown floodwaters, under a blue sky.

How the Inflation Reduction Act Can Protect Low-income Renters From Climate Change

Climate change is an especially large threat to low-income residents. The Inflation Reduction Act offers a chance to act.
Two women in a crowd of protesters hold a big hand-lettered sign that says "Power to the tenants." Other people near and behind them are also holding signs.

Biden’s Renters Rights Blueprint: Meaningful or Not?

What should we make of the administration’s tenants rights announcement?
View from across the road of homeless tents lining the freeway in Los Angeles. Behind them are palm trees, with multistory apartment buildings in the background

Bordering Towns in LA County Clash Over Their Homeless Policies

Local governments often come to different conclusions about how to address homelessness within their respective city borders. Varying approaches only exacerbate the problem.
Six people in winter coats and hats stand across the street from a construction site. At the center, a young man in a cloth cap stands at a podium gesturing as he speaks.

How Atlantic Yards Failed to Deliver Affordable Homeownership (With a Hakeem Jeffries Cameo)

Atlantic Yards demonstrates that developers' promises must be backed up in contracts, otherwise economic and political cycles can undermine them. 
A row of large gray cylindrical water storage tanks on a roof. Behind them are heat pumps and other technical apparatus.

The Shift to Using More Electricity Will Change How Affordable Housing Is Built

Policymakers and building designers have gone from pushing for energy efficiency to focusing on reducing carbon emissions by using more electrical-based systems. What are some of the benefits and challenges of going all-electric, and how can affordable housers move forward?

Press ‘Record’ To Catch Fair Housing Violators—If You Can

Fair housing testers often go undercover to expose discriminatory housing practices, but laws prohibiting recording conversations hamper investigations

How to Retrofit the Housing Economy

Are policy changes enough to address the housing problems we face?

When Landlords Hide Behind LLCs

It’s difficult to know who owns a property because corporate landlords and investors tend to structure their business as limited liability companies, or LLCs.

Unmasking the Property Owners

There’s a reason land ownership is a matter of public record—but at the moment the records we have aren’t actually doing the job.

How the Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy Drives Housing Inequality

If high home prices and rents are hallmarks of inequality, the actions of the Federal Reserve should give us pause. Its policy interventions have had profound effects on housing prices.

A Way for Investors to Save Affordable Housing, Not Harm It

Investors have helped preserve more than 1,700 affordable housing units in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
An illustration of homes on a conveyor belt going through a machine and coming out as golden homes. Green dollar bills are coming out of the homes. This illustrates the financialization of housing.

The Financialization of Housing and Its Implications for Community Development

Over the last two decades homeowners and investors have increasingly treated housing as a financial asset, like stocks or bonds. How has this changed the housing market for the worse, and how can we fix it?

Considering Geographic Equity

When we talk about equity, we’re typically talking about individuals or neighborhoods. But what about the imbalance in power and access to resources between entire metropolitan areas?

Tenant Screening Companies Profit from Eviction Records, Driving Housing Insecurity

Sealing eviction records at the point of filing is an urgent step toward dismantling harmful tenant screening practices.

Dear CDFI Colleagues: It’s Time to be Transparent About Salaries in Job Postings

Companies that value meritocracy perform worse with pay equity when their internal policies do not align with their public-facing statements regarding pay.
A large affordable housing development with a large mural that includes Black musicians on the front wall.

Two Paths to Density: Profit vs People

As communities across the country begin promoting density to address the affordable housing crisis, they must grapple with how that housing will be built, and for whom.

Restorative Housing Policy: Can We Heal the Wounds of Redlining and Urban Renewal?

Our fair housing laws enshrine an approach that prohibits us from explicitly referring to race, even in programs intended to undo the harm caused by racism. Now restorative housing policy is attempting to directly confront this history.

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.