Boston Organizers Protect Individual Tenants, While Trying to Change the System
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.
Is Everything in Your Lease Legal? Quite Possibly Not
Some leases plainly contradict state law or include questionable, punitive, or egregiously anti-tenant clauses.
Tenant Protections 101
Tenant advocates have long been pushing for a “tenants bill of rights” to codify rules that protect renters from landlords. Here’s a rundown of the top protections housing justice activists say need to be included.
Top 6 Tenant Protections Renters Are Fighting For
Tenants are organizing together with increased urgency to get legal protections passed in their towns, cities, and states. What are the top protections tenants are fighting for?
Homeowners Seeking Foreclosure Assistance Face Delays and Confusion in Many States
While a lot of attention has been paid to emergency rental assistance, foreclosure relief funds are also being distributed at the state level—and are also having mixed results getting to those who need them.
Income Averaging Allowed LIHTC Housing to Reach More People—Will It Last?
A Trump-era policy that actually helped poor people could be dismantled by the IRS.
Biden Has Power to Impose Rent Control, Say Housing Advocates
There’s legal precedent for the administration to limit rent hikes at least on all buildings with federally backed loans.
How to Retrofit the Housing Economy
Are policy changes enough to address the housing problems we face?
Hands Off the Houses: Can We Stop Speculative Land Grabs?
From the macro scale to the micro scale, there are many ways in which the housing market playing field is tilted toward financial firms—and many ways being proposed to start to tilt it back.
Could This Supreme Court Ruling Affect Fair Housing?
Experts on housing law discuss the potential repercussions of a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down the EPA’s authority in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Could conservative judges apply the same rationale to limit HUD's authority?
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.
Unfair Market Rents: How Inflation Is Skewing FMRs
"Fair market rents" are set by HUD and used to determine how much federal assistance programs will pay toward rent. But with rental costs rising so rapidly, they aren't keeping up.
Proposed CRA Rule Receives Mixed Reviews from Housers
Public comment is open through Aug. 5 on proposed Community Reinvestment Act rule changes. They are worlds better than the Trump-era proposal. Why are some advocates still disappointed?
Something Old, Something New: Biden’s Housing Plan
President Biden’s Housing Supply Action Plan is a catchall of existing proposals, tiny tweaks, and things Congress would have to fund—plus a few genuinely interesting administrative moves. Here’s the rundown.
COVID Relief Funds Filling Some Housing Budget Gaps
As COVID relief funds have flowed out across the country, state and local governments have so far allotted at least $13.8 billion of their discretionary dollars to housing efforts.
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.
Going Statewide to Boost ADU Development
ADUs are typically regulated at the local level, but advocates argue statewide legislation is what’s actually needed to get to scale. California has been aggressively leading the way.
What Happened to Those Build Back Better Housing Investments?
Build Back Better would have made huge new investments in housing. But most of what it promised isn’t going to happen. Would any housing plan have a chance of making it through Congress?
ADUs: Laws and Uses, Do’s and Don’ts
As ADUs gain national attention, cities are searching for the best ways to legalize their development and encourage construction.
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?