Topic
Policy
The rules of the game—and the attitudes of the players—have an enormous effect on community development work at all levels. Here we look at some of the conversations about how to shift that policy for the better.
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Targeting First-Generation Homebuyers Is a Great Way to Direct Downpayment Assistance—And It Could Be Better
The proposed program could shrink the racial homeownership gap while serving a wide cross-section of people. But it only addresses some of the results of past discrimination.
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Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Oct. 5
News from—and affecting—the community development world. This week: a new kind of library lending, Amazon’s wage raise, life for Philadelphia’s poor, bipartisan work on the opioid epidemic, and more.
Can Cities Fix Their Polarization Problem? A Review of The Divided City
How different would cities look and how different would people’s lives be if those with the power to set policy and invest resources prioritized the most vulnerable residents and the neighborhoods they live in?
Can Housers Unite Around the Warren Proposal?
Every once in a while someone says: “What would it look like if we came together and were united on a federal policy for housing?” It seems like the answer to “who would actually do it?” might currently be Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Bold Political Leadership on Housing Policy? In 2018? You Heard Right
Local elected officials are having to re-examine the risks and rewards of making housing and housing affordability a political priority. Could one mayor’s bold steps on housing policy be a national bellwether?
Fair Housing at 50: At the Root, It’s Still Race Over Place
We should have known better. The Kerner Commission taught us that race matters most, not place. But it also embedded in our psyches the equation of Black = central city and the similarly absolute equation of white = suburbs.
The Most Important Housing Law Passed in 1968 Wasn’t the Fair Housing Act
At the Aug. 1, 1968 signing ceremony, President Johnson proclaimed “Today, we are going to put on the books of American law what I genuinely believe is the most farsighted, the most comprehensive, the most massive housing program in all American history.” He was right.
Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Aug. 31
HUD hosts listening tour for landlords, inmates protest exploitation of labor with prison strike, a payday loan alternative, and more
HUD Continues to Retreat From Fair Housing Duties
In the name of “local control,” the federal agency has abandoned enforcement of civil rights law because it believes it’s too troublesome.
Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Aug. 24
Philly’s Fight for Affordable Housing | HUD Targets Facebook In Complaint| An Eviction App | A “Massive” Multifamily Housing Fraud
Is a Home with Lead Hazards Really “Affordable”?
The cost of housing is not simply the mortgage, rent, and utilities, but the individual and community health, education, and social costs associated with low-quality, unstable, and unhealthy housing.
The Jobs-Housing Hamster Wheel
A deeper dive into the cause of high housing prices reveals that it is not the price of lumber, bricks, or labor that accounts for high or low housing prices—the controlling factor most often is the price of land.
An Old American Struggle, Always New
Color and Character is an introduction to the seminal and unresolved struggle over integration and racial equality in America.