Practitioner Voice

A Black woman, wearing a white scarf and black robe and holding a microphone, speaks inside a room. Sitting are four people listening, and others are standing in the back.

Preparing Underinvested Communities for New Funding

Underinvested communities are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting and deploying funding. The Center for Community Investment is helping to change that.
A young dark-skinned man sits on the edge of a bed holding a mandolin. He's wearing a ball cap turned sideway and a cloth mask is pulled down to show a smile. Behind him on the white wall is a mural of colorful insects and flowers.

Low-Barrier Motel Shelter Is a Success—But Not an Easy One

Many guests at Motels4Now are on their second or third stays—but staff say that's doesn't equal failure, and the numbers bear them out.
Eleven people, seven standing in back, four crouching in front, pose with clipboards. Several are wearing red T-shirts that say Louisville Tenants Union with an image of two hands fist-bumping. Several of the people are wearing masks; the ones who aren't are smiling.

Tenants Unions Are How We Win in the South

Tenant organizing has the power to transcend culture wars and break down the artificial barriers that have been placed between us.
View from above of a ferryboat on roiling waters, with clouds of mist off to the right. The water is blue-green with much white foam from the choppy sea

Nonprofit Affordable Housing Developers Navigate Troubled Waters

As housing and building costs rise, nonprofit developers find themselves with strained resources as pandemic relief dries up and tenants need housing assistance more than ever.
Five people are painting a wooden ramp leading up to a white house. Two are wearing white t-shirts and three are wearing blue t-shirts.

Why Housing Policy Should Include More Funding for Home Repairs

Researchers found that older homeowners in St. Louis averaged $13,000 in unmet home repairs. Here's how advocates can measure home repair need in their own cities, and why repairs make a difference.
A large open space with a staircase that has multicolored balusters. At left is a large mural of people with different skin tones and in front of it is a person holding a small child. Dual handrails on staircase ensure adult and child can safely use stairs by holding height appropriate handrails. There’s another small child, this one on crutches, and a woman in white is crouching beside him. There’s a man on the landing of the staircase and a small girl climbing the steps. Behind her is a woman carrying a bag or briefcase and drinking from a cup.

Cross-Disability Design Makes Housing Better for Everyone

Affordable housing projects should incorporate a range of accessibility features, going above and beyond code requirements.
A senior Black woman wearing top and pants in shades of pink with a dark gray sweater, and wearing a surgical mask, sits in an armchair facing a home healthcare nurse. She is Black, with very short hair and wearing black-rimmed glasses, blue scrub top; also wearing a surgical mask and stethoscope, and carrying a clipboard or tablet. On the wall behind the seated woman is a bright blue artwork.

How States Can Use Medicaid to Address Housing Costs

New federal guidance enables states to use Medicaid dollars to support housing needs.
A nighttime view of Los Angeles from a distance, with glittering lights and above them a sky that's not altogether dark.

How Los Angeles Won the Largest Municipal Housing Program in the Country

The ambitious funding campaign took strong cross-movement organizing and the right political moment.

Eminent and Notorious: Radical Urban Planner Chester Hartman (1936-2023)

An appreciation of the life and work of Chester Hartman, a radical planner in the service of a vision of social justice.
An early 1900s three- or four-story hotel on a street corner, seen from street level against a bright blue cloudless sky. Built of pink sandstone with light green trim. The ground floor has businesses; the sidewalk is crowded with parked scooters and a red cafe umbrella.

What LA’s New Shelter Program Can Learn from Statewide Efforts

As LA’s Inside Safe program works to transition unhoused Angelenos from hotels into permanent housing, its leaders should look to California’s Project Roomkey for lessons.
A park bench by a cracked sidewalk. There's graffiti on the bench seat, and the back is printed with "Baltimore/The Greatest City in America." Behind the bench is a brick wall with a gray metal vent at the left.

The Dirty Little Secret—Rising Property Values Are Incompatible with Affordability

Rising property values come with positive community development, but this shift can make neighborhoods inaccessible to low-income renters and fixed-income homeowners.
A tightly cropped black-and-white view of stone Ionic columns at the entrance to a courthouse. Words are carved on the lintel over the columns; visible in this photo are "and blessing."

Six Steps to Ensuring a Strong Right to Organize for Tenants

Getting solid legal protections in place will help tenants stick up for themselves more safely and effectively.
A pair of "Groucho Marx" glasses resting on a raspberry-colored table.

Land Owned by LLCs More Likely to Be Vacant

NYC's land speculators use LLCs to evade legal responsibility while sitting on vacant property.
A group of people standing on steps, most holding signs saying "Yes on Rent Control" while at left a man speaks into a microphone. Behind the people, faintly visible, is a large holiday tree with red and silver ornaments.

How We Won Rent Control in Pasadena, California

Never underestimate the power of—and need for—a ground game.
A colorful scene showing many kinds of houses including some that look like flying saucers. The residents include animals and aliens. In the foreground, a group of people and animals hold up a banner proclaiming "Neighborhoods are for everyone!"

Why Oregon Created Its Own AFFH Rule

For more than a decade, fair housing advocates in the Beaver State had been looking for ways to connect housing and land use planning to promote the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule. Here’s how Oregon created its own state-level policy, and what’s to come.
An ad for Shelterforce's webinar, "Fighting Back Against Corporate Landlords." We had four speakers.

Fighting Back Against Corporate Landlords—A Shelterforce Webinar

Shelterforce recently hosted a conversation about how to fight, and win, against corporate landlords and their extractive business models. Watch the video or read the transcript.
On a bulletin board or thick cardboard backing are taped 11 clippings of news headlines, cartoons, and newsletter covers, all about the tenant organizing movement of the 1970s and '80s.

The Rise and Fall of the National Tenants Union

The National Tenants Union fought for tenant rights in the 1970s and early 1980s. One of the union’s founders reflects on the organization and what we might learn from those times.

Corporate Landlords Profit from Segregation, at Cost of Black Homeownership and Wealth

As more and more affordable homes are gobbled up by corporate landlords, prospective Black homebuyers are seeing opportunities for homeownership dry up.

The Cost of Not Going Co-op

Buying your mobile home park could save you money: Residents fare better when they cooperatively own their parks.

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