From the Field
Shelterforce has always been driven by the voices of the people in the housing field. From the Field pieces are neither reported journalism nor standard opinion pieces, but articles that share knowledge, insight, lessons learned, or examples from people who work, organize, or volunteer in the field.
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How HUD Is Seeking to Make Fighting Housing Discrimination Even Harder
Fair housing law has never been easy to enforce. But HUD's proposal to eliminate the use of disparate impact analysis will remove another crucial tool for doing so.
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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

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.

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.

Leaky Roof? A USDA Home Repair Option
One USDA program has given out over a billion dollars in rural home repair grants since its inception, and could be inspiration for similar programs in urban and suburban communities as well.

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.

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.

Property Tax Relief Programs Don’t Reach Many Homeowners of Color
Property tax relief programs can be essential for helping older and lower-income homeowners keep their homes. But access to them isn’t universal, or equitable.

Wealth Building Won’t Work While Wealth Extraction Continues
Typical approaches to closing the racial wealth gap focus on ways to help Black households build wealth. But for that to stick, we must also stop siphoning their wealth away.

Doing “The Right Thing” Won’t Close the Racial Wealth Gap
Solutions to address racial wealth inequality have often focused on behavioral changes and individual choices, minimizing efforts to dismantle structural barriers to wealth accumulation for Black Americans.
