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We’re Approaching Social Housing Wrong

Components common to most U.S. social housing proposals are bound to replicate problems we already have.

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Stock photo: On a wooden table, a red-handled rubber stamper rests on a manila envelope, out of which a piece of white paper is showing, with the word "Denied" stamped on it. The envelope rests partially on a computer keyboard.
Opinion

Insurance Redlining Is Back—But We Can Fight It

For decades, insurance regulators have resisted requiring the kind of disclosures that are now routine around mortgage lending. But that might change.

View from an upper floor of a small-city street, with two- and three-story brick buildings lining the street, and cars parked on the curb. A brick chimney at the back of the buildings is set against a bright blue sky.
Opinion

Standing Up for Small CDCs

Neighborhood-scale community development organizations have community connections and trust that can’t be replicated by larger organizations, and they should be valued as the foundation of the field.

HOLC map of Oakland, California, with areas shaded in red, blue, yellow, and green. Around the edges of the map, in tiny type, are listed all the streets of the city. At the top, in elegant lettering, reads "Thomas Bros./Map of/Oakland/Berkeley/Alameda/San Leandro/Piedmont/Emeryville/Albany." The lettering gets smaller as it goes down the list. Inset into the top right of the map is a black-and-white map of Hayward.
Opinion

Redlining Maps Didn’t Affect Neighborhoods the Way You Think They Did

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps have long been blamed for racial inequities in today’s Black neighborhoods, but recent research shows that’s misleading.

View from middle distance of small village in Alaska under wide cloudy blue sky. The most visible building are low, pitched-roof, red buildings. Beyond them are clustered other houses. The foreground is a flat, snowy or icy ground, possibly a road.
Opinion

Retreating From the Coasts Makes Sense, But Our Current Approach Isn’t Working

As flooding, sea level rise, fires, and other climate impacts increase, we’ll need to move about 20 million Americans by 2100. Here’s how we can rethink managed retreat to get ahead of the rising tides.

Opinion

Winning Tenant Protections Isn’t Enough

When tenant protections are popular, opponents know better than to try to repeal them. But they can damage them just the same.

Opinion

TOPA Needs Capital to Succeed

TOPA helps prevent displacement and build tenant power in D.C. Affordable capital is critical to its success.

Parking-lot view of an apartment building in the "5 over 1" style, with a gray exterior at the bottom, the third- and fourth-floor exteriors in bright red, and a lighter gray top level, for a horizontal stripe effect. An end unit is all white, and the row of windows is broken by one projecting all-glass section. To the right of the building is a terrace area with umbrellas and a gathering of people.
Opinion

Nonprofit Housing Developers Deserve Better LIHTC Terms

When it comes to LIHTC deals, nonprofit developers don’t get the same advantages big, for-profit developers do. A new fund is setting out to change that.

A green road sign at a T intersection in very open, flat, and dry-looking terrain, with white arrows pointing to the left and right, but without any city or town names. A black pickup truck has turned left at the stop sign. In the far distance are low hills, very hazy and indistinct.
Opinion

Community Development: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?

One of the major questions for the affordable housing world in the next couple of years will be how well its various segments come together.

Magnifying glass in front of an open newspaper with paper houses. Concept of rent, search, purchase real estate.
Opinion

Podcast: The Future of Housing Journalism

Shelterforce’s Miriam Axel-Lute and Shelby King were featured on the Housing After Dark podcast.

Three women and a man standing in a row in front of a photo-op background of a repeating IFF logo.
Opinion

Want Leaders in Community Development? Develop a New Hiring Strategy

It’s easy to stick to the tried-and-true pipeline when hiring for community development roles. But forming connections with people from different industries and generations can make our teams stronger.

Illustration of a right hand holding a small red two-dimensional house between thumb and index finger. The hand is dark blue and the arm, shown a bit beyond the wrist, is wearing a white shirt and suit jacket. The background of the image is a city skyline, in lighter shades of the same blue, with puffy clouds above.
Opinion

Ownership Matters: Institutional Investors and Corporate Ownership

Who owns our homes is an absolutely essential part of housing policy, and an even greater part of housing politics.

Distant aerial view of Hollywood sign, a famous landmark in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. On both sides of the ridge, the ground is thickly settled with buildings.
Opinion

Why Don’t California’s Nonprofit Housers Embrace Social Housing?

Attachment to tax credits, which can’t provide as much housing as we need, is keeping the much-needed expertise of nonprofit developers out of conversations about alternatives.