Housing as a Public Good: The State of Social Housing Today, a Shelterforce/NPQ webinar

What do we mean by social housing in the United States? How has it worked in the past, and how can and should it be expanded? Join organizers, practitioners, and authors to discuss both how to develop a vision and practical steps to build caring communities that meet everyone’s housing needs.

Panelist bios:

Rev. Rae Chen Huang is a Presbyterian pastor (PCUSA) and Senior Organizer at Housing Now!, a California statewide housing justice coalition.  She has over 20 years of experience in community organizing, advocacy, social justice education and interfaith organizing and ministry.  She also serves on the board of Creating Justice LA, a non-profit supporting economic justice development with residents in Skid Row.  She lives in Los Angeles with her two children.

Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, urban planner, and oral historian. He is the author of Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons. He previously served as the chief researcher on Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas and as the editor in chief of the online magazine Urban Omnibus. His essays have appeared in Orion, Jacobin, Hell Gate, Dirt, and beyond.

Fernando Martí (he/him) is an Ecuadorian-born community architect, housing activist, writer and artist, based in San Francisco (unceded Ohlone territory). From 2011 to 2022, Fernando was co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, a coalition of community- and faith-based affordable housing developers and housing justice advocates andd was a founding member of the San Francisco Community Land Trust. 

Kristen Hackett is a community-based researcher and a community organizer with My Eden Voice, working with community leaders in unincorporated Alameda County, California. In 2024, Kristen completed her dissertation on the contested state of public housing in New York City. Since 2017, she has supported multiple grassroots groups led by neighbors living in public housing. This includes serving as a steering and executive committee member of the Justice For All Coalition (JFAC), and a member of the Save Section 9 Coalition.

Moderated by Steve Dubb from NPQ and Miriam Axel-Lute from Shelterforce.