Housing

LISC’s research report offers rigorous evidence that large landlords have reaped the greatest profits in communities of color, and that this speculation drives evictions and poor housing maintenance quality. But there’s good news too: affordable housing investments create…

From the article: In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a…

Over the last few years, as public attention has focused on disparities caused by structural racism embedded in policy and practice throughout United States history, redlining has emerged as an  illustrative policy of structural barriers to homeownership and wealth-building…

In discussing why homelessness is more prevalent in some cities, Colburn and Aldern make a helpful distinction between “precipitating events” and “root causes.” Despite public perception that individual vulnerabilities like behavioral and mental health status are major…

This Article argues that because of the many ways in which summary eviction proceedings privilege landlords and disadvantage tenants, their very structure is patently unfair. Moreover, because of the racialized nature of landlord-tenant relations, the summary eviction process perpetuates a…

According to a 2022 analysis of federal census data by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, nearly a third of homeowners who earn less than US$32,000 – about 4.8 million people – spent nothing on maintenance or improvements. I have noticed worrying trends in the…

The first and second rounds of the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program provided over $46 billion USD in funding to states, territories, Tribal governments, counties, and cities (“grantees”) to prevent eviction and housing instability in the wake of the pandemic. Overseen by the…

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the disproportionate housing stability challenges faced by Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people, and its health and economic effects made those disparities even worse. State and local governments are now distributing the almost $47 billion in emergency rental…

In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers created fictitious renters with names more often associated with White, African American or Hispanic identities. They then tracked more than 25,000 interactions between those people and 8,476 property managers in 50 of the largest U.S.…

Interactive map showing the spread of racially restrictive deeds across of Hennepin County.

Explore timeline and resources on housing policies that created housing segregation.   Racial discrimination was once an explicit part of housing laws, regulations, and practices, creating unequal access to opportunity. While the laws have changed, the impact of decades of…

Environmental racism is a term coined by activists in the environmental justice movement. The term describes how policies and practices surrounding environmental hazards disproportionately burden Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities while privileging White and wealthier…

From the introduction to the Guide: This Fair Housing Training Guide was produced by the Fair Housing Justice Center (FHJC) to be used in conjunction with FHJC’s Fair Housing Training Program. The FHJC is a regional civil rights organization dedicated to eliminating housing discrimination;…

Part of the Understanding Boston series, this field study offers further evidence of the entrenchment of discrimination and the unequal application of rights, with its close examination of Boston’s rental housing practices.

Co-Sponsors: Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies; BC Black Law Students Association (BLSA) Sara Bronin, Professor of Planning and Law at Cornell University Amy Dain, Consultant, Amy Dain Research; Participatory Moderator Lydia Edwards, Boston City Councilor, District One Harley Etienne,…

The use of a narrative in advocacy.  MLRI's "storytelling project" that led to an advocacy tool that public housing resident leaders used at the statehouse to shine a light on the good work that public housing residents do in their communities which goes mostly unseen. 

Article on the experiences of a Black female attorney in housing court.  

From the introduction to the report: This report outlines the ways that housing policy, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other realities intersect to harm communities of color, and especially Black women living in those communities. The report also explores the ways these groups are “locked out…

This article provides a case study of how Systems Thinking was applied by the authors with a community brought together by the Battle Creek Homeless Coalition to address the chronic homelessness in surrounding Calhoun County. Through this collaboration involving broad multi-sector representation,…