Both Dems Release Housing Platforms!

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In this issue: Development's Racial Comfort Zone ● Energy Efficiency and Low-Income Households ● Harvard Planners Talk Race, Design, and St. Louis

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Events

Webinar | Homes For All: A National Dialogue with Matthew Desmond & HFA Leaders | May 18, 3-5pm EDT

Homes For All & Right To The City Alliance host a national online discussion with Matthew Desmond about the eviction epidemic facing black & brown communities, women, and low and moderate income families across the country. Desmond is the author of the book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

Webinar | Housing as a Health Care Investment for Children | April 25, 2-3pm EDT

Affordable and safe housing has an important impact on the health of children. The National Housing Conference hosts this webinar, analyzing recent research conducted by Children's HealthWatch showing that access to affordable housing is associated with lower risk of hospitalization among infants from vulnerable, low-income families. Speakers will also discuss policy implications and solutions to increase access to affordable housing for low-income families.

Video | Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority

As we move through this polarized election season, political organizations are spending millions of dollars chasing white swing voters--when in fact, it's minority voters who increasingly make up the political majority and have the power to determine our next president. The Ford Foundation recently hosted a discussion with author Steve Phillips about the shifting demographic landscape and its underlying disconnects at the launch of his new book.

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Comparing the Democratic Candidates' Housing Platforms
Miriam Axel-Lute, Shelterforce
"There's still time to get the nation's housing and urban crisis on the presidential campaign radar," wrote Randy Shaw in February. I doubt at the time he had high hopes that it would happen. I didn't. But since then, the Democrats have stepped up! Here's what the Clinton and Sanders affordable housing platforms look like . . . More

Break Development Out of Its Racial Comfort Zone
Ana Garcia-Ashley, Gamaliel Foundation
Many of us live in cities that are undergoing a renaissance, but the longstanding populations are no better off than before. In the midst of giant cranes building hotels and condos sprouting like weeds . . . More

Energy Efficiency = Dollars and Sense for Low-Income Households
Michael Bodaken and Dana Bartolomei, National Housing Trust
The poorest among us tend to live in the least energy-efficient housing in the country. This coalition of local and national groups intends to upend that dynamic . . . More

Harvard Planners Talk Race, Design, and St. Louis
Miriam Axel-Lute, Shelterforce
Long-time urban planner and racial equity advocate Chester Hartman has recommended that urban planning programs be moved out of design schools, where they so often reside, and instead locate them where they would have more interaction with politics and public policy programs. He might have been surprised, but also pleased, by the conference put on recently by the Harvard Graduate School of Design . . . More

You Said It!

On Two Sneaky Reasons Why Building More Housing Isn't Helping

By using statistics for a touristy area like Venice, you are cherry-picking. Even the study you rely on claims that CITYWIDE, AirBnB reduces citywide housing supply by just over 7,000 units--a drop in the bucket in a city as large as Los Angeles. And these units meet supply too; short-term rentals address housing needs just as long-term rentals do . . . . --Michael Lewyn

Author Reply
Housing markets are local. The linked report notes that AirBnB units are clustered very heavily in an handful of touristy neighborhoods--in those neighborhoods they are absolutely having an effect. And short term rentals do not address supply for housing, any more than conversions to office space would. They are hotel units. Different kettle of fish . . . . --Miriam Axel-Lute

Read and join the full discussion here

On Why We Must Build

Allowing more units per acre does increase profit in the short run. But land markets will capitalize those values, and land values will increase, reducing profits to the next buyer. The capitalization is unlikely to be perfect, and density may produce some higher profits or lower rents, but in the long term . . .
--Dan Immergluck

Buildings age, causing the net income to decrease while the demand for that building also decreases. It may not lead to abandonment, but it can lead to a number of other outcomes including removal or becoming poorly maintained. --David Nelson

Read and join the full discussion here

On Integrating Whitman

. . . Although the Whitman resident may have believed that all prospective families were on welfare, that is just not the case, and because of the rigorous approval process for potential tenants, no family on welfare would have been approved to live in Whitman. Also, 50 percent of the houses were reserved for people who had previously lived in Whitman. After driving around the neighborhood myself, I have a very hard time seeing the Whitman Park Townhouse Project as a failure. An embarrassment, maybe, because of the massive civil rights violations. --C. DeFelice

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