Shelby R. King, Shelterforce Rather than rely on expanding Section 8 vouchers, some affordable housing and tenant advocates argue the federal government should invest heavily in addressing the affordable housing shortage at its root. Read Full Article | | Jeremie Greer, Liberation in a Generation 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. Read Full Article | | Brandon Duong, Shelterforce Give someone a fish and you’ll feed them for a day. Charge them $100,000 for a degree in fishing and you’ll have them in debt for a lifetime. Read Full Article | | Minhae Shim Roth, Shelterforce Debt related to justice-system involvement falls most heavily on overpoliced communities, extracting wealth and preventing the building of more. | | Nicole Martinez, Shelterforce Disproportionate amounts of medical debt contribute to the racial wealth gap. What can be done? Read Full Article | | Robin Hughes has been named the next president and CEO of Housing Partnership Network (HPN), effective July 1. Hughes is currently president and CEO of Abode Communities, an affordable housing nonprofit based in California and member of HPN’s network since 2010. | | Events
Thursday, March 3, 4 to 5 p.m. ET, Accelerating Transformative & Equitable Housing Solutions | The Partnership for the Bay’s Future will host a discussion about the strategies and tactics that are advancing equitable pro-housing agendas across the region. The event will feature Lourdes Castro Ramirez of California Business, Consumer Services & Housing Agency; Fred Blackwell of the San Francisco Foundation; Denise Scott and Cindy Wu of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation; and Khanh Russo of the San Francisco Foundation. Register here.
Thursday, March 10, 2 p.m. ET, Remaking the Economy: Redefining Risk | Investments to low-income communities and communities of color are often denied because they are deemed too risky. NPQ will host a webinar to discuss what risk means, who bears it, and how risk can be shifted to those who can afford it to build wealth in low-income communities and communities of color. Join Deborah Frieze of Boston Impact Initiative, Kate Khatib of Seed Commons, and Ojan Mobedshahi of East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. Register here. | | We only list free events and resources of national interest. To learn about advertising, click here. | | Looking for a Job? Scroll Down... | | Claas Ehlers: Very thoughtful piece. I can look to my grandmother, an educated successful woman in Berlin in the 1930s, who also happened to have a Jewish mother, and what happened to her “skills and assets” without structural safeguards. Via Twitter
Woodstock Institute: Some items we’re reading this weekend: Shelterforce’s series on the racial wealth gap kicked off last week, featuring this essay by Anne Price that draws on her own family history to show that “Doing ‘The Right Thing’ Won’t Close the Racial Wealth Gap.” Via LinkedIn
Stephen Latham: It is worth pointing out that the HOME program (likely one of, if not the largest sources of capital subsidies for these projects) has a statutory definition of a “community land trust.” As the CLT community has grown, evolved, and diversified the mechanics of the model, not every “CLT” today meets that definition. Read More
Corianne Payton Scally: Has the RAD program learned from past mistakes to “save” public housing? ... There have been substantial improvements in protecting tenants' rights but implementation varies. Via Twitter
lin sod: Friends of mine lost their homes when RAD came around. @50% of original RENTERS never returned during /after these conversions because prices escalated beyond their abilities to keep those units. Read More
Tim Mungavan: So as evidence that public housing won’t be lost we are told that it must stay affordable for 40 years. Then what? Read More | | | | | | |
