Strategies for Responding to Gentrification

by Joe Kriesberg
MACDC

As more and more communities across the country experience gentrification—and others fear its imminent arrival—community developers are struggling to find ways to respond. At a minimum, we seek to slow, or mitigate the process to diminish the disruption to the lives of current residents. Ideally, we would find ways to create inclusive neighborhoods that welcome newcomers while enabling long-time residents to stay and benefit from new jobs, services, amenities, and maybe even better schools. Indeed, our best hope for reducing racial segregation in our country is to achieve such a result.

Not surprisingly, these issues are frequent topics of conversations I've had with members of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), as well as with our allies and partners. I don't presume to have answers, but I do want to offer a few ideas that I've been thinking about as those conversations have unfolded:

• New affordable housing units (inclusionary or government-subsidized) may help retain the income mix of the neighborhood, but those units may or may not prevent displacement of existing residents because the people who move in could be from outside the neighborhood. To increase their efficacy as anti-displacement tools, we would need to offer a neighborhood preference for new tenants. Current fair housing rules, however, often prevent or severely limit such preferences.
• Given this reality, I believe that key actors in the affordable housing system need to overcome their reluctance to acquire existing apartments and preserve their affordability before it is too late. This is the only way to truly prevent displacement of current residents since they live in buildings that already exist—not ones yet to be built. Several CDCs in Boston and nearby Somerville have begun to do this effectively. We have many brilliant affordable housing professionals in Massachusetts and we should be able to develop scalable models for doing more of this. I'm confident it can be done for less money than we now spend on new affordable housing developments.
• The affordable housing system also needs to shift more of its resources to promoting homeownership as a stabilizing mechanism in gentrifying neighborhoods. Right now, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts spends 100 percent of its affordable housing development dollars on rental housing. Shifting 5 to 10 percent to homeownership could help stabilize our communities. Indeed, we need a full-scale effort to address the vast racial homeownership gap not only in our state, but in the rest of the country as well.
• While housing displacement gets most of the attention, I am increasingly concerned about cultural and economic displacement. When longstanding, locally-owned small businesses are forced to move (or worse, close), it impacts not only the business owner, but the entire community. Similarly, as the demographics of a place change, many residents feel the loss of their cultural community and home. Advocates are now fighting to help local businesses stay open. CDCs and others are increasingly using the arts and creative place-making (and place-keeping) to claim (and retain) their communities' historic and cultural narratives. The good news is that, compared to housing development, these interventions are relatively inexpensive. The bad news is that there is little public funding to support such programs. This needs to change.

The biggest point of controversy, both among our members and in the broader community, is whether new housing development helps or hurts. Some argue that we must build new housing in gentrifying neighborhoods to take pressure off the market and to accommodate rising demand. Many urban planners promote greater density and large-scale development as a solution to gentrification. At the same time, others blame these very developments for accelerating the process of gentrification. They believe high-end units attract upper-income people to the neighborhood, bring higher-end retail, and begin to change the character of the place, even if they include a significant percentage of affordable units, which often are occupied by lower-income newcomers—not longstanding residents.

I agree with both sides. New development might very well speed up the gentrification process, but stopping development will also speed up gentrification, as pressure will continue to build on the housing stock in changing neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the intensity of this debate can itself become an impediment to progress because it can undermine trust among otherwise allied partners.

On balance, I'm generally inclined to support new development, but only if it is done wisely. I think we need to mitigate the impact of new development with more than just inclusionary units. Fighting over 15, 20, or even 25 percent affordability levels does not confront the core issue of neighborhood change. Instead, we should use some of the resources generated by new development to attack displacement more directly through measures such as acquiring existing properties, providing financial assistance to current homeowners and tenants, supporting locally-owned businesses, and making cultural investments that preserve a community's history and culture. We should also push for more three-bedroom units in new buildings because those units would allow more families to move into changing neighborhoods. Those families, in turn, not only might enroll children in local school,s, but they also are likely to press for improved schools, which would benefit all of the neighborhood's families.

I make these suggestions knowing there are no easy answers and no complete answers. Neighborhoods are always changing and demographics continually evolve. Sadly, in a society with vast and growing income and wealth inequity, these dynamics are going to continue. Perhaps the only long-term and scalable solution to gentrification and displacement is to restructure our economy in ways that will make it more fair and equitable.

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This post is a response to the Panel 6 papers that were presented at our A Shared Future symposium in 2017. These papers are available on the JCHS website. 

Winner of 2018 Best Paper on Housing Prize Focuses on Philadelphia's Efforts to Address Climate Change and Affordable Housing

by David Luberoff,
Deputy Director

The Philadelphia Energy Campaign (PEC) is an unlikely success story of a municipal climate initiative prioritizing the needs of its marginalized residents by preserving affordable housing through energy policy, according to Caroline Lauer, a recent graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, whose thesis on PEC received the 2018 Joint Center for Housing Studies Best Paper on Housing Prize.

In "A Pathway to Preservation? Planning Processes at The Intersection of Climate Change and Affordable Housing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania", Lauer, who received a Master of Urban Planning, provides a detailed case study on PEC's history and goals, and links that history to literature on both planning and public policymaking.

Credit: Philadelphia Energy Authority/Jordan Baumgarten

PEC has an ambitious set of goals, writes Lauer. It aims to create jobs, strengthen communities, cut energy bills, and reduce Philadelphia's carbon footprint by leveraging $1 billion of public and private investment over ten years. This effort, she explains, is especially notable because, while cities across the United States have been actively planning for climate change for at least two decades, equity considerations, such as the impact of climate investments on disadvantaged communities, have often been overlooked or ignored when those plans have been prepared and implemented.

According to Lauer, the Philadelphia Energy Authority, which was created in 2010, became a notable exception largely because of the values and skills of Emily Schapira, who launched the PEC campaign not long after she became the authority's executive director in 2016. Lauer observes that, while the typical focal point of an energy initiative is the fastest or most efficient way to reduce energy consumption, the focus of the PEC has been the residents who will benefit the most from the energy reduction today. She adds that by "inextricably linking equity and energy, the PEC prioritizes the needs and interests of the many low-income and minority residents" in Philadelphia, which not only has the highest poverty rate of the ten largest American cities but has relatively old, poorly-maintained, energy-inefficient housing stock. Moreover, she notes that Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, has had to do much of this work without significant support from the state legislature, which was overwhelmingly Republican when the campaign got underway.

Succeeding in this complex milieu, she notes, has required skilled and committed leadership that not only is attuned to equity and energy issues but also is cognizant of, and responsive to, political considerations. Combining these approaches can be difficult, writes Lauer, who observes that "community development efforts to preserve affordable housing through energy efficiency are rare." However, she adds, "PEC demonstrates that merging both objectives into one program is a viable policy option."

What Would it Take for Housing Subsidies to Overcome Affordability Barriers to Inclusion in All Neighborhoods?

by Katie Gourley, Graduate Research Assistant

The design of housing voucher programs, site selection for new subsidized units, and federal, state, and local housing programs can all encourage—or hamper—efforts to create more inclusive residential communities. Three new papers released today by the Joint Center for Housing Studies examine many of the issues and historic legacies that policymakers need to address as they strive to meet this goal. The papers, which were presented at A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, a symposium hosted by Joint Center last year, are:

Margery Austin Turner,
Urban Institute

What Would it Take for Housing Subsidies to Overcome Affordability Barriers to Inclusion in All Neighborhoods? by Margery Austin Turner, the panel moderator, begins by noting that, while there are many benefits associated with moving to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, the voucher and tax credit programs that are currently the largest source of federal subsidies for affordable housing often fail to offer those opportunities to low-income families. Part of the problem, she argues, is that too often, policies aimed at expanding access to opportunity-rich neighborhoods (i.e. fair housing policies) are pursued separately from housing subsidy policies, rather than as part of a strategic portfolio of investments. Such a portfolio approach would use different investment and interventions to four different types of neighborhoods. In severely distressed neighborhoods, subsidized housing probably should not be further concentrated, while in stable, low-income neighborhoods, subsidized housing investments should focus on renovation and preservation of the affordable housing stock. In emergent neighborhoods, preservation and expansion of affordable housing options should be the top priority, while in opportunity-rich neighborhoods, housing subsidies should be deployed (along with other policy tools) to expand affordable housing options.

Stephen Norman &
Sarah Oppenheimer,
KCHA

Expanding the Toolbox: Promising Approaches for Increasing Geographic Choice by Stephen Norman and Sarah Oppenheimer reviews the King County Housing Authority's (KCHA) ambitious efforts to use federal housing subsidies to provide families with broader neighborhood choice. Informed by growing national evidence on the effects of neighborhood quality on life outcomes, they note, KCHA has used both tenant-based mobility approaches and site-based affordability approaches to expand low-income families' access to a wider set of neighborhoods in the county, which includes Seattle and many surrounding communities. KCHA's tenant-based mobility strategies have included offering to pay higher rents in higher-opportunities areas and providing extensive counseling to voucher holders. The site-based strategies have focused on acquiring and preserving housing and using federal vouchers to support new development in higher-opportunity areas. As a result, about 31 percent of KCHA's federally-subsidized households with children currently reside in low-poverty areas.

Christopher Herbert,
JCHS

Expanding Access to Homeownership as a Means of Fostering Residential Integration and Inclusion by Christopher Herbert, Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, notes that efforts to foster more inclusive communities have to confront issues related to housing affordability not only in more expensive, higher-opportunity neighborhoods, but in gentrifying ones as well. While many discussions about these issues focus on subsidized rental housing, Herbert argues that efforts to make homeownership more affordable should also be part of the portfolio of approaches used to foster more racially-, ethnically-, and economically-integrated communities. Potential appealing policies, he contends, fall into four broad categories: changes in federal income tax policy related to the mortgage interest deduction and savings; increased support for housing counseling; maintaining or modifying "duty to serve" obligations that affect mortgage lending; and better targeting and potentially expanding funding for downpayment assistance. He notes that, while these are not the only areas where action is needed to expand residential choice, they are critical (and sometimes overlooked) elements that should be included in a broader effort to foster more inclusive communities.

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Additional papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. The papers will also be collected into an edited volume to be published later this year.

Furthering Fair Housing: It’s Not Too Late to Follow New Orleans’ Lead

by Cashauna Hill
Greater New Orleans Fair
Housing Action Center

Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced that state and local entities will have more time to detail their plans to affirmatively further fair housing, some localities are moving forward. These include the City of New Orleans, which in October 2016 became the country’s first jurisdiction to submit a legally required Assessment of Fair Housing plan (AFH).

New Orleans’ AFH, which was submitted jointly by the city government and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), not only represents a shift in the way that jurisdictions report on the state of housing access in their communities but also could serve as a model for other jurisdictions around the country. Most notably, in accordance with guidance provided by HUD in 2015, the New Orleans AFH was prepared with significant community input. 

Specifically, at the outset of the process, the city and HANO partnered with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC), which I lead, to ensure that the AFH reflected the concerns of community leaders and community-based organizations. To make this happen, GNOHFAC designed and implemented a community engagement strategy that aimed to organize, educate, and engage with community stakeholders—particularly leaders of color and organizations that represented communities of color. In addition to facilitating a robust community engagement process, the city and HANO welcomed GNOFHAC’s assistance in analyzing relevant data that was included in the AFH plan. Finally, GNOFHAC helped provide both context and data on public and private acts of discrimination that affect housing choices in the New Orleans market.

Taken as a whole, these activities created a process that reflected an unprecedented level of community engagement in planning the city’s fair housing efforts. This engagement led to several notable recommendations in the AFH, such as a framework for improving the access that Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) participants have to low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods, particularly areas connected job centers via dependable public transit services. Community leaders also helped develop other important recommendations, such as developing and implementing a “strategic plan to address environmental hazards, including lead in water and housing.” The AFH’s recommendation to address substandard housing in New Orleans by establishing a rental registry also was a direct result of engagement with community members who often accept substandard conditions when seeking affordable rental housing.

As noted above, in January 2018 HUD announced that it intends to delay required submission of AFH plans from jurisdictions that have yet to submit them. For persons in communities without a commitment from city leadership, or where the AFH will not be submitted in the near future as planned, this change could make it harder for people of color and lower-income households to access higher-quality housing, and programs designed to support existing homeowners.

However, despite that change in HUD’s policies, implementation of New Orleans’ AFH’s recommendations is expected to continue without interruption. We commend policymakers and leaders in New Orleans for continuing to support equal access to housing and the positive life outcomes that flow from access to better housing. Further, we hope that even with the delays, other jurisdictions follow New Orleans’ lead and work with affected communities to develop meaningful efforts to achieve the Fair Housing Act’s long-standing goal of “affirmatively furthering fair housing” throughout the United States.

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This post is a response to the Panel 4 papers that were presented at our A Shared Future symposium in 2017. These papers are available on the JCHS website. 

Assessing Fair Housing: HUD's Delay and the Dilemma this Poses for Jurisdictions

by Katherine M. O'Regan,
NYU

How should the numerous jurisdictions poised to start their Assessments of Fair Housing (or those who are already mid-process) proceed in the wake of an announcement that the federal government planned to push back deadlines for using this specific form of assessment as part of their legally-required planning process?

That's the question facing thousands of entities after the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced in January that it was delaying a previously issued final rule requiring that jurisdictions receiving HUD funding conduct an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) to meet, in part, their obligation to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act's requirement that they "affirmatively further fair housing" (AFFH).

HUD's notice extended the AFH deadline for one cycle for jurisdictions that had not yet had an AFH accepted and whose AFH deadline date fell before October 31, 2020. These jurisdictions, the announcement emphasized, must still meet their AFFH obligations. During the delay, they must conduct an Analysis of Impediments (AI) to fair housing choice (as they had prior to HUD's final AFFH rule) and take appropriate actions to overcome impediments identified by the analysis. However, unlike an AFH, there is no standardized form or specific content required for an AI, it need not be submitted to HUD, and HUD will not review it. (While the notice specified that the delay would be applicable as of the day it was issued, public comments on the notice can be submitted through March 6, 2018.)

When the delay was announced, many jurisdictions were in the final stages of conducting their AFHs; hundreds more were about to start. This raises two related questions that this blog tries to briefly answer. First, what does this delay mean for these jurisdictions? Second, how should they proceed?

Returning to the Flawed Analysis of Impediments (AI) Process

The notice calls for jurisdictions to return to a process that both the GAO and HUD itself deemed to be highly flawed. A 2010 GAO study reported that only 64 percent of program participants appeared to have AIs that were current, and questioned the usefulness of many of the AIs that did exist. It concluded that "[a]bsent any changes in the AI process, they will likely continue to add limited value going forward in terms of eliminating potential impediments to fair housing that may exist across the country." HUD's own internal analysis in 2009 came to the same conclusion, finding that about half of the AIs it collected for the study were outdated. incomplete, or otherwise of unacceptable quality.

To address some of the concerns raised in the GAO's report, HUD requires that AFHs be conducted with a standardized assessment tool and that jurisdictions provide measurable goals with a timeline for achieving them. As part of its justification for AFH postponement, HUD noted that 35 percent of the first AFHs submitted to HUD were initially not accepted. The AFH process, however, requires that HUD give feedback on AFHs that are not accepted. HUD provided such feedback and worked with jurisdictions to resolve deficiencies in the submissions. Ultimately, almost all of the 49 first submissions were accepted. In contrast, with AIs, there is no review or feedback from HUD. Notably, HUD's 2009 internal report found no evidence that jurisdictions were improving their AIs over time.

The combination of tighter standards, a better assessment tool, and a feedback loop seems to have produced stronger plans, according to MIT's Justin Steil and Nicholas Kelly, who compared the first 29 AFHs (as modified in response to HUD's comments on initial submissions) to the AIs previously conducted by those same jurisdictions. They found that compared to the earlier AIs, the final AFHs included more quantifiable goals as well as more specific policies and programs meant to achieve those goals. Such results, they noted, suggest the rule is working. "[T]he non-acceptances provided participants with the opportunity to respond to HUD feedback and to strengthen their final AFHs so as to meet their fair housing obligations. In short, the non-acceptances should be seen as strengths of the new rule not a failure."

What is HUD's Advice for a Good AI? Conduct an AFH?

For jurisdictions that have already begun their AFH, HUD's notice states that jurisdictions may continue to do so, as "the AFFH rule may provide program participants with a useful framework for complying with their AFFH obligations." HUD encouraged all participants to use the data and mapping tools as well as the AFH Assessment Tool in conducting their AIs, and to collaborate with other submitters in their region. But this vague guidance puts jurisdictions in the precarious position of identifying which elements of the AFH tool and process are necessary to meet its AFFH obligations.

Will Legal Challenges Reinstate the AFH?

The Trump administration has been aggressive in its use of delays to forestall the implementation of rules, temporarily or indefinitely. Many of these delays have been successfully challenged in the courts under the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs most federal rulemaking. For example, in December 2017, the US District Court for the District of Columbia enjoined HUD's two-year delay of its Small Area Fair Market Rent (FMR) rule, which would have required 24 metropolitan areas to use ZIP-code-level FMRs in setting rent payment standards for voucher recipients. HUD has since dropped its plans for delay, and advised more than 200 affected public housing authorities they must implement the new process within three months.

While no lawsuit has yet been filed against HUD's AFH delay, it is likely to come. (In theory, HUD could also modify its announcement in response to public comments, which, as noted above, must be submitted by March 6.) This suggests that jurisdictions should carefully weigh the risk that the delay will be reversed, and their duty to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing, as they determine how to conduct their new AIs. HUD's AFFH framework and assessment tool seem the best place to start. Notably, officials in some jurisdictions, such as New York City, have made public statements that they will move forward with a process that is true to the principles of the AFH.

However, whether jurisdictions will stay true to key advantages of the AFH, including robust public engagement and an open and transparent drafting process, remains to be seen. As Michael Allen notes in his contribution to the Joint Center's panel "What would it take for the HUD AFFH rule to meaningfully increase inclusion?," that may depend on whether a broad set of constituents come together to mobilize a strong ground game. Meanwhile, until the uncertainty created by HUD's decision is resolved, the AFH process and assessment tool may provide the safest and clearest path forward for jurisdictions.

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Papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. 

What Would it Take for HUD to Meaningfully Increase Inclusion?

by Katie Gourley, Graduate Research Assistant

What would it take to meet the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act's requirement that federal entities use their power to "affirmatively further" fair housing? Four new papers published today look at this question by examining whether and how the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) now-delayed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule might spur more inclusive communities.

Under the rule, which was finalized in 2015, local and state institutions receiving federal housing funds must use maps and other local data to conduct an Analysis of Fair Housing (AFH), and also describe their goals for affirmatively furthering fair housing. Many advocates believed the rule was a long overdue effort to finally achieve one of the Fair Housing Act's key, but unmet, goals. However, critics, including many Republican members of Congress as well as then-presidential candidate (and now HUD Secretary) Ben Carson, criticized it as inappropriate social engineering. In January 2018, HUD announced that states and localities do not have to submit their analyses until 2020. While HUD's announcement also noted that entities still have a legal obligation to further fair housing, the rule's supporters fear the delay effectively suspends enforcement of the rule and gives HUD time to dismantle or substantially weaken the new rule. A group of civil rights organizations is currently preparing litigation to enjoin the suspension of action.

The papers, which were originally presented at the symposium A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality in April 2017 (before HUD suspended enforcement actions) examine the rule's potential to produce meaningful change and, in doing so, provide critical context for understanding the implications of HUD's decision to delay the submission of required plans. The four papers are:

Katherine O'Regan,
NYU

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: The Potential and the Challenge for Fulfilling the Promise of HUD's Final Rule by Katherine O'Regan, the panel's moderator, begins by noting that while the Fair Housing Act codified an ambitious goal, the nation has long lacked a clear, effective, and politically acceptable processes for achieving that goal. After explaining how the AFFH process was supposed to work and discussing how it was received by a variety of stakeholders, O'Regan discusses how the panel's authors posed key questions about what it would take for the 2015 AFFH rule to meaningfully increase inclusion int he near future.

Raphael Bostic, USC
& Arthur Alcolin,
U of Washington

The Potential for HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule to Meaningfully Increase Inclusion by Raphael Bostic and Arthur Acolin discusses how the AFFH Final Rule might produce meaningful change. After reviewing the history of residential segregation in the US, the paper explains how the new rule would have differed from and improved upon previous efforts to "affirmatively further" fair housing. However, they note, the full impact of the rule will depend on HUD's commitment to its philosophy and HUD's devotion of resources to the implementation of the law. Moreover, they add, the rule's impact will also depend critically upon decisions by local governments, community organizations, and individuals to use the resources they have to effectively remove barriers to fair housing in their communities.

Michael Allen,
Relman, Dane &
Colfax, PLLC

Speaking Truth to Power: Enhancing Community Engagement in the Assessment of Fair Housing Process by Michael Allen notes that the new rule "sets the table for robust conversations about hard topics—like discrimination and segregation—that most communities have tried hard to avoid for decades." However, he notes, "it leaves to local discretion to how to get the right stakeholders to the table for those conversations." Achieving the rule's promise, he adds, can only occur in places where community groups, academics, and foundations make concerted efforts to develop and carry out AFFH plans. These efforts, he continues, need to include strategies to ensure meaningful participation by people of color and their advocates; local data collection and analysis; mobilization of political constituencies; and a commitment to enforcement via litigation, administrative complaints, and grassroots advocacy. Allen concludes by detailing six successful community housing justice campaigns—in New Orleans, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Texas, Westchester County (NY), and the Minneapolis/St. Paul region—that could serve models for advocates in other locales.

Elizabeth Julian,
Inclusive Communities
Project

The Duty to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing: A Legal as Well as Policy Imperative by Elizabeth Julian predicts that jurisdictions would respond to the new rule in one of our four basic ways. Some would accept that the letter and the spirit of the law have the capacity to develop and carry out an effective plan, while others would accept the rule's letter and spirit but lack the capacity to do so. Third, while some would accept the need to comply with the rule's requirements (if only to secure desired federal funding), they might be unwilling to develop an effective plan. Finally, some communities would resist the rule's letter and spirit. While HUD can help localities in the first three categories achieve meaningful progress, jurisdictions in the fourth "will have to be dealt with by an external, relatively independent, and well-resourced enforcement structure," she asserts. Even though HUD's current leaders are not likely to support this approach, Julian asserts that a long history of court decisions shows that civil rights advocates do have the tools needed to effectively press for desired changes.

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Additional papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. The papers will also be collected into an edited volume to be published later this year.

What Would it Take to Overcome Exclusionary Barriers, and Promote More Affordable Options in All Neighborhoods?

by Katie Gourley, Graduate Research Assistant

What would it take to make new neighborhoods, and remake old ones, so that large, complex, metropolitan areas moved decisively toward racial and economic integration? What local and regional governance strategies could most effectively overcome barriers to these goals?

Today, we published four papers exploring these questions. The papers—an overview essay and case studies of Washington, DC, Houston, and Chicago—were presented at A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, a symposium we hosted in April 2017. The four papers are:

Rolf Pendall,
Urban Institute

Pathways to Inclusion: Contexts for Neighborhood Integration in Chicago, Houston, and Washington, by Rolf Pendall, who moderated this panel at our symposium, offers an overview of the major demographic changes that are transforming US housing markets and describes two distinct patterns of political geography that will affect local and regional decisionmaking about neighborhood inclusion. He begins by reporting that the population of the United States – particularly its metropolitan areas – is both growing and becoming more diverse by age, race and ethnicity, household composition, and income. He then describes the two principal patterns of political geography that affect decisionmaking about neighborhood inclusion: fragmentation of local governments (particularly in the Northeast and Midwest where control of land use is in the hands of many local governments) and polycentricity (particularly in the South and the West, where larger county governments have much more control over land uses). Fostering inclusion in both types of places is challenging. In the former regions, he notes, it tends to require state-level action. In the latter, the efforts often focus on school districts as well as school assignment zones within particularly large school districts. He concludes by showing the interplay between the national demographic trends and political geographies of the three case study regions.

Willow Lung-Amam,
University of Maryland

An Equitable Future for the Washington, DC Region?: A "Regionalism Light" Approach to Building, by Willow Lung-Amam, begins by noting that while that DC region is racially and economically diverse, it also is highly segregated and has some of the nation's highest housing prices. Moreover, because it is politically fragmented, it has uneven patterns of development. Given this, Lung-Aman proposes a “regionalism-light” approach that focuses on the protection and production of affordable housing. In particular, she says four approaches should be the central part of any effort to break down barriers to housing inclusion in existing neighborhoods and build a strong platform for current and future residents to be a part of the region’s continued growth and prosperity: preserving existing affordable units through aggressive anti-displacement strategies; capturing land value to produce new affordable housing, especially near transit stations; increasing the density and diversity of suburban housing; and tackling the region’s stark east-west divide with fair-share policies.

William Fulton,
Rice University

Can a Market-Oriented City Also Be Inclusive?, by William Fulton, explains that while Houston has emerged in the last 30-plus years as one of the country's most ethnically diverse and affordable cities, these measures mask significant amounts of inequality and disparity that are at least as bad as, and perhaps worse than, those in other metro areas. At first glance, he notes, Houston seems unable to address these challenges, largely because it has a reputation for being one of the nation’s most market-oriented cities for real estate development. However, he contends, the city has a unique and important opportunity to address these issues because it also has abundant amounts of vacant land, limited zoning regulations that could block the development of affordable housing, regulatory tools that could encourage such development, and a potentially useful but currently uncoordinated set of financial incentives for economic development and real estate development. Accomplishing this task, he explains, would require both a comprehensive citywide approach and targeted efforts in underserved neighborhoods threatened by gentrification. In particular, the following strategies are especially promising: aligning both economic development incentives and regulations with inclusiveness goals; using government and institutional landholdings to strategically to pursue those goals; and creating a broad and comprehensive approach to inclusiveness that includes both underserved and high-opportunity areas. He notes that while Houston has taken some steps in this direction, it has fallen short in others, particularly in efforts to bring affordable housing to high-opportunity areas.

(Please note that Fulton's paper was completed before Hurricane Harvey caused extensive damage and displacement in Houston during August 2017.)

Marisa Novara &
Amy Khare,
Metropolitan Planning
Council

Two Extremes of Residential Segregation: Chicago's Separate Worlds & Policy Strategies for Integraion, by Marisa Novara and Amy Khare, argues that a movement is needed to rethink strategies for desgregation at the region's two poles: concentrated poverty and concentrated wealth. The Chicago region, they note, ranks in the top quarter of all metros with regard to economic segregation and is in danger of becoming even more segregated by race and class. In areas suffering from disinvestment, Novara and Khare argue that carefully revised lending criteria and improved appraisal processes, along with other complimentary policies, could lead to increased investment. This, in turn, might create more integrated communities. In contrast, they note that political realities make it unlikely that the state will step in to override local land-use restrictions that stymie the development of affordable housing (as Massachusetts has done via a law passed in 1969). Given this situation, they suggest that Illinois instead draw on a different Massachusetts law that offers incentives to more affluent communities that zone for dense, mixed-income residential developments, particularly in locations well-served by transit.

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Additional papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. The papers will also be collected into an edited volume to be published later this year.

A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality

by Jonathan Spader and
Shannon Rieger

Almost 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, what would it take to meaningfully reduce residential segregation and/or mitigate its negative consequences in the United States?

Over the next several months, the Joint Center for Housing Studies will publish working papers on various aspects of this question written by a diverse set of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. The papers will be available on our website and will also be collected into an edited volume to be published next year. The papers were presented at a two-day symposium, A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, that was convened by the Joint Center earlier this year.

At the symposium's seven thematically-focused panels, the authors took stock of the changing patterns of residential segregation by race/ethnicity and income, and examined concrete steps that could achieve meaningful improvements within the next 10-to-15 years. On a monthly basis from this fall until next summer, we will publish those papers on a panel-by-panel basis, along with a series of blogs, many of them by others who attended the symposium, that further engage with the event's central question.

This process begins today with the publication of our framing paper for the symposium, which summarizes existing evidence on three topics: the current patterns of residential segregation by race/ethnicity and income, the causes of residential segregation in the United States, and the consequences for individuals and society. The paper also examines the rationale for government action in these areas as well as the key levers that policymakers could use to change the current situation. Because each of these topics is the subject of a larger and longstanding research literature, our summary is not exhaustive. Rather, we seek to provide a concise overview of existing research, so that the papers which follow can focus on potential solutions.

Our discussion of these topics is a reminder of both what has been accomplished since the passage of the Fair Housing Act (technically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) half a century ago and also how far the US remains from the aspirations put forth when it became law. In particular, we note that while the extent and nature of discrimination have changed int he last five decades, the legacies of historical segregation and exclusion by government, private institutions, and individuals have continued to produce stark and stubborn patterns of racial segregation in US metropolitan areas.

At the same time, we note that changes in demography, income distribution, and the geography of American communities are changing the patterns of residential segregation by income and race/ethnicity. The bursting of the housing bubble and the Great Recession exacerbated distress among poor communities—particularly poor communities of color. In many metropolitan regions, job growth in central cities, improved neighborhood amenities, and increased demand for urban living have also fostered rapid increases in housing costs in longstanding low-income and minority communities located in or near those regions' urban cores. While gentrification has been one of the most visible signs of these changes, the suburbanization of lower-income households and the growing self-segregation of high-income households into wealthy enclaves are equally consequential.

The framing paper also documents the severe costs of this separation for all members of society, as well as the disproportionate burdens imposed on residents of neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. Residents of such neighborhoods—who are most often members of minority racial and ethnic groups—face elevated risks to their health, safety, and economic mobility. Moreover, at a national scale, there is compelling evidence that these individual costs constrain the economy from reaching its full potential while also increasing levels of prejudice and mistrust within the populace and impairing the functioning of our democracy. These costs, along with the potential benefits of greater integration, highlight the need for continued attention and innovation to these challenges.

The symposium papers, which will be released over the next few months, will present multiple perspectives about how we might address these challenges. Our hope is that they will raise questions, spur discussions, and ultimately contribute to forward progress.

Disability Housing - Best Practices and New Solutions

Micaela Connery
2015 Research Fellow

This summer I’m moving. Again. It will be my sixth “residence” since graduating college. Over the last seven years, home has included a three bedroom apartment in Somerville, my parent’s basement (Cellar Dwellers Unite!), a grad school dorm where adults regress to freshman status, full-size bunk beds on the Lower East Side (full-size bunk beds are a real thing), and a bedroom that was actually a closet found somewhere deep in a Brooklyn craigslist. Despite all the quirks that came with each dwelling place—communal showers, head whacks on the top bunk, et cetera—each one was home in some special way.

But, for many adults with disabilities, a suitable home is hard—sometimes almost impossible—to come by. In the time that I moved five times, hundreds of thousands of individuals with disabilities across the U.S. have sat on housing waitlists. They’re waiting, often many years, to make just one crucial move, the move out of their parent’s home into community or independent living. The United States spends over $77 billion dollars annually on special education, often working to prepare individuals with disabilities to be successful, independent, and included. Yet those opportunities for independence inclusion are almost non-existent after exiting the school system. We spend billions in public funds preparing individuals with disabilities for opportunities they may never be able to have.

The most obvious issue here is funding and availability of housing offerings. Most state agencies who are on the front lines of addressing this need are finding there simply isn’t enough public funding to support placements and support services for the high number of individuals with disabilities who need it. As state developmental services budgets are cut and numbers of adults with disabilities increase, the challenge is only growing over time.

While increasing funding (or at least preventing budget cuts) is a key part of the solution, it will only incrementally address the growing waitlists for housing services. Absent an increase in the supply of suitable housing options, funding alone won’t likely fix the problem. Many providers, families, and organizations have taken it upon themselves to innovate new solutions to housing placements; experimenting with different operational structures, engaging private funders, rallying parent support, and innovating new housing models. By understanding what makes these innovative models effective, and where they face challenges, policymakers can better support new solutions for the disability housing crisis. With support from the Joint Center, I spent last summer examining a few of these approaches and what we can learn from them, and have reported my findings in the paper “Disability Housing: What’s happening? What’s challenging? What’s needed?”.

Perhaps the most obvious finding from spending time with consumers and providers is that one size does not fit all. While there are some common best practices—engaging families, supporting choice, linking to employment and transit, and retaining quality staff—there is not one single housing type or model that is right for all people with disabilities. As for people without disabilities, what people want their home to look like varies greatly. Some people desire an apartment in a city while other prefer a house with lots of land in a more rural neighborhood. Some people want to live alone and other want to be surrounded by lots of friends, family, and activity. Policies must support a range of options and choices for individuals with disabilities.

The second key issue in finding housing solutions is the right to risk, meaning that housing options shouldn’t be unduly constrained by concerns about residents safety. A right to risk would bring a willingness to innovate and provide support for experimenting with new models. Policymakers and regulators, perhaps wary of litigation, seem to be resistant to anything that may lead to failure or risk. They want to protect people with disabilities, sometimes at any cost. But people with disabilities should be allowed to take risks themselves and providers should be supported to innovate with new approaches. While we should protect people as best we can, we can’t let protection stifle new ideas. The only way disability housing can improve is if we give it space to innovate, and even make mistakes.

While providing housing and adult services for people with disabilities presents challenges, it’s also full of opportunities. It’s an opportunity to better integrate our communities. Thinking about these issues helps us reexamine what it means to support quality and affordable housing for all populations, not just those with disabilities. It’s an opportunity to re-evaluate and innovate around how we create communities, connect with our neighbors, and age within our homes. With the right program design and service delivery, we can start to change the predominant concerns of parents of children with disabilities. No longer will they worry, “Where will my child live after I die?” or “Who will care for my child?” Instead, they can wonder: “Which housing option is right for my child?” And most of all: “What community will be lucky enough to have my child as a member?”

Individuals with disabilities and advocates have been fighting for thoughtful supports, inclusion in communities, and independent living since the 1960s. The challenge isn’t new, but the solutions will need to be.

Micaela Connery was a summer research fellow for the Joint Center for Housing Studies. She is an MPP Candidate at Harvard Kennedy School focusing on disability, inclusion, and community development. She is a member of the inaugural class of New World Social Enterprise Fellows at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard. She will continue with her studies as a Mitchell Scholar in the Fall of 2016, pursuing her MBA at the Smurfit School at University College Dublin.

She is presenting a Housing Studies Seminar on this topic at noon on Friday, April 27, 2016 at the Joint Center offices. See our calendar listing for more information.