PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

Poverty & Race Research Action Council

PRRAC Policy Briefs

Click here for the simple list of PRRAC Policy Briefs

How States’ Low Income Housing Tax Credit Allocation Plans Can Help Increase Students’ Access to Integrated, Well-Resourced Schools (October 2024)

Link to the pdf of this brief How States’ Low Income Housing Tax Credit Allocation Plans Can Help Increase Students’ Access to Integrated, Well-Resourced Schools A Guide for Education Advocates1 70 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, American classrooms remain persistently isolated along racial and […]

How magnet schools might collaborate across housing and transportation agencies to enhance school diversity efforts (April 2024)

The federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program1 (MSAP) offers multi-year grants to local educational agencies (LEAs) seeking to create, expand, or improve magnet programs that foster racial and socioeconomic integration. Magnet schools employ a variety of methods in order to enroll a diverse student body, such as targeted outreach, free and accessible transportation, encouraging choice across […]

Advocates’ Guide To Mandatory Implementation Of SAFMRS

Link to original document pdf What are Small Area Fair Market Rents? Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) are the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) calculation of fair market rents by zip code. Traditionally, HUD set one fair market rent (FMR) for a large geographic region, resulting in a subsidy level that often […]

Advocates’ Guide To Voluntary Adoption Of Small Area FMRS (February 2024)

Link to the original pdf document What are Small Area Fair Market Rents? Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) are the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) calculation of fair market rents for zip codes. Normally, HUD sets one fair market rent (FMR) for a large geographic region, resulting in a subsidy level that […]

What can the Treasury Department do to expand public and community ownership of rental housing? (December 2023)

Philip Tegeler and Audrey Lynn Martin1 Introduction The United States is experiencing a housing crisis as Americans face a shortage of affordable housing supply and rapidly increasing housing costs. Far too many individuals and families across the country face housing insecurity, homelessness, and unsustainable rental burdens. In response to these challenges, a national housing movement […]

Public Policies To Address Residential Segregation And Improve Health

Health Affairs Health Policy Brief April 27, 2023 Justin Steil and Michael Lens KEY POINTS: One of the key pathways through which housing affects health is residential segregation by income and race. Several housing policies attempt to address residential segregation. These policies tend to intervene either at the person level or at the place level, […]

Connecting magnet schools and public housing redevelopment: January 2023 update

Darryn Mumphery and Philip Tegeler  Excerpt: PRRAC’s March 2021 policy brief, Mixed income neighborhoods and integrated schools: Linking HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative with the Department of Education’s Magnet Schools Assistance Program, highlighted an important opportunity for interagency collaboration, encouraging an explicit connection between HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) and the Department of Education’s Magnet Schools […]

Expanded protections for families with Housing Choice Vouchers (September 2022)

Expanded protections for families with Housing Choice Vouchers By Brian Knudsen Read the full brief here With the rapid expansion of source of income discrimination laws across the U.S., PRRAC now estimates that over 57 percent of households using Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) live in states, counties, or local jurisdictions with Source of Income (SOI) […]

Expanding Federal Support for Tenant Organizing in Federally Assisted Housing and the HCV Program (PRRAC & NHLP, February 2022)

A PRRAC & NHLP Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“Voucher participants should have a right to organize, just as HUD has provided in the public housing and project-based rental assistance housing programs. HUD should promulgate tenant organizing regulations for the HCV program that allow for the greatest flexibility and have the lowest barriers to organizing. Additionally, HUD should fund voucher tenant organizing activities, as it has done for public housing tenants, but in a more consistent and meaningful way.”

Genuine Engagement with Housing Choice Voucher Families (Mobility Works & PRRAC, July 2021)

A Mobility Works & PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “Families with Housing Choice Vouchers can be more than clients for housing mobility programs – they can also be valuable advisors, advocates, and partners. For the past few years, Mobility Works partner organizations have built strong client engagement programs which should be incorporated more broadly as housing mobility programs expand across the country.”

What Can HUD Do to Expand Public and Community Ownership of Rental Housing? (PRRAC, April 2021)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“The movement to shift more of our housing resources out of the private for-profit market and into the social housing sector has gained momentum in recent years, with growing housing insecurity, unsustainable rent burdens, expanding homelessness, and gentrification pressures in many American cities. The benefits of expanding the social housing sector include built-in limits on profit-motivated rent increases and eviction, long-term affordability, protection from predatory speculation in disinvested communities,2 and more democratic control over housing resources. As the Right to the City Alliance succinctly framed the issue, this vision is “rooted in the belief that housing is a human right, not a commodity to maximize profits.”

Mixed Income Neighborhoods and Integrated Schools: Linking HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative with the Department of Education’s Magnet Schools Assistance Program (Philip Tegeler & Laura Gevarter, March 2021)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is HUD’s signature public housing redevelopment program, designed to respond to critiques of the long-running HOPE VI program by providing one-for-one replacement housing, a guaranteed right to return for residents, and a more holistic focus on the community and schools surrounding the public housing development, with a goal “transform[ing] neighborhoods of poverty into functioning, sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods with appropriate services, schools, public assets, transportation and access to jobs.”

Reviving and Improving HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Regulation: A Practice-Based Roadmap (Megan Haberle, Peter Kye, and Brian Knudsen, December 2020)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “This memorandum provides our recommendations for both restoration of the AFFH rule and potential improvements. It draws from PRRAC’s advocacy work around the 2015 rule’s formulation, for which we are indebted to our partnerships and consultation with many other fair housing and civil rights groups – and also from our work on implementation over the past five years. PRRAC’s experiences engaging directly with communities working through the AFFH process has allowed us to gain insight into how the AFFH process actually plays out on the ground.”

Public or Community Control of Rental Housing Policy Brief No. 3: Community Land Trusts and Other Public Ownership Vehicles (PRRAC, October 2020)

Excerpt: “Another option for increasing public ownership of private properties is the use of community land trusts (CLTs). These organizations are typically nonprofit entities that acquire land and convey the land to building owners through a ground lease. By owning the land, CLTs ensure that properties sited on the land are affordable in perpetuity.”

Public or Community Control of Rental Housing Policy Brief No. 1: Right of First Refusal – Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Acts (PRRAC, October 2020)

Excerpt: “A public right of first refusal gives governments the opportunity to directly acquire property. For example, Montgomery County, Maryland has an ordinance that requires owners of all rental properties with 4 or more units to offer a right of first refusal to the county government, the county’s PHA, or to a certified tenant organization.”

State Support for Local School Construction: Leveraging Equity and Diversity (PRRAC, August 2020)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “This report/analysis provides an overview of the historical relationship of school construction and school segregation, including evidence of school construction policies in key desegregation court cases. It then describes the state role in local school construction today, highlights key trends and themes of this role, and provides two case studies that help to showcase examples of state participation in school construction, including successes and challenges. It ends by providing recommendations for states to better leverage their influence over local school construction to avoid perpetuating school segregation and actively support school diversity.”

Guidance for Successful Implementation of Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) Choice-Mobility (PRRAC, August 2020)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “This guidance highlights recommended practices for public housing agencies (PHAs) and project owners participating in the First Component of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to help ensure successful implementation of the ‘Choice-Mobility’ option. Choice mobility rights provide residents with the option to obtain a Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) from their PHA after a defined period of occupancy, empowering them to move to affordable rental properties of their own selection. All tenants in RAD properties should be aware of their housing mobility rights and of their options in a range of neighborhoods (including highly-resourced areas). The Choice-Mobility provision is a central feature of the RAD program, and one with significant potential to expand a family’s residential choices and life opportunities.”

Using CARES Act Flexibility to Address Systemic Educational Inequities & Bring Students Together (NCSD, August 2020)

Prepared by Jessica Mugler & Philip Tegeler (PRRAC).

Excerpt: “Congress provided $16.2 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for emergency relief to elementary and secondary schools. The CARES Act gives flexibility to governors and local education agencies (LEAs) to decide how to spend their coronavirus relief funding. Congress is currently considering another aid package to support states and school districts as they enter the new school year.”

An Anti-Racist Agenda for State and Local Education Agencies (PRRAC, July 2020)

Excerpt: “The ongoing demands for racial justice force all of us to reflect and reshape our ways of thinking, speaking, and acting so as to stop perpetuating racial injustice. This must include a thorough audit of our educational system – what is taught, who is teaching it, how much money we are spending on which children, and where our children are assigned to school.

“The educational reform agenda is long, and our intention here is to provide a few thoughts based on our experience in advocating for educational equity and school integration.”

An Anti-Racist Agenda for State and Local Housing Agencies (PRRAC, July 2020)

Excerpt: “These steps will be an important complement to ending some of the fruits (and drivers) of segregation and disinvestment, such as over-policing and mass incarceration in communities of color, separate and unequal schools for low-income children of color, and unsafe and sometimes toxic environmental determinants of health.

“We offer here a few ideas for activists and policymakers to consider as they continue the battle for anti-racist policies.” 

Crafting a Strong and Effective Source of Income Discrimination Law (PRRAC, March 2020)

Excerpt: “Source of Income (SOI) laws have the potential to increase voucher success and utilization rates, support geographic mobility for families with vouchers, and reduce the concentration of vouchers in low rent neighborhoods, freeing up lower-cost units for non-subsidized families. However, all SOI laws are not created equal; there is a wide range in strength and effectiveness. The goal of this policy brief is to highlight some of the lessons we have learned as these laws have evolved over the past thirty years.”

The 2020 Democratic Candidates’ Positions on School Diversity & Related Educational Equity Issues (Philip Tegeler, Abi Hollinger, & Lily Milwit, November 2019)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt: “NCSD has also called for reinstatement of the 2011 school diversity guidance letter, reinstatement of the school integration incentives for Department of Education competitive grant funds, and linking the Magnet Schools Assistance Program with HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods public housing redevelopment program. A number of these policy proposals are part of the candidates’ education platforms, which are reviewed in this brief.  Notably, four of the Democratic presidential candidates (Warren, Sanders, Harris, and Booker) have already endorsed the Strength in Diversity Act.”

Assessment Criteria For “Concerted Community Revitalization Plans:” A Recommended Framework (March 2017)

A Yale Law School Community and Economic Development Clinic/PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “Targeted LIHTC administration can be a powerful means of decreasing concentrations of poverty and supporting individual families’ housing needs. In part, state HFAs can meet this promise by increasing the location of LIHTC units in neighborhoods and communities that offer high-performing schools, low crime rates, access to employment, mass transit, and access to necessities such as healthy food, parks, and recreational facilities.”

The National Housing Trust Fund: Promoting Fair Housing in State Allocation Plans (PRRAC, May 2016)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “The national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) is the newest federal low-income housing development program, and is particularly valuable for its focus on providing housing for extremely low-income families. Like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the HTF is allocated to state governments on a formula basis, and states are then responsible for allocating funds through a state allocation plan.”

The Need for a National Housing Mobility Infrastructure (March 2016)

Policy Brief. By Philip Tegeler. Funding for this project was made possible by grants from the Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and Atlantic Philanthropies.

Excerpt: “Without housing mobility counseling, and the public housing agency reforms that accompany it, we consistently see highly segregated programs that place poor children with the greatest need in neighborhoods and schools that are least likely to help them succeed.”

HUD’s New “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” Regulation: An Introduction (November 2015)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“Every five years, participant jurisdictions must conduct an AFH to analyze fair housing issues: aspects of discrimination, segregation, inadequate affordable housing, and lack of access to neighborhood “opportunity” characteristics (such as quality schools and environmental health). The AFH must also identify “meaningful actions” to address those issues.”

Linking Housing and School Integration Policy: What Federal State and Local Governments Can Do (NCSD-PRRAC, March 2015)

A Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “In spite of the obvious ‘reciprocal relationship’ between housing and school policy, government housing and education agencies have rarely collaborated to promote the common goals of racial and economic integration. Recent efforts to promote collaboration among housing and school agencies have focused on place-based interventions to enhance the learning environment for low-income children in segregated, high-poverty schools and neighborhoods.”

Moving to Healthier Neighborhoods: Options for Local Advocacy (Meghan Hottel, Philip Tegeler, and Megan Haberle, May 2014)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“Research has shown that children living in high-poverty, racially isolated neighborhoods face significant health risks. In response, advocates have often focused on improving the housing and neighborhood conditions that contribute to these heightened health risks. This Policy Brief will cover a complementary strategy to assist families to make voluntary moves to healthier housing and neighborhoods.”

PRRAC’s Analysis of NLIHC’s “Out of Reach 2013” Report (March 2013)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis (March 2013)

Excerpt:“Every year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) releases the Out of Reach report, which provides an important measure of how far the United States still has to go to provide decent affordable housing to families in need. The report’s findings are even more crucial this year due to the impending impact of sequestration under the Budget Control Act on affordable housing programs.”

Accessing Opportunity: Recommendations for Marketing and Tenant Selection in LIHTC and Other Housing Programs (Megan Haberle, Ebony Gayles, & Philip Tegeler, December 2012)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt: “Even where affordable housing is available in high-opportunity communities, it may not truly be accessible to low-income and minority tenants without well-designed outreach and admissions practices. Communities rich in social resources—such as good schools, environmental quality, and safe streets—frequently have a history of exclusion that can be forbidding to minority families who consider moving to them. This dynamic is reinforced by the simple difficulty of gaining meaningful information about rentals in areas where residents lack friends, family, or other community connections. Affirmative marketing programs—supported by nondiscriminatory tenant selection procedures—serve an important role in ensuring equal access to information, helping people overcome the legacies of exclusion, and promoting fair and open housing choice. Robust, thoughtfully crafted marketing and tenant selection policy can help federal and state agencies (as well as individual developers) ensure that their resources foster diverse communities and counter the legacies of exclusion.”

The CERD Treaty and U.S. Civil Rights Law (June 2011)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt: “Americans are rightly proud of their civil rights laws, adopted in the 1960s in response to a broad based domestic Civil Rights Movement and increasing international pressure to undo officially sanctioned discrimination and segregation. As part of that same international movement, in 1965 the U.N. adopted a broad human rights treaty to address racial discrimination – the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).”

Two Simple Changes to Improve Health Outcomes In the Section 8 Voucher Program (April 2011)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“Given the mounting evidence on the impact of neighborhoods on health, it is unfortunate that HUD regulations do not do more to address the health of residents. This omission is particularly surprising in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program since a broad concern about public health and the health of low-income families was an impetus and justification by Congress for its original support of the program.”

NCSD Issue Brief 1: Key Principles for ESEA Reauthorization (February 2011)

A NCSD-PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt:“Today, public schoolchildren are more racially isolated than at any time in the past four decades. And, racially isolated schools are overwhelmingly high-poverty schools: indeed nine out of ten of highly segregated schools serving African American and Latino students are schools of concentrated poverty.”

The “Housing + Transportation Index” and Fair Housing (August 2010)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt:: “With their comprehensive “Housing + Transportation Index,” The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has developed a useful tool for estimating the combined cost of housing and transportation – the two largest shares of most family budgets – for homebuyers in 337 metro areas.”

Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing in HUD’s Affordable Housing Programs (December 2009)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“This memorandum is presented in the spirit of HUD’s required “Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing” (used by HUD grantees throughout the country) to convey our recommendations on actions that HUD itself could take to address obstacles created by its own programs that make it unnecessarily difficult to provide housing in communities of opportunity.”

Reaffirming the Role of School Integration in K-12 Education Policy (NCSD, December 2009)

A NCSD-PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“We engaged in a substantive, compelling dialogue with representatives from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE), the Justice Department, the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), Congressional staff, and the White House Domestic Policy Council. We expressed our collective concerns about the slow pace of support for voluntary school integration in the new Administration.”

A National Opportunity Voucher Program: A Bridge to Quality, Integrated Education for Low-Income Children (July 2009)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:: “A new national “Opportunity Voucher” program would set aside 50,000 vouchers per year to help low-income families and children in high poverty, segregated neighborhoods move to higher opportunity communities with low poverty, high performing schools. This program builds on the success of the famous “Gautreaux” housing mobility program in Chicago, and would be administered by state and regional entities in the most segregated metropolitan areas of the U.S.”

Civil Rights Statement on HOPE VI Reauthorization (January 2008)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“In the ongoing discussions concerning the reauthorization of the federal HOPE VI public housing revitalization program, there has been much said about specific details of wording but less discussion about “first principles”. As H.R. 3524 moves to the full House and eventually to the Senate, we offer the following set of constitutional and civil rights principles for interested parties to consider.”

The Section 8 Program and Access to Opportunity: An Agenda for Policy Reform (March 2007)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“We recognize the substantial improvements represented by the draft bill, especially the changes in the voucher funding formula, and the provision for reimbursing agencies for excess portability costs from reallocated voucher funds. However, we urge the Committee to go further to restore a central promise of the program, to provide meaningful housing choice for families outside of high poverty communities.”

Civil Rights Implications of the 2005 Flexible Voucher Bill (April 2005)

A PRRAC Policy Brief.

Excerpt:“This bill would place new obstacles in the path of low-income families seeking to move to lower poverty communities, and by eliminating the current system of “income targeting” of vouchers towards the neediest families in the Section 8 program, the bill could also deprive up to several hundred thousand Black and Latino families of essential housing opportunities during the next 5-10 years, if housing agencies elect to remove income targeting guidelines.”

Protecting Housing Mobility in the Section 8 Program (February 2005)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt:“Over the past 20 years HUD has struggled to address the legacy of segregation and discrimination that has historically infected its low-income housing programs. One of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program’s most attractive features is that, appropriately administered, it offers low-income minority families the opportunity to escape the high poverty, racially isolated environments to which they have often been restricted.”

Civil Rights Mandates in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program (March 2004)

A PRRAC Policy Analysis.

Excerpt:“We are writing on behalf of the undersigned organizations that represent the interests of low-income families and individuals who reside or seek to reside in Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties. We comment specifically on Chapter 11 of the Draft Guide (concerning violations of the Fair Housing Act). We have not reviewed other sections of the Draft Guide and offer no comments except as to Chapter 11.”

Briefing Paper: Section 8 Portability (for NLIHC, 1995)

Read the full brief here National Low Income Housing Coalition National Housing Voucher Summit 2005 Briefing Paper: Portability The term “portability” refers both to the right of voucher holding families to move outside the jurisdiction of the public housing agency (PHA) that issues the housing choice voucher, and to the administrative system that HUD has […]