Title I “segregation incentives:” One of our perennial education policy concerns has been the continuing “penalty” built into the Title I school funding formula for districts that take steps to reduce school poverty concentration. Along with calls for a dramatic expansion of Title I funding for high poverty schools, we were pleased to see the issue called out in the education platforms of two Democratic presidential candidates (Warren and Sanders) – so we prepared a short policy brief for the National Coalition on School Diversity explaining the issue and proposing reforms. We’ve also updated our survey of the Democratic candidates’ positions on school integration to include several new developments.
More progress on source of income discrimination: In 2018, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report using the data from PRRAC’s “Appendix B” survey of laws protecting Housing Choice Voucher families from discrimination. The report, Prohibiting Discrimination Against Renters Using Housing Vouchers Improves Results, by Alison Bell, Barbara Sard, and Becky Koepnick (December 2018), included a chronology of adoption of the statutes and an interactive map illustrating the geographic scope of SOI laws. According to the Center’s calculations, at the time the report was released, source of income discrimination laws protected 34% of voucher holders in the U.S. With the addition of two states since December 2018 (New York and California) and eight new municipalities, we estimate that approximately 50% of voucher holders in the U.S. are now covered by these laws! See our updated survey here.
RAD Choice-Mobility: One of the most innovative aspects of the Rental Assistance Demonstration is the “Choice-Mobility” requirement that permits families affected by a RAD public housing redevelopment, after the redevelopment is completed, to trade their public housing unit for a portable Housing Choice Voucher (which then opens up their unit for another family on the waitlist). But HUD’s recently released report on the initial phase of RAD developments confirms our research in progress – that many tenants in RAD properties are not being given notice of their rights to obtain a choice-mobility voucher. See the report here.
Follow Mobility Works on Twitter! Our housing mobility group is new to Twitter, so please follow us at @Mobility Works for news and updates on our work. Mobility Works is a group comprised of PRRAC, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership, Housing Choice Partners (Chicago), and the Inclusive Communities Project (Dallas), which works to help low-income families move into diverse, well-resourced communities with high-performing schools, by teaming up with housing authorities and other nonprofits to develop regional housing mobility programs. Learn more about our work here.
Other Resources
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has just released a report on federal government civil rights enforcement efforts in Fiscal Years 2016 through 2018: Are Rights a Reality? Evaluating Federal Civil Rights Enforcement.
Segregation in preschool: Penn State’s Center for Education and Civil Rights has released a new report, Segregation at an Early Age – 2019 Update which examines trends in pre-K racial and economic segregation, and its long term impacts.
Health and housing: The Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research is releasing a foundation-funded report series, “Legal Levers for Health Equity in Housing” – the first three reports are available here.
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