Alternatives to housing vouchers: HUD is exploring the possibility of providing direct rental assistance to eligible low income families, rather than the current system of contracting between PHAs and landlords. In response to a request for input on the concept, our letter focused on the concern that this new approach, unless carefully implemented, might exacerbate the segregative effects of the current program.
Fifth National Conference on School Diversity: Save the dates – November 14-16 in Washington, DC! More information here.
Other news and resources
Landmark voucher discrimination case in NY: Congratulations to the Fair Housing Justice Center and the lawyers who represented them (Diane Houk, Vivake Prasad, and Eric Abrams) for a powerful source of income discrimination settlement with the Parkchester rental complex in the Bronx. The settlement agreement eliminates minimum income requirements for families with Housing Choice Vouchers (and eliminates credit checks for several years), sets aside 850 apartments for families with vouchers, and awards over $2 million in damages and attorneys’ fees.
Latest research from Raj Chetty et al: A new article from Professor Chetty and Opportunity Insights digs into some of the causes of their recent findings on changing patterns of economic mobility by race – finding strong impacts of neighborhood parental employment rates on child outcomes, noting that “[c]hildren’s outcomes are most strongly related to the parental employment rates of peers they are more likely to interact with, such as those in their own birth cohort, suggesting that the relationship between children’s outcomes and parental employment rates is mediated by social interaction.” See the research here.
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