Confronting Deregulation : As the Trump Administration’s attack on the “Administrative State” (i.e. the federal government) continues, we are tracking emerging threats and sharing advocacy resources – with a particular focus on our primary areas of work in housing, education and environmental health. See our page on Civil Rights in the Deregulatory State, including a short primer on the Administrative Procedure Act.
In the new issue of Poverty & Race: a review of Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law; plus a comprehensive essay on segregation and health disparities; a reflection on the meaning and regulation of public space; and “part two” of Bryan Greene’s reflections on New York City in the 1960s. Read the new issue here before it arrives in your mailbox!
Protect Julius Chambers’ legacy: One of our key civil rights partners is under attack – the University of North Carolina Board of Governors has scheduled a special meeting to consider and vote on an “advocacy ban” targeted at the UNC Center for Civil Rights. The meeting will be held on Tuesday August 1, at noon, in the Board Room of the Center for School Leadership Development, 140 Friday Center Drive, Chapel Hill, NC. We urge anyone who is able to attend to come out and show your support for the Center, its clients, and the important civil rights advocacy led by the Center. This is an obvious ideologically driven effort to stop the Center from forcefully representing its clients. Please take a moment to contact the Board of Governors, UNC President Margaret Spellings and Chancellor Carol Foltto express your views. For background on this attack see recent articles here and here.
Other events and resources
Protesting the housing cuts: The housing program cuts being discussed this week in the Senate would be devastating to low income families, and undermine civil rights. Multiple protests and actions are being planned this month – including this past Wednesday’s Tenant March in DC, co-organized by the Right to the City Alliance, and the upcoming National Housing Week of Action, co-organized by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. There are events in almost every major city, and we hope you can join one of these protests.
Measuring “neighborhood distress” in the HCV program: Using an evidence-based measure of neighborhood distress (combining poverty rate, percent female-headed households, unemployment rate, public assistance rates, and percent of adults not in school and without a high school diploma), researchers Alex Schwartz, Kirk McClure and Lydia Taghavi find (consistent with our experience) that Housing Choice Voucher families with children are underrepresented in the least-distressed neighborhoods – particularly among Black and Hispanic households. See the Cityscape article, ” Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress,” here.
…and helping HCV families access less distressed neighborhoods: Stephanie DeLuca and Peter Rosenblatt’s review of the early years of the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program demonstrates, again, that well-structured housing mobility counseling programs are are effective in helping low-income families move from high poverty, distressed neighborhoods to communities with high performing schools and lower poverty rates. Read “Walking Away from the Wire” in the new issue of Cityscape.
