Upcoming spring conferences – save the dates!
National Conference on School Diversity: Celebrating the Legacy of Mendez and Brown – Thursday, May 17, 2012, in Washington, DC. See www.school-diversity.org.
Fifth National Housing Mobility Conference, Monday and Tuesday, June 11-12, 2012.
Sponsored by PRRAC and the Urban Institute. For more details, stay tuned to www.prrac.org/projects/housingmobility.php.
Reforming the Low Income Housing Tax Credit: PRRAC recently joined with its five partner organizations in the Baltimore Regional Housing Campaign in a HUD administrative complaint challenging the State of Maryland’s restrictive threshold requirement that developers must show both local support and contribution to an affordable Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) development before it will be approved by the state. The coalition’s fair housing complaintclaims that this rule limits the development of family LIHTC development in predominantly white, higher opportunity communities, which discriminates against low income families of color and perpetuates segregation. This type of restriction was one of the practices profiled in Building Opportunity, PRRAC’s 2008 50-state review of LIHTC plans. For more information on the Baltimore Regional Housing Campaign, go to www.baltimoreregionalhousing.org.
PRRAC’s annual fall fundraising appeal: If you think we’re doing a good job bringing together innovative research and advocacy to attack the mechanisms of structural inequality, and pressing key federal agencies to expand access to opportunity for low income families and children, please consider supporting PRRAC in your year-end giving. We need your help more than ever this year! You can donate online using “PayPal” or simply mail PRRAC a check at 1200 18th St. NW #200, Washington, DC 20036. All donations come with a free subscription to the print version of Poverty & Race, our bimonthly journal of innovative civil rights research and advocacy ideas.
Other news and resources
More on coordination housing and school policy: “Opportunity-Rich Schools and Sustainable Communities: Seven Steps to Align High-Quality Education with Innovations in City and Metropolitan Planning and Development” — a new report from the Center for Cities and Schools at UC-Berkeley. View the report and register for the Webinar (Dec 1, 2011 at 2:00 eastern time).
(See also PRRAC’s recent report on coordinated housing and school policy)
More on housing and health: For followup on last week’s release of the final “Moving to Opportunity” data on housing mobility and health, see this excellent short video on neighborhood factors in obesity from Professor Keshia Pollack at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Immigration status and foster care: The Applied Research Center has just released “Shattered Families,” offering the first national data available on the perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system.
The U.S. Human Rights Network National Conference will be held Dec. 9-11, 2011, in Los Angeles, CA. For more information, read this powerful invitation from the Network leadership.
