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Poverty & Race Research Action Council

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PRRAC Update (October 5, 2017): Civil Rights, Housing, and Climate Change; final settlement in MD LIHTC case

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Civil Rights, Housing and Climate change: ” The need to prepare for climate change often receives little public attention until a devastating disaster such as a hurricane or wildfire strikes. However, we cannot afford to wait until we are forced to deal with a catastrophe to begin the climate change planning process.”  Our latest Policy Brief, “Equity Considerations in Climate Adaption Plans: A Call for Advocacy,” opens with a description of the breathtaking scope of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of our federal climate change preparedness infrastructure, and goes on to describe hopeful progress at the state and local level, and a set of best practices for advocates and policymakers to embed equity principles into local climate change adaptation plans, to protect the most vulnerable families from the inevitable changes to come.

In the new Poverty & Race:  Rick Kahlenberg and Sheryll Cashin debate class-based zoning reforms; former Secretary of Education John King on the importance of teacher diversity for inclusive classrooms and schools; and Mary Kelly Persyn on mass incarceration and child trauma. Read the new issue here before it comes in the mail.

Settlement in BRHC v Maryland:  We are pleased to announce a settlement in the long-running HUD complaint, Baltimore Regional Housing Campaign (BRHC) v. State of Maryland, which claimed that the state’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit requirements (particularly the local contribution and approval threshold requirements) were contributing to a concentration of LIHTC family units in racially segregated, higher poverty neighborhoods in the Baltimore region.  The settlement calls for the development of 1500 additional family units in high opportunity neighborhoods in the Baltimore region, plus a number of statewide program reforms. PRRAC joined with the 3 other organizational members of the BRHC in bringing this complaint back in 2011, and we are grateful to our attorneys, Barbara Samuels of the Maryland ACLU and Michael Allen of Relman Dane and Colfax for their perseverance and patience!   Read our press release here, Baltimore Sun coverage here, and the full settlement document can be accessed here.  With this settlement, Maryland joins a growing number of states with affirmative fair housing provisions embedded in their state LIHTC plans.
 
More health and housing connections :  “Health, Housing, and Civil Rights Strategies” by Megan Haberle (in the September 2017 Grantmakers in Health newsletter)
 
Resources and Events
 
Out of Balance: This excellent new report from the Open Communities Alliance in Connecticut documents the extraordinarily un-balanced pattern of family affordable housing development in the state – and its contribution to residential and school segregation.
 

Thurgood Marshall Institute :  The NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s new policy institute has arrived (actually they have been around for almost a year, but now they have an excellent new website).

Don’t miss the NCSD National Conference in New York on October 19-20 – new conference agenda details have been posted here. Registration is $100 (includes Thursday school tours, Thursday evening reception and performance, and Friday conference sessions); $50 for students.