Implementing the new SAFMRs – a webinar for advocates: HUD recently expanded the mandatory Small Area Fair Market Rent program to 41 new metropolitan areas, which will dramatically increase the geographic choices available to families with Housing Choice Vouchers in those regions. On February 14, PRRAC and the National Housing Law Project will be hosting a webinar for housing advocates on the intricacies of the SAFMR regulation, what we have learned from the initial implementation of SAFMRs from 2018-2023, and how to encourage the highest and best use of SAFMRs by public housing authorities in the new metro areas. Register here.
Source of income discrimination in Minneapolis: The Minnesota Court of Appeals has dismissed the last remaining challenges to the Minneapolis source of income discrimination ordinance in the long-running case of Fletcher Properties v. City of Minneapolis. This most recent version of the case claimed that the local SOID ordinance was a “taking.” The Minneapolis ordinance is now finally in effect, after several years in litigation limbo. Thanks to Jack Cann, who represented the Housing Justice Center and PRRAC as amici.
Other news and resources
New research on METCO: An economist at Tufts University has released a comprehensive analysis of student outcomes in Boston’s popular interdistrict school integration program, METCO, comparing longitudinal outcomes for students admitted in the suburban lottery with similar Boston students who were not admitted. See the author’s recent presentation here, and an executive summary here.
Speaking of highly resourced schools in wealthy communities, the Century Foundation has just released a summary report, How New York State Can Improve Schools by Fixing Housing Policy, compiling a series of TCF recent reports on the links between exclusionary zoning and educational inequality in New York, along with case studies of places that are trying to overcome the effects of land use exclusion.
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