Buffalo was a city we visited often before the pandemic, working with and learning from dedicated fair housing advocates, city and housing agency staff, researchers, and community organizers. We are deeply saddened by the deadly, racially targeted attack on its people last week. If you are interested in contributing to support the victims’ families, we saw this note from the Kellogg Foundation yesterday: “The Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund has been organized by Tops Friendly Markets and the National Compassion Fund to provide direct financial assistance to survivors of the deceased and those directly affected by this past weekend’s deadly, white supremacist attack on Buffalo’s East Side.”
Fair Housing in the President’s new housing supply plan: Kudos to the National Fair Housing Alliance for emphasizing the importance of fair housing in the implementation of the President’s “Housing Supply Action Plan.” It is important to note that expansion of housing supply for low and moderate-income families achieves important fair housing goals, when Black and Latino families are over-represented among housing insecure families. However, as NFHA points out, increased housing supply overlaid on historically segregated markets rife with discrimination requires affirmative steps to ensure that fair housing is actually being furthered as housing supply increases. Several elements in the President’s plan are specifically fair housing-focused, including important new incentives to reform exclusionary zoning tied to infrastructure spending and Department of Transportation competitive grant programs. Other supply programs will need affirmative monitoring to prevent them from falling into predictable segregated patterns. Overall, the President’s plan is a great example of the power of the Executive Branch to accomplish significant and positive change in the absence of Congressional action.
Inclusion efforts at selective high schools: PRRAC and the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) were honored to join the ACLU and the Lawyers Committee in an amicus brief in the 4th Circuit appealing a federal district court decision that characterized efforts to increase diversity at a selective high school in Fairfax County as racially discriminatory. Read the amicus brief here.
Behind the scenes: In recent weeks, we’ve been engaged in agency advocacy on multiple fronts with HUD and the Department of Education, including advocacy around implementation of Congressional funding mandates in the 2022 budget, and continuing work to improve the Housing Choice Voucher program. At the same time, we’re gearing up for an effort to obtain additional funding for housing mobility and school integration in next year’s housing and education budgets. Stay tuned!
Other news and resources
New tools to measure school segregation: The USC Price Center has just released a new “Segregation Index” that shows school segregation trends over time, highlighting the concerning fact that racial and economic segregation have risen substantially in large districts. Project leads included Ann Owens of USC, a member of PRRAC’s Social Science Advisory Board, and sean reardon of Stanford, a member of NCSD’s Research Advisory Panel. Also this week the Century Foundation released an excellent new “segregation dashboard” data tool in collaboration with Owens and reardon that allows users to assess current school segregation levels on multiple axes in each metro area (including the extent to which segregation levels are attributable primarily to intra- or inter-district factors).
Also from USC and Policylink: The Shrinking Geography of Opportunity in Metro America, a report documenting the growing gap in access to affordable housing and opportunity-rich neighborhoods for working-class, Black and Brown renters – findings that support both the President’s Housing Supply Action Plan and expansion of a robust Housing Choice Voucher program.
Another side of single-family home investing: High Opportunity Neighborhood Partners (HON) is a real estate company that acquires single-family homes in high opportunity neighborhoods to be rented exclusively to families using Housing Choice Vouchers. They have already leased more than 500 homes in metropolitan Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and Tampa. This year HON is raising a new $250 million fund and plans to expand into at least two new markets. Their new RFP for PHAs is available here.
