Click here for the simple list of PRRAC Publications & Authors

State and Local Source-of-Income Nondiscrimination Laws: Protections that Expand Housing Choice and Access (PRRAC, Updated November 2020)
A PRRAC Policy Analysis.
Excerpt: “Set out below is a compilation of state, local, and federal statutes prohibiting discrimination in the housing market based on source of income, along with an annotated bibliography of studies and published articles relating to discrimination against families with federal Housing Choice Vouchers.”

A Steady Habit of Segregation (NAACP LDF, PRRAC, Open Communities Alliance, Sillerman Center, October 2020)
The Origins and Continuing Harm of Separate and Unequal Housing and Public Schools in Metropolitan Hartford, Connecticut
Prepared by Susan Eaton, Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Humanity.
Excerpt: “This report was inspired in part by the 2017 book “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” by Richard Rothstein…This report offers a similar accounting of the nature, origins, and harms of racial segregation. But it is more granular in nature and covers just one region. This report’s title invokes one of Connecticut’s nicknames, “The Land of Steady Habits.” First applied in the 1800s, the moniker referred to the state’s inclination to elect the same people to office year after year. Electoral behavior may have changed in Connecticut, but the voluminous record here shows that racial segregation does remain the state’s steady habit.”

State Support for Local School Construction: Leveraging Equity and Diversity (PRRAC, August 2020)
A PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “This report/analysis provides an overview of the historical relationship of school construction and school segregation, including evidence of school construction policies in key desegregation court cases. It then describes the state role in local school construction today, highlights key trends and themes of this role, and provides two case studies that help to showcase examples of state participation in school construction, including successes and challenges. It ends by providing recommendations for states to better leverage their influence over local school construction to avoid perpetuating school segregation and actively support school diversity.”

Housing Choice Voucher Reform: A Primer for 2021 and Beyond (Philip Tegeler, August 2020)
A PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “This policy brief will summarize the essential legislative and administrative reforms that remain to ensure that the Section 8 program delivers on its promise of choice and opportunity for low-income families.”

Using CARES Act Flexibility to Address Systemic Educational Inequities & Bring Students Together (NCSD, August 2020)
Prepared by Jessica Mugler & Philip Tegeler (PRRAC).
Excerpt: “Congress provided $16.2 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for emergency relief to elementary and secondary schools. The CARES Act gives flexibility to governors and local education agencies (LEAs) to decide how to spend their coronavirus relief funding. Congress is currently considering another aid package to support states and school districts as they enter the new school year.”

A Vision for Federal Housing Policy in 2021 and Beyond (PRRAC, July 2020)
Excerpt: “Our recommendations call for concrete and impactful reforms to existing housing programs, needed to break the ongoing cycle of residential segregation and to transform the federal government’s role in perpetuating segregation into one of strong, active promotion of structural change and racial justice. These recommendations are indebted to the ongoing work of fair housing practitioners, researchers, and advocates (including local organizations often at the forefront of change).”

Housing Mobility Programs in the U.S. 2020 (PRRAC – Mobility Works, July 2020)
Editors: Heidi Kurniawan and Philip Tegeler.
Contributing authors: Gretchen Weissman, Nicole Rolfe, Peter Kye, and Brian Knudsen.
Excerpt: “All of this is changing now, with the impending release of $50 million in competitive grant funds, authorized by Congress in two years of bipartisan appropriations for the Housing Mobility Demonstration. As this report shows, the housing mobility field is beginning to rapidly expand, with new PHAs establishing partnerships in anticipation of the demonstration, and existing programs taking advantage of the flexibility offered by the HUD Small Area FMR rule, opening up new high opportunity areas previously off-limits to voucher families.”

Recruiting Opportunity Landlords: Lessons from Landlords in Maryland (Jennifer E. Cossyleon, Philip ME Garboden, & Stefanie DeLuca, June 2020)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The report is divided into two sections. First, we use our data to discuss landlords’ perspectives on housing vouchers generally. We discuss the benefits of participation in the program articulated by many of our landlord respondents, noting that even the standard HCV program works well for some landlords by providing a reliable stream of revenue protected from the vicissitudes of the labor market. We affirm earlier findings related to the challenges faced by housing programs looking to expand opportunity for voucher families (Garboden et al. 2018). In the second section, we describe the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program (BHMP), which is administered by the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP). We discuss the steps BRHP has taken to overcome landlord resistance to voucher acceptance and assist thousands of families to move to low-poverty neighborhoods. We conclude with several policy recommendations that can help mobility programs across the country achieve their mission of racial and economic desegregation by recruiting landlords in opportunity areas to rent to tenants with housing vouchers.”

Model State School Integration Policies (NCSD & PRRAC, May 2020)
A NCSD & PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “State governments are in the best position to reverse the tide of increasing racial and socioeconomic segregation in our public schools if the political will is present. The federal government, through the Every Student Succeeds Act (“ESSA”), provides significant compensatory funding for lower-income schools in Title I.”

Causes and Consequences of Segregation (Brian Knudsen, November 2019)
Published in Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law.
A review of Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities by Jessica Troustine.
Excerpt: “Political scientist Jessica Trounstine, a leading scholar of American local government politics, has written a remarkable new book sure to become a must-read for academics, attorneys, practitioners, activists, and citizens seeking to understand the causes and consequences of urban residential segregation over the past century. Combining historical study with qualitative and quantitative social science methods, her book hones in on the particular role of local government policy–especially around land use, zoning, and control of public services–in creating and perpetuating racially and economically segregated living patterns that persist to the present.”

Title I Funding and School Integration (NCSD, November 2019)
Prepared by Philip Tegeler and Lily Milwit, Poverty & Race Research Action Council.
Summary: An exploration of how the current Title I funding formula under the Every Student Succeeds (ESSA) Act is in need of reform.

The 2020 Democratic Candidates’ Positions on School Diversity & Related Educational Equity Issues (Philip Tegeler, Abi Hollinger, & Lily Milwit, November 2019)
A PRRAC Policy Analysis.
Excerpt: “NCSD has also called for reinstatement of the 2011 school diversity guidance letter, reinstatement of the school integration incentives for Department of Education competitive grant funds, and linking the Magnet Schools Assistance Program with HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods public housing redevelopment program. A number of these policy proposals are part of the candidates’ education platforms, which are reviewed in this brief. Notably, four of the Democratic presidential candidates (Warren, Sanders, Harris, and Booker) have already endorsed the Strength in Diversity Act.”

Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs): An Analysis of First Year Implementation in Mandatory Metropolitan Areas and Barriers to Voluntary Implementation in Other Areas (PRRAC & Buffalo Center for Social Research at the University at Buffalo, September 2019)
By Kelly Patterson and Robert Silverman.
Excerpt: “The analysis focuses on PHA administrators’ perceptions of barriers to voluntary adoption of SAFMRs. After results are presented from both parts of the report, it concludes with two sets of recommendations. The first focuses on lessons learned from the analysis of metropolitan areas mandated to use SAFMRs. The second set of recommendations focuses on lessons learned from metropolitan areas that have the option to voluntarily implement SAFMRs.”

2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Positions on Climate Change, Environmental Justice, and Related Housing Issues (Lily Milwit, Megan Haberle, & Ndidi Anekwe, September 2019)
A PRRAC Policy Analysis.
Excerpt: “It is our hope that the continuing public conversations around climate change will yield policies that make environmental justice a central concern, and that bridge climate change and related spheres such as fair and affordable housing. This policy brief examines the Democratic candidates’ positions on these issues thus far.”

The 2020 Democratic Candidates’ Positions on Fair and Affordable Housing (Megan Haberle & LeGrand Northcutt, July 2019)
A PRRAC Policy Analysis.
Excerpt: “Issues of racism and racial justice have assumed a prominent role in the current presidential campaign. Even within such conversations about racial justice, however, housing segregation often has been overlooked.”

High-Opportunity Partner Engagement: Creating Low-Income Housing Options Near Good Schools (PRRAC & NHT, June 2019)
Published as part of “What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Mixed-Income Communities,” the fifth volume in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s “What Works” series.
By Peter Kye, Megan Haberle, Laura Abernathy, and Scott Kline.
Excerpt: “This essay reviews the housing acquisition approach to providing greater access to opportunity and highlights promising models. We focus in particular on the National Housing Trust’s (NHT) innovative High Opportunity Partner Engagement (HOPE) initiative (developed with the support of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation 2 and The Kresge Foundation), which we hope will become a model for a community of practice among housing developers.”

State of Integration 2018 (NCSD et al, June 2019)
NCSD et al Publication.
Excerpt: “The report that follows is a compilation of essays by the National Coalition on School Diversity’s staff and members. It begins with an assessment of current threats to school integration. It then chronicles some of the new progress and opportunities we are seeing at state and local levels. We hope The State of Integration captures both the urgency and hope of this political moment.”

Immigrant Integration and Immigrant Segregation: The Relationship Between School and Housing Segregation and Immigrants’ Future in the U.S. (Martha Cecilia Bottia, April 2019)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “In summary, immigrant-origin youth are the fastest-growing student population in the country (Foxen, 2010) and are also more likely to be poor, experience residential mobility, and live in overcrowded housing than native-born children (e.g., Hernandez & Charney, 1998). In addition to language barriers, immigrant children often experience unique stressors associated with their migration (such as possible exposure to traumatic events preceding or during migration) and acculturation processes (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010) that make the study of immigrants extremely relevant to public policy. The current report provides an up-to-date summary of the literature on the relationship between school and residential segregation and immigrants’ outcomes.”

Housing and Schools: The Importance of Engagement for Educators and Education Advocates (NEA & PRRAC, April 2019)
A NEA-PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “Housing and land use policies have a significant effect on schools, and since these policies are usually decided at the state and local level, educators and education advocates have the opportunity to play a significant role.”

Coordinated Action on School and Housing Integration: The Role of State Government (Megan Haberle & Philip Tegeler, March 2019)
Published in University of Richmond Law Review.
Excerpt: “Strong leadership will be needed to counter our country’s increasing trend of racial and economic separation. This essay has argued that the greatest potential for addressing housing and school segregation is at the state government level, where most of the interlocking segregative structures reside. As our country’s continuing housing affordability crisis propels housing to the political front page over the next several years, now is the time to adopt innovative state civil rights strategies to accompany the housing and educational needs that will accompany a rapidly growing and increasingly economically unequal population. If we value diverse and unified communities, we cannot afford to simply replicate and intensify the legal structures of the past.”

Where Families With Children Use Housing Vouchers: A Comparative Look at the 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas (CBPP-PRRAC, January 2019)
A CBPP & PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The Housing Choice Voucher Program, the nation’s largest federal rental assistance program, assists over 5 million people in 2.2 million low-income households. Housing Choice Vouchers help these families afford decent, stable housing, avoid homelessness, and make ends meet. When implemented properly, vouchers can give low-income families real choices about where to live — including the chance to live in lower-poverty, higher-opportunity neighborhoods — and help public housing agencies meet their legal obligation to address housing discrimination and segregation.”

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing and the Inclusive Communities Project Case: Bringing the Fair Housing Act into the 21st Century (Philip Tegeler, December 2018)
Published in Metzger et al’s Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society, Oxford University Press.

Strategies for Health Justice: Lessons from the Field (Edited by Megan Haberle & Heidi Kurniawan, November 2018)
A PRRAC Field Report.
Editors’ Note: “We are proud to offer this compilation of case studies, reflections, and strategic advice from fellow advocates who are working to advance structural change and make a concrete difference for communities throughout the country. Many of the authors explore the theme of synergy among advocacy strategies, such as organizing, litigation, policy engagement, and coalition building. they also tell stories that speak eloquently to the connections among issue areas, such as health, environmental justice, and housing and community development. Many of these stories have roots in the structural dynamics that have long shaped health inequities across race, ethnicity, and income. concentrated poverty, racism, and political and financial disempowerment intersect, especially because of our long history of racial segregation, and the work of addressing those problems is challenging. it takes dynamic, compassionate advocacy, strong partnership work, and not least persistence. We thank our authors and hope that you find inspiration, as we do, in their lessons from the field.”

Coordination of Community Systems and Institutions to Promote Housing and School Integration (Philip Tegeler and Micah Herskind, November 2018)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “School and neighborhood segregation are recognized as pernicious and persistent problems across the United States, originally developed through intentional government policies, and perpetuated today by both public policy and private markets that have adapted to segregated systems of housing, education, and transportation. Housing and school segregation function as mutually-sustaining phenomena that limit perceived housing and school choices, constrain social networks, and curb employment and educational potential. Despite the link between housing and school segregation, however, many initiatives combating segregation tend to focus on one or the other instead of recognizing their inherent connectedness.”

Housing Mobility Programs in the U.S. (PRRAC-Mobility Works, October 2018)
By Andrea Juracek, Alison Bell, Nicole Rolfe, Philip Tegeler, Heidi Kurniawan, and Micah Herskind.
Synopsis: This report provides a snapshot of the housing mobility field in the fall of 2018. It is our hope that this report will soon be outdated, as more PHAs and fair housing groups implement housing mobility programs, and existing programs expand and are brought to scale. It is long past time to balance our substantial housing investments in low-income communities with meaningful investments in housing mobility.

Developing Opportunity: Innovative Models for Strategic Housing Acquisition (Peter Kye, Michael Mouton & Megan Haberle, October 2018)
A PRRAC-NHT Program Review.
Synopsis: More must be done to create affordable housing in good neighborhoods and provide real housing choice to low-income families. To address these issues, innovative models of housing acquisition are beginning to emerge, with a focus on creating new access to high-opportunity neighborhoods for low-income households. These initiatives provide pathways to mobility and create affordable housing by acquiring existing market-rate housing in areas of high opportunity, for example, in areas with high-quality public school systems. By focusing on affordable housing supply, they are emerging as important complements to housing mobility programs that focus on expanding choice within the Housing Choice Voucher program through counseling and improved program administration.

Housing and Educational Opportunity: Characteristics of Local Schools Near Families with Federal Housing Assistance (Ingrid Gould Ellen & Keren Horn, July 2018)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The Housing Act of 1949 espoused the goal of ‘a decent home and a suitable living environment’ for all Americans. Nearly 70 years later, we have made significant strides in improving the quality of American homes, but there continue to be large disparities across income and race, especially with respect to neighborhood environments. These disparities matter: growing research shows that neighborhoods shape children’s long-run life chances. This report focuses on neighborhood schools, highlighting disparities between families living in subsidized housing and those who do not. We describe the characteristics of the local public elementary schools to which children living in subsidized housing have access, including their student demographics, teacher characteristics and relative proficiency rates. We include all households with children that receive housing assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as well as those living in Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments, for all 50 states and the 100 largest metropolitan areas, updating an earlier PRRAC report that relied on 2008 data.”

The Call for Environmental Justice Legislation: An Annotated Bibliography (Jennifer Bisgaier & Jennifer Pollan, July 2018)
PRRAC Research & Advocacy Guide.
Excerpt: “Communities of color have long argued that there is a need for stronger environmental and health protections that adequately serve all people and that advance their rights to fair participation. Since the modern environmental justice movement began in the 1980s, a series of reports as well as lawsuits and administrative complaints also have documented the ways in which people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately affected by decisions regarding the siting of hazardous facilities as well as other environmental issues. People of color are more likely to live near coal plants and landfill sites, and experience higher rates of asthma, heart disease, lung problems, and other adverse health outcomes.”

An Evolving Fair Housing Movement: Forging New Partnerships and Agendas Across Policy Areas (Megan Haberle, May 2018)
Published in Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law.
Excerpt: “Housing discrimination, program designs that entrench segregative patterns, and exclusionary zoning are significant problems that create lasting harm across generations. These issues require direct and specialized interventions. However, as the fair housing movement continues to grapple with segregation, we can benefit from efforts to broaden our advocacy work to encompass related fields. Other policies have a reciprocal effect on segregation. In addition, by working in partnership with advocates who focus on environmental justice, education, infrastructure equity, and other issues, many fair housing advocates are laying an important foundation for mutual support and for joint agendas that promote housing choice as well as other aspects of social equity.”

A Guide to Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs): How State and Local Housing Agencies Can Expand Opportunity for Families in All Metro Areas (CBPP-PRRAC, May 2018)
A CBPP & PRRAC Publication.
Excerpt: “State and local housing agencies have important new tools to help families with housing vouchers move to high-opportunity neighborhoods with low crime and strong schools, which tend to have higher rents. A November 2016 Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule expands use of Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs), which set voucher amounts at the neighborhood rather than metro level — letting vouchers pay more in high-rent neighborhoods and less in low-rent neighborhoods.”

Deconstructing Segregation in Syracuse? The Fate of I-81 and the Future of One of New York State’s Highest Poverty Communities (Anthony Armstrong & Make Communities, May 2018)
Prepared for PRRAC by Anthony Armstrong & Make Communities.
Excerpt: “In fact, Syracuse’s experience feels both unique and all too common for U.S. cities, particularly Great Lakes cities: federally sanctioned housing disinvestment; sprawling outward development; stagnating or declining and segregated population; fractured local government and school systems; and outdated infrastructure. Officials at public and private institutes have raised the flag that these issues serve as a deterrent to investment from external businesses and also as a deterrent to attracting and retaining talent to serve in available positions.”

Changing the Perception of Pasadena Unified School District Through an Innovative Realtor Outreach Program (PRRAC & NCSD, April 2018)
By Jennifer Miyake-Trapp, Ed.D.
Excerpt: “Not so long ago, Sandy Roffman worked with a local realtor to purchase a home for her young family in Pasadena, California. While the realtor praised Pasadena’s neighborhoods and many amenities, she cautioned her clients about enrolling their children in the local public schools, sharing tales of dismal school conditions and poor performance. Fortunately, Ms. Roffman had her own set of personal experiences to counter the realtor’s negative perceptions. As PTA President of Jackson STEM Dual Language Magnet Academy, an elementary school in the Pasadena Unified School District, Ms. Roffman was intimately aware of the transformative educational opportunities offered to students. ‘It’s a shame,” reflected Ms. Roffman, ‘that the reputation of an entire school district can become so damaged by voices who have no clue what’s happening within it.'”

Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”: A HUD 50th Anniversary Timeline of Significant Civil Rights Lawsuits And HUD Fair Housing Advances (PRRAC, February 2018)
Introduction: “HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.”

Fair Housing and Environmental Justice: New Strategies and Challenges (Megan Haberle, January 2018)
Published in Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law.
Excerpt: “Fair housing and environmental justice are deeply intertwined, though they have long operated in separate siloes among both policymakers and advocates. In recent years, the importance of connecting these issues has been brought home in acute ways. This included the public exposure of lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan (which gave momentum to successful efforts to raise HUD’s lead threshold), and the disastrous impacts of Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey (highlighting the need not only for emergency preparation, but also for proactive, equitable climate adaptations).”

Disrupting the Reciprocal Relationship Between Housing and School Segregation (Philip Tegeler & Michael Hilton, November 2017)
A PRRAC Report.
Synopsis: This paper was originally presented at A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, a national symposium hosted by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies in April 2017. The symposium examined how patterns of residential segregation by income and race in the United States are changing and the consequences of residential segregation for individuals and society, and sought to identify the most promising strategies for fostering more inclusive communities in the years to come.

Equity Considerations in Climate Adaptation Plans: A Call for Advocacy (Peter Kye, October 2017)
A PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “Proactive planning is essential in order to effectively respond to climate threats. Actors at every level of government must understand that they have an important role in planning for climate change. The growing threat posed by climate change has prompted many states and localities to develop adaptation plans.”

Fair Housing and Environmental Justice: New Strategies and Challenges (Megan Haberle, February 2017)
Published in Journal of Affordable Housing.
Excerpt: “Fair housing and environmental justice are deeply intertwined, though they have long operated in separate siloes among both policymakers and advocates. In recent years, the importance of connecting these issues has been brought home in acute ways. This included the public exposure of lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan (which gave momentum to successful efforts to raise HUD’s lead threshold), and the disastrous impacts of Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey (highlighting the need not only for emergency preparation, but also for proactive, equitable climate adaptations).”

Issue Brief No. 8: Federal Support for School Integration: An Obama Administration Review (NCSD & PRRAC, January 2017)
A NCSD & PRRAC Issue Brief.
Excerpt: “As the second term of the Obama Administration draws to a close, the National Coalition on School Diversity has updated this review of federal support for school integration during the tenures of Secretaries Arne Duncan and John King. While much remains to be done, the Obama Administration has made concrete progress on school integration policy.”

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: A Platform for Public Health Advocates (Philip Tegeler & Brian Smedley, June 2016)
Published in American Journal of Public Health.
Excerpt: “As the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” planning process plays out across the country over the next six to seven years, public health advocates should consider how the new mandate can help more low-income families of color access high opportunity, healthier communities – and at the same time bring their public health expertise to the question of what specific public health interventions can promote healthier outcomes in high-poverty neighborhoods for future generations of children.”

Issue Brief No. 6: Prioritizing School Integration in ESSA State Implementation Plans (NCSD & PRRAC, May 2016)
A NCSD & PRRAC Issue Brief.
Excerpt: “The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the latest reauthorization of the country’s premier K-12 education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 1 Under ESSA state education agencies (SEAs), along with local education agencies (LEAs) and the communities they serve assume significant new responsibilities, ranging from the formulation of state accountability systems to determining interventions in persistently low-performing schools.”

The National Housing Trust Fund: Promoting Fair Housing in State Allocation Plans (PRRAC, May 2016)
A PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “The national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) is the newest federal low-income housing development program, and is particularly valuable for its focus on providing housing for extremely low-income families. Like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the HTF is allocated to state governments on a formula basis, and states are then responsible for allocating funds through a state allocation plan.”

Residential Segregation and Brain Development: Implications for Equitable Educational Opportunities (Michael Hilton, 2016)
Published in School Integration Matters: Research-Based Strategies to Advance Equity, Teachers College Press, Edited by Erica Frankenberg, Liliana M. Garces, and Megan Hopkins.
Excerpt: “Economic and racial segregation in housing fostered by federal, state, and local governments, alongside the systematic deprivation of public resources, creates areas of deep disadvantage. The relationship between segregated housing and access to an equitable educational opportunity is clear, with brain development research showing residential segregation and racial isolation can result in significant developmental impacts.”

Predicting School Diversity Impacts of State and Local Education Policy: The Role of Title VI (Philip Tegeler, 2016)
Published in School Integration Matters: Research-Based Strategies to Advance Equity, Teachers College Press, Edited by Erica Frankenberg, Liliana M. Garces, and Megan Hopkins.
Excerpt: “The Department of Education has made great strides in its recent guidance documents on school discipline and resource disparities. The next step is to move from a complaint and enforcement model to a system that requires state and local grantees to consider the racial consequences of their actions before they are taken and to include an assessment of current and future patterns of segregation that largely drive racial disparities in resources and outcomes for low-income children.”

Leveraging the Power of Place: Using Pay for Success to Support Housing Mobility (Low Income Investment Fund, PRRAC, Urban Institute & Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, July 2015)
By Philip Tegeler, Dan Rinzler, Mary Cunningham, and Craig Pollack, San Francisco Federal Reserve.
Excerpt: “Our modeling shows that housing mobility could generate significant medical cost savings from improvements in adult diabetes and extreme obesity, the vast majority of which would accrue to government health programs such as Medicaid given the low incomes of families with housing vouchers. We also conclude that it is possible that housing mobility could pay for itself, along with other legal and evaluation costs associated with PFS financing, based on medical cost saving.”

Building Opportunity II: Civil Rights Best Practices in the LIHTC Program (PRRAC & Sarah Oppenheimer, July 2015)
By Sarah Oppenheimer (MPH, Harvard School of Public Health, and Ph.D candidate, University of Washington), with Megan Haberle, Etienne Toussaint, and Philip Tegeler.
Synopsis: This summary report is an update to our 2008 report, Building Opportunity: Civil Rights Best Practices in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (PRRAC and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law)…The present analysis uses the most recent finalized QAP for each state available as of fall 2014, plus Chicago and New York City (which have separate QAPs from their state HFAs). While this update includes many of the measures established in the 2008 report, it has been adapted to reflect recent trends in LIHTC requirements and state and federal housing policies.

Constraining Choice: The Role of Online Apartment Listing Services in the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Ebony Gayles & Silva Mathema, July 2015)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt:“Increasingly, Americans are using online rental listing sites to aid their housing search. This is true of Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) holders as well as for the public at large. Update-to-date online listings for HCV holders provide benefits that traditional landlord lists maintained by the Public Housing Authority (PHA) cannot, such as detailed information about units, pictures of the interior and exterior of units and mapping features. Websites that cater to voucher clients can provide a much-needed resource for renters. However, if the websites are not providing clients access to a full range of neighborhoods, including lower poverty, less segregated neighborhoods, they are not helping achieve the goals of the voucher program.”

A Better Start: Why Classroom Diversity Matters in Early Education (PRRAC-Century Foundation, April 2015)
By Jeanne L. Reid and Sharon Lynn Kagan (the National Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University) with Michael Hilton and Halley Potter.
Excerpt: “This report calls attention to the value of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity within preschool classrooms. It has taken the stance that not only is such integration possible (as evidenced by data on pre-K programs and the two examples), but also that it is an important (though often neglected) correlate of quality.”

Finishing Last: Girls of Color and School Sports Opportunities (PRRAC & National Women’s Law Center, April 2015)
Synopsis: Our nation’s schools remain highly segregated along racial and economic lines, and schools with high concentrations of minority and low-income students generally have fewer resources for academic and extracurricular activities. Opportunities to play sports, which provide valuable benefits, are diminished for all students at these schools, but are particularly limited for girls. In fact, when it comes to girls of color and chances to play school sports, the reality is bleak: they receive far fewer opportunities—defined as spots on teams— than white girls, white boys, and boys of color. It is an inequality that has gone largely undocumented due to limited research. This report uses an innovative research strategy—identifying high schools where the student body is either 90 percent or more white or 10 percent or less white—to show the lack of sports opportunities on the basis of race and gender…..

Issue Brief No. 5: Linking Housing And School Integration Policy: What Federal, State And Local Governments Can Do (NCSD & PRRAC, March 2015 )
A NCSD & PRRAC Issue Brief.
Excerpt: “In spite of the obvious ‘reciprocal relationship’ between housing and school policy, government housing and education agencies have rarely collaborated to promote the common goals of racial and economic integration. Recent efforts to promote collaboration among housing and school agencies have focused on place-based interventions to enhance the learning environment for low-income children in segregated, high poverty schools and neighborhoods.”

Investing in Integration? A Fair Housing Review of the Multi-Billion Dollar Bank Settlements (Demelza Baer & Philip Tegeler, March 2015)
A PRRAC Policy Brief.
Excerpt: “This policy brief examines the three recent multi-billion dollar settlements reached by the U.S. government with J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and Bank of America in the context of the government’s duty, under the Fair Housing Act, to promote residential integration in its housing programs and investments. This legal duty to “affirmatively further fair housing” applies to all of the government entities involved in the bank settlements, including the Treasury Department, the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD).”

Equitable Transit Oriented Development (Mariam Zuk & Ian Carlton, March 2015)
A PRRAC Report.
Synopsis: Despite growing interest, policymaking, and funding for the inclusion of affordable housing in TODs, this study finds that limited progress has been made over the past two decades in delivering new affordable housing options near transit stations in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Perhaps because of the need for dense neighborhoods to support ridership combined with the nature of urban poverty and housing policy in the United States, over half of new transit stations have been located in neighborhoods where affordable housing is already located. New transit neighborhoods have not been as successful at attracting new affordable developments, however; we found that in neighborhoods where transit stations opened since 2000 only one in five saw new affordable units added. Combined with our findings that transit-rich neighborhoods were more likely to experience demographic shifts signaling gentrification pressures, and with previous findings that transit neighborhoods were at risk of losing federally subsidized units, these findings create cause for concern of the future for equitable TODs.

Take a Chance on Me: A Review of the Milwaukee County HOME Security Deposit Assistance Program (Peter Rosenblatt & Jennifer Cossyleon, January 2015)
A PRRAC Report, with the Center for Urban Research and Learning, Loyola University Chicago, & the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council.
Excerpt: “This report examines an innovative program in Milwaukee County that can help address these disparities and assist the HCVP in expanding its potential to help families and children reach higher opportunity neighborhoods. The Milwaukee County HOME Security Deposit Assistance Program (SDAP) provides families in the voucher program with a grant of up to $1,000 that can be used to pay for their security deposit, but only on housing units in suburban municipalities outside of the City of Milwaukee. These suburbs are overwhelmingly white and low-poverty (see Table 3 and Figure 1). The Milwaukee County program was originally developed to assist families facing financial barriers to moving after an unexpected loss of their current housing. But because of geographic restrictions attached to the Security Deposit (related to funding program jurisdiction), and the lack of any other significant “mobility counseling” efforts by the county PHA, the program presents an opportunity to study a particular kind of targeted intervention to facilitate moves by HCV families to lower-poverty areas and meet the goal of affirmatively furthering fair housing.”

Is the HOME Program Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing? (Ebony Gayles & Silva Mathema, September 2014)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “Housing segregation is driven by a complex mix of public and private policies and actions. As PRRAC’s work has shown, government administration of assisted housing programs is just one of the factors that contribute to metropolitan segregation. The federal HOME program is a relatively small program, and cannot solve the problem on its own, but at the very least, it should not be contributing to segregation.”

The ‘Compelling Government Interest’ in School Diversity: Rebuilding the Case for an Affirmative Government Role (Philip Tegeler, July 2014)
Published in University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform.
Excerpt: “The strong endorsement of the ‘compelling government interest’ in school integration by five members of the Supreme Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools stands in surprising contrast to the Obama Administration’s tepid support for affirmative measures to expand school diversity initiatives. Although the Department of Education formally endorsed the Supreme Court plurality’s position on school integration in a 2011 guidance to local districts, its funding programs have not followed suit.”

The ‘Compelling Government Interest’ In School Diversity: Rebuilding The Case For An Affirmative Government Role (Philip Tegeler, June 2014)
Published in University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform.
Excerpt: “The Department of Education already has the policy levers it needs to engage more forcefully with states and local districts to promote school diversity and reduce racial and economic isolation in public schools. The Department can exercise its unused Title VI authority to require states and districts, as a basic condition of Title I funding, to undertake proactive equity assessments that include an analysis of the discriminatory and segregative impacts of major policy and funding decisions, and to take steps to ameliorate these impacts. It can use its competitive grant programs to encourage innovative efforts to reduce racial and economic isolation of students at the state and local level, and it can require regular data reporting that will demonstrate whether a state or district is moving toward greater segregation or integration. The Department’s existing statutory framework authorizes and even encourages all of these actions. The Department of Education’s ongoing refusal to act within its existing authority to encourage integration is a denial of the “moral and ethical obligation” that Justice Kennedy described in Parents Involved.”

America’s Growing Inequality: The Impact of Poverty and Race (Edited by Chester Hartman, March 2014)
A PRRAC Publication. Foreword by Rep. Luis Gutierrez.
Synopsis: The book is a compilation of the best and still-most-relevant articles published in Poverty & Race, the bimonthly of The Poverty & Race Research Action Council from 2006 to the present. Authors are some of the leading figures in a range of activities around these themes. It is the fourth such book PRRAC has published over the years, each with a high-visibility foreword writer: Rep. John Lewis, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. Bill Bradley, Julian Bond in previous books, Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Chicago for this book. The chapters are organized into four sections: Race & Poverty: The Structural Underpinnings; Deconstructing Poverty and Racial Inequities; Re(emerging) Issues; Civil Rights History.

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in REO-to-Rental Programs (Philip Tegeler & Diane Glauber, February 2014)
Published in Community Development INVESTMENT REVIEW.
Excerpt: “Since its passage, HUD has implemented the AFFH provision with varying levels of enthusiasm, depending on the Administration in power. But it has consistently recognized the obligation in the law and its applicability to all HUD programs. However, in contrast to HUD, the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) have not formally acknowledged their civil rights responsibilities under the Fair Housing Act, despite the fact that they oversee many important housing initiatives, including the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) receivership and reform, the Home Affordable Modification Program, and the Real Estate Owned (REO)-to-Rental program.”

Expanding Choice: Practical Strategies for Building a Successful Housing Mobility Program (Urban Institute-PRRAC, May 2013)
An Urban Institute-PRRAC Policy Report.
Excerpt: “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, administered by public housing agencies (PHAs) across the country, provides low-income households the ability to affordably rent decent housing practically anywhere in the United States. And yet, they don’t. Studies have shown that voucher holders are concentrated in a relatively small portion of the neighborhoods with available affordable rental housing. These neighborhoods are often poorer, more racially segregated, and of lower quality than other neighborhoods; and the schools in these places have difficulty closing the achievement gap.”

An Early Assessment of Off-Site Replacement Housing, Relocation Planning and Housing Mobility Counseling in HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (Martha Galvez, March 2013)
A PRRAC Program Review.
Excerpt: “The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) provides funds for public housing authorities and other local entities to redevelop distressed public or assisted housing in some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods. This brief examines one aspect of CNI: HUD and individual grantees’ approach to tenant displacement and relocation. CNI’s primary focus is on neighborhood improvement and the right of existing residents to return, with the expectation that target neighborhoods will offer better quality of life than other areas where low-income renters might live. But the program is also intended to expand fair housing choices for current and future residents by placing some off-site replacement housing in lower poverty neighborhoods and helping families who wish to move away from CNI developments reach higher opportunity areas.”

Increasing Housing Choices: How Can the MTW Program Evolve to Achieve its Statutory Mandate? (Sarah Oppenheimer & PRRAC, March 2013)
A PRRAC Program Review. By Sarah Oppenheimer, Megan Haberle, and Philip Tegeler, with research support from Kayla Kitson.
Excerpt: “One of the three statutory goals of the HUD Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration is to “increase housing choices for low-income families.” The MTW program allows HUD to waive provisions of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 and various HUD regulations at the request of selected Public Housing Agencies (PHAs or “agencies”) in pursuit of the program’s statutory goals. Additionally, MTW agencies are granted substantial flexibility in how they may apply their funds, as with the potential to interchangeably allocate funds from different sources. In theory, the MTW program’s flexibility could allow PHAs to overcome programmatic barriers to housing choice and mobility, and dramatically expand housing options for low-income families in higher opportunity areas.”

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing at HUD: A First Term Report Card, Part II (Lawyers’ Committee, National Fair Housing Alliance & PRRAC, March 2013)
A PRRAC-Lawyers’ Committee-National Fair Housing Alliance Program Review.
Excerpt: “The Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, hereinafter ‘the Act’) prohibits discrimination in a wide range of housing-related transactions, and it also includes an affirmative obligation on the part of HUD and its grantees to ‘Affirmatively Further Fair Housing’ (AFFH). This is the provision of the Act that requires HUD and its grantees to avoid the perpetuation of segregation, and to take affirmative steps to promote racial integration. Compliance with this provision at the state and local level is currently monitored through regular fair housing certifications by grantees, and regular local development and publication of the ‘Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing’ (AI), which assesses local barriers to integration and steps necessary to overcome these barriers.”

From Foreclosure to Fair Lending: Advocacy, Organizing, Occupy, and the Pursuit of Equitable Credit (Edited by Chester Hartman & Gregory D. Squires, October 2013)
Synopsis: Drawing from the experiences of leading fair housing experts, community and union organizers, and activist scholars, From Foreclosure to Fair Lending is the first serious approach to explaining the meaning of the Occupy protests as they relate to the goals of fair lending and fair housing. It reminds readers of the ongoing significance of the civil rights movement and the tactics that made it successful. As specialists in social justice organizing and advocacy movements, contributors reveal the limitations of current advocacy efforts and the challenges that remain in addressing issues such as the foreclosure crisis, access to credit in a changing marketplace, and the immoral hazards of big banks.

Creating Balance in the Locations of LIHTC Developments: The Role of Qualified Allocation Plans (Jill Khadduri, February 2013)
A PRRAC & Abt Associates Inc. Report.
Excerpt: “The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is a federal program administered by the Treasury Department that subsidizes the development of rental housing projects for low-income households. LIHTC is the predominant “supply-side” or “project-based” component of U.S. rental housing policy, while the “demand-side” or “tenant-based” component is the Housing Choice Voucher program, providing subsidies that households can use to rent housing units they find in the private market. Since its creation by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, LIHTC has developed about 2.4 million units; since the early 1990s, LIHTC has been the only program that has added substantial numbers of subsidized projects to the U.S. rental housing stock. The housing voucher program currently assists about 2.5 million households—with some overlap, since vouchers frequently are used to rent units in LIHTC projects [Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy 2012]. This paper is based on the premise that an effort is needed to create a better balance between locating LIHTC projects in “high-opportunity” communities and locating them in neighborhoods where substantial numbers of poor people and minorities currently live. After examining the basis of that premise, the paper then focuses on the way in which the administrators of LIHTC—agencies of state governments—can use the systems through which they allocate tax credit authority to change the balance of LIHTC locations so that the program does a better job of helping low-income families and racial minorities live in areas with good schools, superior public services and health care, and access to jobs.”

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing at HUD: A First Term Report Card, Part I (PRRAC, January 2013)
A PRRAC Program Review.
Excerpt: “During the first term of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has reaffirmed a broad commitment to fair housing. However, while fair housing enforcement at the agency has increased noticeably, the task of reforming HUD’s own programs has been painstakingly slow. A flurry of positive activity inside the agency during the first term has not yet been reflected in final program regulations or guidance, even though some of this work has been underway for years. For this reason, our assessment of HUD’s progress is mixed – but we are still hopeful that the agency’s leadership will be able to expedite the completion of these needed reforms early in the second term.”

Do Federally Assisted Households Have Access to High Performing Public Schools? (Ingrid Gould Ellen & Keren Mertens Horn, November 2012)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “Existing research on the residential outcomes of assisted households finds that on average assisted households live in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Newman and Schnare, 1997; Pendall, 2000; Freeman, 2003; Galvez, 2011). This analysis pushes the question a step further and probes whether housing assistance has the potential to break the cycle of poverty through breaking the link between poor households and low performing schools. Unfortunately, we find that this does not generally appear to be the case; though we find some metropolitan areas where assisted households are living near relatively high performing schools relative to other households in the same metropolitan area. These metropolitan areas tend to be located in the South and West, and to have both smaller populations and lower levels of racial segregation.”

From Urban Renewal and Displacement to Economic Inclusion: San Francisco Affordable Housing Policy 1978-2012 (PRRAC-National Housing Law Project Report, November 2012)
A PRRAC-National Housing Law Project Report.
Excerpt: “It is evident that San Francisco will continue to need to be inventive and its housing advocates strong to meet the challenges ahead. Some advocates are already looking beyond the Trust Fund to the new frontier of housing policy. Building on development limitation and job-housing balance ideas from Proposition M and the phasing and linkage of different types of development demanded by the more equitable and inclusive recent redevelopment projects, they are formulating a plan to link approval of market-rate housing to meet the affordability goals set by ABAG described above. San Francisco continues to evolve its policy to fill in the gaps in its housing needs and find creative and substantial sources of funding to develop and maintain affordable housing. By also ensuring that the needs of local residents are heard, San Francisco is demonstrating that the early urban renewal and displacement days are gone and have been replaced with a vision of creating the housing, jobs and services required to maintain and rebuild vibrant, diverse and thriving communities within the City.”

Diverse Charter Schools (PRRAC & Century Foundation, May 2012)
By Richard D. Kahlenberg & Halley Potter.
Excerpt: “The education policy and philanthropy communities to date have placed a premium on funding charter schools that have high concentrations of poverty and large numbers of minority students. This report asks: Might it make more sense for foundations and policymakers to embrace a variety of approaches, including efforts to demonstrate the feasibility and value of racially and economically integrated charter schools?”

Comments on Federal Transit Administration Proposed Rule on Transit Oriented Development (March 2012)

Opportunity and Location in Federally Subsidized Housing Programs: A New Look at HUD’s Site & Neighborhood Standard As Applied to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (PRRAC, Kirwan Institute & Opportunity Agenda, October 2011)
By Philip Tegeler, Henry Korman, Jason Reece, and Megan Haberle.
Synopsis: This paper is intended to present a civil rights perspective on the federal policy discussion currently underway seeking to harmonize various subsidized housing development rules across the three agencies that sponsor low-income housing (HUD, the Treasury Department, and the Department of Agriculture). This “compliance harmonization” initiative has so far avoided taking on the difficult question of site selection rules in our largest low-income housing development program, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), administered by the IRS and the Treasury Department. In the discussion that follows we will suggest alternative approaches to civil rights site selection in the LIHTC program that are consistent with the statutory guidance for the program, and that also can integrate successfully with other important goals such as sustainability and transit access.

Finding Common Ground: Coordinating Housing and Education Policy to Promote Integration (PRRAC & NCSD, October 2011).
Edited by Philip Tegeler.
Excerpt: “Families who participated in the Baltimore Mobility Program experienced radical changes in their local neighborhood contexts, moving from poor and segregated areas to mixed race, low poverty communities. In this paper, we look at the changes in educational opportunity that accompanied these moves. Given the demonstrated link between residential segregation and school quality, we would expect that giving families the opportunity to move to non-segregated, low poverty neighborhoods would increase access to higher quality school environments. As we show, this is exactly what has happened—the moves that families made with the program greatly increased the quality of the schools their children can attend, as measured by increases in the academic performance of the student body and teacher qualifications, as well as large decreases the poverty rate of the schools. These findings are significant for potential long-term outcomes from the program, as research suggests that middle-class schools can positively influence student achievement. For example, Schwartz’s recent findings that children from low-income families in Montgomery County, Maryland benefit from attending low-poverty schools might be especially relevant to the Baltimore Mobility Program. Children in the Baltimore Program have the opportunity to experience even more dramatic changes in school poverty level as a result of the program, which allows them to move from some of the poorest schools in the state to ones that are similar to those Schwartz found to be beneficial for increasing achievement.”

A Lost Decade: Neighborhood Poverty and the Urban Crisis of the 2000s (PRRAC and Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies, September 2011)
By Rolf Pendall, Elizabeth Davies, Lesley Freiman, and Rob Pitingolo.
Excerpt: “This report tracks the stubborn persistence of concentrated poverty—poverty rates over 30 percent—in U.S. metropolitan areas over a period of nearly 40 years. Neighborhoods with poverty rates above 30 percent have been recognized as places with few opportunities for employment and education, high levels of disinvestment and crime, and meager civic participation. Living in such neighborhoods over extended periods reduces the life chances of children, whether their families are poor or not. The report also looks more deeply at a subset of urban neighborhoods that can be characterized as the “original ghetto,” extensive areas whose cores were almost exclusively nonwhite and poor in 1970. The report shows that the nation continues to suffer from racially and economically divided cities, and this segregation undercuts efforts to reach important goals for health, education, employment, and civic engagement.”

Research Brief No. 4: What We Know About School Integration, College Attendance, and the Reduction of Poverty (NCSD & PRRAC, October 2010)
By Philip Tegeler, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, & Martha Bottia.
Excerpt: “The goals of promoting integration and avoiding racial isolation in K-12 education were recently reaffirmed as compelling government interests by five Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1 (2007). That decision did strike down specific elements of voluntary plans in Seattle and Louisville; however, a majority of the Court indicated support for a wide range of race-conscious measures to promote school integration that do not assign individual students based on their race.”

Building Sustainable, Inclusive Communities (PRRAC-Building One America, May 2010)
By David Rusk.
Excerpt: “HUD’s new “Sustainable Communities Initiative” (SCI) represents the best of the new administration – looking forward creatively towards a new metropolitan future, and crossing bureaucratic silos to engage transportation policy, environmental policy, and housing policy in the same program. However, the SCI program also demonstrates the potential pitfalls of trying to move progressive policies without engaging the real continuing divisions of race and class in our society. We believe that the SCI program has the potential to advance the goal of racially and economically integrated and environmentally sustainable regions. However, to achieve this goal, the program needs to take these issues on explicitly.”

New Homes, New Neighborhoods, New Schools: A Progress Report on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program (PRRAC & the Baltimore Regional Housing Campaign, October 2009)
By Lora Engdahl.
Excerpt: “In the Baltimore region, a successful housing mobility program is providing families living in very disadvantaged inner-city communities with a new home and a chance for a new life. Minority voucher holders in the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly titled Section 8) have often been limited to living in “voucher submarkets” where racial and economic segregation is high and opportunities are limited. The Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, a specialized regional voucher program operating with deliberate attention to expanding fair housing choice, has overcome some of the biggest barriers to using vouchers in suburban and city neighborhoods where opportunities are abundant. The program’s results-oriented approach has produced a replicable set of best practices for mobility programs while presenting an important model for reform of the national Housing Choice Voucher Program. This report, New Homes, New Neighborhoods, New Schools: A Progress Report on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, provides the first-ever comprehensive description of the program.”

Connecting Families to Opportunity: A Resource Guide for Housing Choice Voucher Program Administrators (Kami Kruckenberg, Jason Small, Philip Tegeler, & Mariana Arcaya, July 2009)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “Access to improved opportunities in employment, education, and even health are greatly influenced by housing location. Today, we are at a critical moment in housing mobility policy. Though more research is necessary, we now know a good deal about the benefits of mobility for families who choose to move to lower poverty, higher opportunity communities. We also know more about what is needed to make housing mobility programs work even better for families who move. This resource guide seeks to highlight some best practices for incorporating health, education, and employment supports into the voucher process to help families connect more effectively to opportunities in their new communities. It is our observation that such connections can assist families to withstand initial difficulties of a move to a new community, and remain in the community (and new school) for a long time, through high school graduation and beyond.”

Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond (Edited by Chester Hartman, 2009)
Published in Lexington Books, 2009.
Synopsis: A set of essays for Mandate for Change. The volume offers a set of specific policy proposals for the incoming national administration on every major domestic and international topic, written specifically for the book by leading thinkers and activists in the field.

Lessons from Katrina: Structural Racism As a Recipe for Disaster (Chester Hartman & Gregory Squires, 2009)
Published in Building Healthy Communities: A Guide to Community Economic Development for Advocates, Lawyers, and Policymakers, co-edited by Roger Clay and Susan Jones.
Synopsis: The 530-page volume contains 28 chapters divided into the following sections: History & Background; CED & the Global Economy; Nonprofit Orgs. in CED; Govt. Financial Resources; Responding to Comm. Interests; Building Human Capital; Creating Indiv. & Comm. Assets; Obtaining Appropriate Financial Services; Embracing Environmental Opportunities & Challenges. Full TOC and ordering inf (unfortunately at a pricey $125) available at www.ababooks.org.

Bringing Children Together: Magnet Schools and Public Housing Redevelopment (PRRAC-Charles Hamilton Institute for Race & Justice, 2009)
By Philip Tegeler, Susan Eaton, and Westra Miller.
Excerpt: “Research and on the ground experience in our urban areas demonstrates that it is time to more deliberately link school and housing policy in efforts to reduce concentrated poverty, promote school diversity and revitalize communities that have historically been disenfranchised. The history of housing discrimination, and of increasing poverty and segregation in our public schools today, makes this all the more urgent. One sensible route toward such collaboration is combining magnet school efforts and the HOPE VI program to deconcentrate poverty in neighborhoods and schools. The programs share a common goal and have established infrastructures and generally positive reputations. Such an effort is compatible with the Justice Reinvestment movement, which seeks to assist communities of concentrated disadvantage, which have long been overlooked and marginalized. Examples of similar cooperative efforts show considerable promise as road maps in moving such collaborative efforts to scale. Our roundtable in Tampa allowed us to move from an idea toward more concrete proposals for policy reform, as spelled out in the Appendix that follows.”

The Future of Race Conscious Goals in National Housing Policy (Philip Tegeler, 2009)
Published in Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, edited by Margery Austin Turner, Susan J. Popkin, and Lynette Rawlings (Urban Institute Press Report).
Excerpt: “Concentrated poverty and racial isolation persist in American cities. Recent data show that while the proportion of poor black and Latino families living in high-poverty neighborhoods declined between 1960 and 2000, the relative isolation of these groups, compared to whites, increased during the same period.”

National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Testimony and Final Report (December 2008)
Synopsis: The National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity is an independent Commission charged with assessing the current state of fair housing in America and making recommendations for a revived federal commitment to fair housing. The Commission is sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the National Fair Housing Alliance and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and is co-chaired by former HUD Secretaries Henry Cisneros and Jack Kemp. Over the course of hearings in 5 cities, the Commission has heard testimony on serious problems in fair housing enforcement, the need for stronger fair housing oversight of HUD grantees, origins and solutions to the foreclosure crisis, the relation between school and housing segregation, and the structural impediments to fair housing in federal and state housing programs.

Building Opportunity: Civil Rights Best Practices in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (50-state survey, PRRAC and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 2008)
An Updated Fifty-State Review of LIHTC “Qualified Allocation Plans.”
Excerpt: “The “best practices” highlighted in this report are meant as a starting point for a discussion about how to move the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program towards improved compliance with the Fair Housing Act. Of course, state Housing Finance Agencies will ultimately be judged not on what their plans say on paper, but on how well their programs do in promoting integrated housing choices in a variety of communities – especially communities with safe streets, high quality schools, and ample employment opportunities – and to ensure that this housing is truly open and accessible to low income families of color and persons with disabilities. To achieve this, we believe that state HFAs will need to play a more assertive role in demanding fair housing performance within the development and housing management communities, especially on issues of siting and tenant selection. The Department of Treasury, which oversees the program, will also be called upon to play a stronger role. It is our hope that the examples described in this report will help move us towards these goals.”

Organizing to Address Minority Health Disparities: A Directory of State and Local Initiatives (Health Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies, PRRAC, the Opportunity Agenda, and Alliance for Healthy Homes, July 2008).
Excerpt: “The goal of this directory is to provide a snapshot of a rapidly evolving community of advocates, organizers, and public health professionals working in different ways on the issue of unequal health outcomes for people of color in the U.S., and to establish new connections and networks within and across states. Some of these connections are between researchers and advocates, and others will be among organizations working on different aspects of the health disparities challenge – which involves not just unequal access to quality healthcare, but also a range of social and environmental influences that are beyond the traditional reach of the health care system.”

CERD Housing Report: Residential Segregation and Housing Discrimination in the United States (January 2008)
A Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Submitted by U.S. Housing Scholars and Research and Advocacy Organizations.
Excerpt: “Residential segregation is an insidious and persistent fact of American life. Discrimination on the basis of race, while on the decline according to some estimates, continues to pervade nearly every aspect of the housing market in the United States. This shadow report evaluates the current state of housing discrimination and segregation and the United States government’s failure to fulfill its obligations related to housing under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“CERD”).”

CERD Health Report: Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States (January 2008)
A Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Submitted by the CERD Working Group on Health and Environmental Health.
Excerpt: “It is now widely recognized that racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes in the U.S. are caused not only by structural inequities in our health care systems, but also by a wide range of social and environmental determinants of health. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recognizes and encompasses this dual analysis in the area of public health.”

Connecting Families to Opportunity: The Next Generation of Housing Mobility Policy (Philip Tegeler, November 2007)
Published in All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Equitable Time (New Press).
Excerpt: “In the twenty years since the first studies of the Gautreaux mobility program began to be published, our understanding of housing mobility has become increasingly sophisticated. These programs are not the ultimate “solution” to urban poverty and segregation, but they are crucially important for the families who choose to participate, and they are an important step toward more equitable and integrated metropolitan regions. There will surely be a need for further research, but we have learned enough about the dynamics of housing mobility and its relation to health, education, child development, and employment, to begin to design the next generation of housing mobility programs.”

Project Choice Campaign: Boston’s METCO Program–Lessons for the Hartford Area (Erica Frankenberg, September 2007)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The racial segregation and inequality of the Boston metropolitan area is well-documented. This is true when examining residential patterns, the workforce, and educational access and opportunity. The tumultuous school desegregation battle that was waged in Boston gained national headlines in the 1970s, and decades later large shares of Boston area minority residents report that they feel unwelcome in a Boston metropolitan area that is overwhelmingly white. Given this landscape, perhaps it is not surprising that Boston’s urban-suburban school desegregation program—begun by black leaders and parents as “a partial and temporary remedy” to the segregated, unequal Boston schools in the mid-1960s—recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Its longevity and popularity demonstrate its importance to generations of Boston-area families.”

Project Choice Campaign: Improving and Expanding Hartford’s Project Choice Program (Erica Frankenberg, September 2007)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The Project Choice program, which provides integrated school opportunities for Hartford schoolchildren throughout the region, is an integral part of the State of Connecticut’s response to the 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill school decision. The Choice program has been overshadowed by the larger interdistrict magnet school program, but like the magnet program, Project Choice has also lagged in its growth – leaving the state well short of its desegregation goals. Simply put, suburban districts in the region have not yet provided a sufficient number of seats to meet the student demand for the program. However, local districts do not make such decisions in a vacuum – there are important issues of funding, transportation, student support, coordination and capacity that have to be addressed by the state before the program can grow to its full potential. This study explored these issues in depth and includes recommendations to improve and expand the Project Choice program for participating towns and students.”

Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans : Final Conference Report of the New Orleans Health Disparities Initiative (PRRAC, Alliance for Healthy Homes, the Center for Social Inclusion, & the Health Policy Institute, May 2007)
Edited by Marcheta Gillam, Steve Fischbach, Lynne Wolf, Nkiru Azikiwe, and Philip Tegeler.
Excerpt: “Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma opened our eyes to vast poverty in our rich nation. The storms and the flooding from New Orleans’ broken levees drew national attention to this poverty, albeit briefly and without an explanation of why so many of our poor are people of color and what it means for all of us. While New Orleans certainly has a unique history and culture, its racialized poverty and history of disinvestment in communities of color is not unique. The story of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is also the story of cities throughout our country.”

New Directions for U.S. Housing Policy (Philip Tegeler, 2007)
Published in The Erosion of Rights: Declining Civil Rights Enforcement Under the Bush Administration (A Citizen’s Commission on Civil Rights Report).
Synopsis: All government housing programs operate in the context of housing markets that tend to sort people by race and class, a tendency that is further distorted by government interventions like delegation of zoning authority to local jurisdictions, drawing of school district boundaries, siting of public housing, and subsidization of sprawl to distort property values on the metropolitan periphery.

Are States Using the Low Income Tax Credit to Enable Families with Children to Live in Low Poverty and Racially Integrated Neighborhoods? (PRRAC & National Fair Housing Alliance Report, July 2006)
By Jill Khadduri, Larry Buron, and Carissa Climaco.
Excerpt: “The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) produced nearly 1.3 million units of rental housing between the start of the program, in 1987, and 2003, surpassing the size of the public housing program. In recent years, some 100,000 units per year have been “placed in service,” which means that construction was completed and families and individuals were able to live in the units (Climaco, Nolden, et al., 2006). At that pace, the total number of US rental housing units produced by the LIHTC is projected to have reached 1.5 million by 2005.”

A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda (Edited by Rachel Bratt, Michael Stone, & Chester Hartman, February 2006)
Temple University Press.
Excerpt:“In the 1949 Housing Act, Congress declared ‘a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family’ our national housing goal. Today, little more than half a century later, upwards of 100 million people in the United States live in housing that is physically inadequate, unsafe, overcrowded, or unaffordable. The contributors to A Right to Housing consider the key issues related to America’s housing crisis, including income inequality and insecurity, segregation and discrimination, the rights of the elderly, as well as legislative and judicial responses to homelessness. The book offers a detailed examination of how access to adequate housing is directly related to economic security. With essays by leading activists and scholars, this book presents a powerful and compelling analysis of the persistent inability of the U.S. to meet many of its citizens’ housing needs, and a comprehensive proposal for progressive change.”

Poverty & Race in America: The Emerging Agendas (PRRAC, February 2006)
The 3rd “Best of Poverty & Race” volume edited by Chester Hartman with a foreword by Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
Description: Features over six dozen pieces originally published in Poverty & Race between mid-2001 and 2005, with sections covering Race/Racism, Poverty, Education, Housing, Health, and Democracy. The 91 contributors to the collection represent the best of progressive thought and activism on America’s two most salient, and seemingly intractable, domestic problems.

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina (Edited by Gregory Squires & Chester Hartman, 2006)
Published in Routledge.
Synopsis: There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster is the first comprehensive critical book on the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The disaster will go down on record as one of the worst in American history, not least because of the government’s inept and cavalier response. But it is also a huge story for other reasons; the impact of the hurricane was uneven, and race and class were deeply implicated in the unevenness.

Keeping the Promise: Preserving and Enhancing Housing Mobility in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program: Final Conference Report of the Third National Conference on Housing Mobility (PRRAC, December 2005)
Edited by Philip Tegeler, Mary Cunningham, and Margery Austin Taylor.
Excerpt: “This report is an attempt to capture—and update—the best insights of the Third National Conference on Housing Mobility, hosted by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and held at the Urban Institute in December 2004. The authors represented in this report are a cross-section of scholars and activists working to improve housing choices for low-income families. Although the details are often complex, the basic messages of the report are simple: housing mobility works; it is feasible to implement; and it is now at great risk of being dismantled as a federal policy.”

Launching the National Fair Housing Debate: A Closer Look at the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement (Sara Asrat & Philip Tegeler, December 2005)
A PRRAC Report.
Excerpt: “The struggle for open housing begun by the Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966 is still very much in progress, in Chicago and across the country. If the aims of the Freedom Movement were overly ambitious, one can only fault its leaders – as one black reader did in a letter to the Chicago Tribune – for giving “too much credit to human nature.”

Lawyers and Social Change: Taking the Long View in Baltimore (Phillip Tegeler & Michael Sarbanes, September 2005)
Published in Next American City.
Excerpt: “THIS PAST JANUARY, A FEDERAL JUDGE in Baltimore, Marvin Garbis, issued a major housing desegregation ruling that explores the ways in which many American metropolitan areas have become—and stay—so racially and economically segregated. The lawsuit, Thompson v. HUD, was filed by the Maryland ACLU more than ten years earlier, on behalf of a class of African-American public housing residents in Baltimore. Thompson challenged the government’s policy of socially engineering the ghetto: the plaintiffs claimed that the city and housing authority acted in concert with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over many decades to create a deeply segregated system of public housing, one in which project siting decisions were largely driven by the desire to avoid community opposition in white neighborhoods. Attorneys were already preparing for the case in the early-1990s, but expedited their filing of it when the Baltimore city government demolished a high-rise public housing development and made plans to locate replacement housing in neighborhoods with similar levels of segregation. In its decision, the court did not find the city and local housing authority liable, but instead focused responsibility squarely on HUD, which had both the power and duty to provide housing choices for low-income African American residents outside of segregated, high poverty zones in the city.”

The Persistence of Segregation in Government Housing Programs (Philip Tegeler, July 2005)
Published in The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America (2005). Edited by Xavier de Souza Briggs, Brookings Press.
Description: The book explores the many facets of metropolitan segregation and opportunity and provides an excellent overview of the most important new research and policy work in this area.

“The Last and Most Difficult Barrier”: Segregation and Federal Housing Policy in the Eisenhower Administration, 1953-1960 (Arnold R. Hirsch, March 2005)
A PRRAC Report. By Arnold R. Hirsch, Department of History University of New Orleans.
Excerpt: “It has been more than a generation since the Kerner Commission rendered its judgment on the riotous 1960s. Stunning then, passe now, the exhaustive report on urban America’s defining mid-century civil disturbances pointed an accusatory finger at the nation’s dominant majority. In words both familiar and forgotten, the investigative tribunal charged that “white society [was] deeply implicated in the ghetto.” “White institutions created it,” the Commission concluded, “white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.”

An Analysis of the Thompson v. HUD Decision (PRRAC, February 2005)
Excerpt: “Thompson v. HUD was filed in 1994 on behalf of a class of African American public housing residents. Like several other public housing desegregation cases, the Thompson case was triggered by the demolition of a high rise public housing development, with plans to locate replacement housing in neighborhoods with similar levels of segregation. And like many of the other cases, as part of the challenge to this policy of rebuilding the ghetto, the plaintiffs included a larger historical claim that the city and housing authority, with HUD approval, acted in concert over many decades to create a deeply segregated system of public housing, with project siting decisions largely driven by community opposition in white neighborhoods, in the context of a central city housing authority with limited jurisdiction over housing development outside its own city limits.”