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Dear friend,
Welcome to Frontier, the monthly newsletter from the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America. It’s been a busy month: we published a new report and an OpEd in The New York Times, and held an event with our partners at New America’s New Practice Lab on the distribution of pandemic aid. We're also increasingly engaged with USAID on land and resource governance work.
Here's what we've been up to:
What We're Doing
Displaced in the Sun Belt: Mapping Housing Loss Across the American South
The Future of Land and Housing Program is excited to share Displaced in the Sun Belt, a report that examines evictions and mortgage foreclosures across seven metro areas in the U.S. Sun Belt, home to 17 million people. We chose to work here because our prior research showed that the region had the highest pre-pandemic eviction and foreclosure rates in the country.
Teaming up with the New Practice Lab and DataKind, we analyzed where home loss was most severe between 2017 and 2019, directly before the pandemic hit, and spoke with dozens of stakeholders to understand how COVID-19 was impacting housing stability.
See our findings here.
The U.S. Needs Better Eviction Data to Target Rent Relief
One-third of U.S. counties lack available annual eviction data. Absent reliable, consistent information, the Biden administration, state governments, and cities will be flying blind in 2021 as they try to distribute tens of billions of dollars in rent relief.
Yuliya Panfil co-wrote an OpEd for The New York Times with Eviction Lab’s Peter Hepburn explaining how a national eviction database can help better target rent relief amid COVID-19. Yuliya also co-wrote an OpEd for Bloomberg CityLab with Lauren Lowery from the National League of Cities, focused on U.S. cities' barriers to accessing eviction data.
From Disaster to Recovery: Findings on Housing and Unemployment Aid During COVID-19
The uneven disbursement of housing and unemployment aid from the 2020 CARES Act left the most vulnerable Americans behind, further deepening existing inequities.
Almost a year into the pandemic, what have we learned about delivering aid to those who need it most, and how do we make sure new rounds of rent assistance are distributed in the most equitable way?
FLH and the New Practice Lab hosted an expert discussion including Maurice Jones and Michele Evermore, among others, to explore these critical questions.
A video recording of the webinar is available here.
What We're Reading
"Allow Myanmar ethnic groups to manage their own land" - Thomson Reuters Foundation News
Amid the military coup and widespread protests, Stella Naw writes about a long-standing issue in Myanmar: discriminatory land management. For ethnic minorities in the countryside, especially, survival depends on the ability to access, manage, and protect land and natural resources. Yet the state has historically classified minorities' collective and communal territory as "waste land," allowing for quick grabs by business interests and leading to forced displacement. The author argues that Myanmar will struggle to work as a nation without reform—a reminder that peace and democracy can depend, in part, on equitable land governance.
Teresa Welsh reports that much of Central America is still reeling months after Hurricanes Eta and Iota decimated the region. Many houses and fields remain flooded, meaning that families can't return home and farmers can't grow food. Both large-scale and subsistence agriculture are hurting. In Honduras, for example, there's a predicted 80% rise in unemployment throughout northern banana plantations, while 2.9 million people are at high risk of acute food insecurity. As climate change continues to generate stronger hurricanes, we wonder what land and resource management strategies can help better mitigate the impact of these storms?
"Why Can't the Government Stop Evictions?" - Bloomberg CityLab
The CDC surprised nearly everyone last year when it declared a national moratorium on evictions, citing housing stability as a matter of public health amid COVID-19. Yet the order is relatively lax, and thousands of households are at risk of falling through its loopholes. Kriston Capps, Rachael Dottle, and Allison McCartney examine the national moratorium, as well as the patchwork of state and local actions that are further strengthening tenants' rights. The trio notes that some landlords believe the pandemic-related measures are overly restrictive, while many housing advocates think that stronger rules are still needed. As the crisis continues, we're curious about what solutions can help keep both struggling landlords and renters afloat?
Thoughts on our work or where we're headed? Feel free to reach out to us at FLH@NewAmerica.org.
Until next month, the FLH Team.
About New America
New America is dedicated to renewing the promise of America, bringing us closer to our nation’s highest ideals. We’re a different kind of think tank: one dedicated to public problem solving. Our team of visionary researchers, changemakers, technologists, and storytellers study and seize the opportunities presented by dramatic social and technological change. We search for powerful ideas, wherever they are, and collaborate with civic innovators around the world to develop evidence-based solutions.
The Future of Land and Housing Program at New America aims to help solve today’s property rights challenges, both at home and abroad. Through our research, writing, and convening, we strive to connect new constituencies and shed light on underreported issues in the property rights space.
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