Dear friend,

Welcome to Frontier, the monthly newsletter from the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America.

Here's what we've been up to:

What We're Doing

Route Fifty OpEd—"There's One Year Left to Turn the Corner On Evictions"

📑 Read the OpEd.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and fears of an "eviction tsunami," the city of Alexandria, Virginia used funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to stand up a local eviction database. The new tool helped policymakers, housing advocates, and legal aid organizations develop data-driven responses to housing insecurity and keep citizens in their homes. 

Other jurisdictions can follow Alexandria's example, but time is running out to obligate $350 billion unspoken for ARPA funds by the end of 2024. FLH director Yuliya Panfil and Georgetown Law fellow Karen Lash wrote for Route Fifty, about the different ways that local governments can use ARPA funding to build their capacity around collecting, sharing, and analyzing eviction data.

FLH Welcomes Helen Bonnyman as Policy Associate

📑 Read Helen's bio.

FLH is excited to welcome Helen Bonnyman as our team's new Policy Associate, with a focus on U.S. housing policy. Helen previously worked on the policy team of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in Houston, Texas, where she researched and developed public programming related to housing, early childhood, and supportive services. 

New Resource—How to Leverage Funding and Technical Assistance to Improve Local Eviction Data

📑 Download the PDF.

Communities use eviction court records to track who is being evicted where, develop effective interventions, and build momentum for housing policy reform. But access and quality of this data varies across the United States.

Building off our 2021 work, FLH and a coalition of housing experts and municipal leaders have released recommendations for how to unlock local access to, and build capacity for analyzing and using eviction data—and how to fund these efforts.

What We're Reading

FLH staff share what has stood out to them lately on land, housing, and property rights in the U.S. and internationally.

Yuliya Panfil

About 3 million Americans are already "climate migrants," analysis finds. Here's where they left.: A major U.S. study has found that, already, more than 3 million Americans are climate migrants. The report, authored by researchers at the First Street Foundation, found that chronic flooding has already caused 3.2 million Americans to permanently leave their homes. Domestic climate migration is projected to increase significantly in the coming decades, displacing as many as 50 million Americans by 2050. As wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other climate-driven disasters cause millions of Americans to relocate to less climate-vulnerable cities and towns, these receiving cities must begin to plan for population inflows. Decisions that receiving cities make now about how to expand their housing stock, public infrastructure, and economic opportunities will determine the degree to which they can accommodate new arrivals without displacing existing residents. 

Sabiha Zainulbhai

The Real-Estate Fund Buying Up Homes in Top School Districts: This New York magazine article elucidates a new trend in investor-owned real estate: purchasing single-family homes in top-performing school districts. It highlights the business model of a Chicago-based real estate investor who is capitalizing on two market needs: the dire need for rental housing and the desire to be in a good school district. However, unlike most hedge funds and private equity firms that largely buy in neighborhoods that are less expensive (so they can purchase in all-cash) and where rental prices are on the rise, this investor is purchasing homes in well-off suburbs with million dollar list prices, and where the school’s have excellent test scores, rankings, and admissions into top-tier colleges. Does this model reflect an innovative solution to an ever-increasing problem in the housing market, or a troubling trend of institutional investors expanding their reach into the market for single-family homes?

Tim Robustelli

The Big City Where Housing Is Still Affordable: Large cities across the developed world suffer from a lack of affordable housing. In part, that’s because places like New York and London stopped building public transit lines surrounded by apartment complexes, which previously helped to keep the cost-of-living low. But not Tokyo, which continues to expand its subway system and sprout nearby high-rises. In the past 50 years, the megalopolis has added more homes than the total number of units in all of NYC. How? Japan’s unrestrictive national zoning law, along with low barriers for private development and a cultural preference for new housing, means a decades-long housing boom in Tokyo. Minimum wage workers can comfortably afford to live in the Japanese capital as a result. The approach does have its drawbacks—less green space and smaller apartments—and it's still by far the most expensive city in Japan. Yet Tokyo is an enticing long-term example for other global cities experiencing severe housing crunches.

Thoughts on our work or where we're headed? Reach out to us at FLH@NewAmerica.org or tag us at @FLHatNewAmerica.

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 land and housing rights challenges, both in the United States and internationally. Through our research and writing, convening, and collaboration with civic innovators worldwide, we strive to connect new constituencies, shed light on underreported issues, and implement creative approaches in the property rights space.

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