Dear friend,

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

🔊 We're hiring! FLH is adding a Policy Associate, U.S. Land and Housing to the team. Apply by October 6th!

🔊 New America is excited to announce its 2024 class of National Fellows! Read about the new class here.

Here's what we've been up to: 

What We're Doing

Towards Uniform Court Eviction Data Standards

📑 Read the eviction data standards.

Millions of families in the United States face eviction each year, and yet, the court data we rely on to understand evictions is commonly incomplete, inaccurate, and inconsistent. That's in large part because there is little guidance for courts on what information to collect and share beyond what is required for internal court operations.

Today, New America, in collaboration with a coalition of housing and data experts, court staff, and municipal leaders, including 11 co-signing organizations, released a minimum set of data standards for eviction court records.  

Learn more about the eviction data standards, how they were developed, and how they can be applied, here. 

FLH Blog—Can California Plan for Equitable Growth in the Face of Climate Migration?

📑 Read the blog post.

California is experiencing some of the "first and worst" impacts of climate change in the country. The decision that communities across the Golden State make right now will help them better understand and plan for the impacts of these population shifts on their housing supply, jobs, and public infrastructure over the coming decades.

This summer, New America partnered with Northern California Grantmakers and Smart Growth California to convene stakeholders and explore meaningful strategies that towns and cities can adopt to prepare for climate-driven migration. 

So how can California communities successfully receive people who move because of climate change?

Tim Robustelli and New America California’s Senior Operations and Multimedia Associate Sarit Del Spina share some key insights from the convening on the FLH Blog.

Community Land Trusts: Housing and Knowledge Commons

📑 Read the book chapter.

A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit entity that holds and manages land for the benefit of a community, acting as a long-term steward of the land and the assets on it. An emerging form of affordable housing, the CLT model is also a classic example of political economist Elinor Ostrom's idea of a commons, in which a valuable resource such as real estate is owned collectively by a community.

This year, FLH program fellow Natalie Chyi and lawyer Dan Wu teamed up to apply Ostrom's principles to the study of CLT. Their research, published as a chapter in Governing Smart Cities as Knowledge Commons, explores how CLTs function both as a housing commons and a knowledge commons, in which information is a shared resource collectively owned and managed by a community.

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

Washington is full of rats. These dogs are happy to help with that.: You might be wondering what this article has to do with land and housing. We could stretch to make a link to code enforcement and housing quality, but the real answer is...absolutely nothing. For those of us in cities, rat season is upon us. For everyone else: enjoy the masterful writing and photojournalism of this Washington Post duo, who descended into the trenches of D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood with the Ratscallions, a team of rat-hunting dogs and their owners.

Tim Robustelli

Mobile homes could be a climate solution. So why don't they get more respect?: Despite their negative stereotypes, experts view mobile homes as a fix to both the U.S. affordable housing crisis and climate change. Newer models are greener, more efficient, and better functioning than older units, and can help to mitigate climate impacts through add-ons such as heat pumps and solar panels. Yet many mobile home parks sit in areas at high risk of flooding and other natural hazards. Park residents are also among the most socioeconomically vulnerable groups in the country. Is there a way to simultaneously boost the quality-of-life and resilience of long-time mobile homeowners while working to tackle housing affordability and climate change?

Jacob Kepes

This is Public Housing. Just Don’t Call It That.: What comes to mind when you think of public housing? Do you imagine “the projects” and high-rises like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago? These images haunt the American psyche and influence policy decisions surrounding public housing—but it doesn’t have to be that way. This New York Times article describes “The Laureate,” a public housing development in Montgomery County, Maryland, that defies what we think of when it comes to public housing. For one, it doesn’t look like public housing. Instead, it has a pool, fireplaces, and common areas like your typical modern apartment complex. This is what public housing can aspire to be, and it doesn’t need to make a profit to be successful. In this era of supply-side arguments to our affordable housing crisis, we need to reconsider what the government can do instead of letting the private market decide.

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.

You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive newsletters from New America. Click to update your subscription preferences or unsubscribe from all New America newsletters.