Dear friend,

Welcome to Frontier, the monthly newsletter from the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America. This month, we've continued our research on innovative lending for homeownership in low-income communities, and are helping to analyze first steps for reclaiming property in post-war Ukraine. We're also getting ready for a busy fall.

🔊 Look out for a number of upcoming FLH events, including a webinar on eviction record sealing and a partnered event series with USAID that explores the intersections between land, climate change, and conflict, in the coming months.

Here's what else we've been up to:

What We're Doing

Improving Eviction Data 2.0

As rental costs soar and COVID-era protections lapse, U.S. eviction filings are returning to pre-pandemic levels and threatening housing security throughout vulnerable communities. High-quality and accessible eviction data is critical to better understand and address this challenge, through more targeted outreach and aid.

Last week, we brought together new and familiar partners to advance the Eviction Data Recommendations released by New America and several other organizations last year, and subsequently adapted by HUD in a report to Congress on the feasibility of creating a national eviction database. This coalition of partners will meet regularly to share insights and best practices for improving access to eviction data and work towards a "Version 2" of the Eviction Data Recommendations.

If you're interested in joining these efforts, please reach out to FLH Senior Policy Analyst Sabiha Zainulbhai at zainulbhai@newamerica.org.

Participatory Land Mapping in Tanzania

Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) is a blend of participatory mapping approaches and flexible technical tools developed by USAID to help communities map and document their land rights. In rural Tanzania, USAID implemented MAST to register land in less time, at lower cost, and with higher participation from women than traditional mapping methods. Between 2016 and 2021, the Agency helped deliver more than 100,000 customary land ownership documents throughout the country using MAST.

As a partner on the Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) activity, FLH developed an infographic that highlights the achievements of MAST in Tanzania. 

Access the infographic here, and keep an eye out for future resources on participatory land mapping.

FLH's Research on "Managed Retreat" Cited in NYT

Last fall, FLH Fellow Fanilla Cheng published a brief examining the U.S. government's policy for relocating people and property away from climate-vulnerable coasts and floodplains. Known as "managed retreat," the approach is quite rare in practice, due to insufficient funding and planning, political divisiveness, and community push-back. But as climate impacts such as hurricanes and sea-level rise worsen, should managed retreat become more common?

Fanilla's brief was recently cited in a New York Times OpEd arguing that both the federal government and disaster-prone communities must more seriously consider the use of managed retreat in the coming decades.

You can read the short piece here, and find Fanilla's research here.

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

British Columbia delays promised protections as old growth keeps falling: Two years ago, British Columbia’s majority party promised to conserve the province’s remaining old growth forests, which serve as critical carbon sinks and wildlife habitats. But the news outlet Mongabay has since observed dramatic clear cutting of these endangered resources. Logging, including of old growth trees, is pervasive in British Columbia, and Indigenous leaders are often responsible for deciding how much logging to allow. The challenge is that many of these tribes depend on logging revenue derived from their lands. This Catch-22 is felt by local communities around the world, and exposes the puzzle at the heart of conservation and land use decisions: How to demonstrate that forests are worth more alive than dead?

Sabiha Zainulbhai

Bank of America’s zero down payment mortgage sounds too good to be true. Is it?: Bank of America recently launched a new mortgage loan for low-and-moderate income buyers, in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities, that requires no down payment, no mortgage insurance, and flexible underwriting. Mike Loftin, CEO of Homewise, a Santa Fe-based community development financial institution, opines on how products that more or less tweak loan offerings within our current financing system will fall short of closing the racial homeownership gap in the U.S. in any meaningful way. While loan products like the one offered by Bank of America will likely help some buyers on the brink of homeownership start to build wealth, overcoming the structural barriers embedded in our existing financing system will require a more robust, systemic, and coordinated effort. If our current patchwork of financing solutions are unlikely to close the racial homeownership gap, what existing or future solutions should we be turning to?

Tim Robustelli

Can D.C.'s 11th Street Bridge Park Lift Up a Neighborhood?: Plans for D.C.’s 11th Street Bridge Park show an attractive green space over the Anacostia River, prime for family strolls, bike rides, and community gatherings. Unsurprisingly, the project is drawing comparisons to New York’s High Line, a runaway success for some but a symbol of gentrification for others. So how is the 11th Street project easing surrounding communities’ concerns about displacement? As Kriston Capps writes for Bloomberg CityLab, project leaders are innovatively engaging with locals, continuously asking for feedback, and investing in nearby neighborhoods. Examples include the Douglass Community Land Trust to build and preserve affordable housing and a partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton to provide in-kind consulting to Black-owned businesses in the area. With construction starting soon, can the project truly break the cycle of trendy urban parks driving up housing costs and forcing out low-income neighbors?

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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