Dear friend,

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

🔊 June 5-6: Howard University is hosting the U.S. Conference on Housing, Land, and Property in Crisis Contexts, with FLH director Yuliya Panfil speaking on housing and climate change. Register here!

Here's what we've been up to:

What We're Doing

The First Step to Solving the Housing Crisis Might Be Simpler Than You Think

New America's estimates suggest that the number of Americans who are forced out of their homes each year as a result of evictions, foreclosures, eminent domain, natural disasters and other factors is between 5 million and 10 million—somewhere between the population of Alabama and Michigan. But this estimate relies on incomplete data, various assumptions, and differing methodologies. In reality, we have very little idea of how many people are losing their home at any given time.

In a recent article for Politico, Yuliya Panfil and Sabiha Zainulbhai make the case for better measurement of housing loss in the U.S. Just as we have an unemployment rate, we need a similar metric on the state of housing. A national housing loss rate could be used as a tool for holding decision-makers accountable, and as a way to design responsive, targeted local policies.

Out This Week—Resources on Participatory Mapping

More than 1 billion people around the world lack secure rights to their land, their homes, and the resources they depend on for their livelihoods. Over the last decade, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has worked in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia, among other countries, to strengthen land rights through its Mapping Approaches for Securing Tenure, or MAST. 

MAST blends participatory mapping with flexible technology to help local communities document, manage, and secure their land and resource rights, improving long-term governance of community land and resources. 

As part of our support to USAID's Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) activity, we developed briefs that highlight some critical issues surrounding the implementation of MAST:

• Applying MAST for Enhanced Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Outcomes provides an overview of these participatory mapping efforts as they relate to land rights for women and other marginalized communities.
• Scaling and Sustaining MAST explores how communities, governments, and other stakeholders can continue to use, fund, and scale MAST after initial investments.

Guest Blogger Thierry Hoza Ngoga: "Across Africa, Building a Future-Focused Public Sector"

In this guest blog, Thierry Hoza Ngoga explores the "succession crisis" hampering the public service sector across Africa. Government employees in Africa are, on average, twice as old as the populations they serve. This leads to strained and inefficient program delivery, a reliance on outside consultants, and profound institutional memory loss.

But there’s reason for hope: 60 percent of the continent's population is under 25. These young professionals have the potential to fill capacity gaps and reverse delivery deficits in governments, by embracing technology, innovation, and new ways of working. Moreover, Africa's youth are uniquely positioned to develop locally-driven, context-specific interventions which harness local know-how, are attractive to local communities, and ultimately transform and improve public services.

Read Thierry’s post 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

Land Matters: Can Better Governance and Management of Scarcity Prevent a Looming Crisis in the Middle East and North Africa?: This World Bank report highlights how weak governance contributes to the inefficient and unsustainable use of land, slows economic growth across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and exacerbates conflict. MENA is 84 percent desert and the availability of land is dwindling. Meanwhile, the region’s exploding urban population is causing cities to encroach onto sparse agricultural land. This report considers the nature and causes of land-related challenges across MENA, and what can be done to address them. 

Dona Stewart

Biden announces new fund to help low-income housing get climate upgrades: Under provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will receive $1 billion in funding to make multi-tenant buildings “more energy-efficient, water-efficient and resilient to climate disasters." The program will help shift to green(er) energy, such as solar panels, heat pumps, and improved insulation. In recognition that low-income households are often the least able to recover in the event of a flood, hurricane, or fire, the program seeks to reduce disasters' potential impact through increased resilience. Fireproof shingles to protect against fire and reinforced roofs that can help withstand wind and hurricanes are two such methods listed in this article from The Washington Post.

Sabiha Zainulbhai

Economists Hate Rent Control. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.: This article in The American Prospect debunks several pervasive myths about the negative impacts of rent control—namely that it has a chilling effect on new housing being built and leads to what introductory economic courses refer to as “deadweight loss.” The author also aptly points out that 67 percent of Americans already enjoy rent control–in the form of a 30-year mortgage created and often backed by the federal government. By reframing the rent control narrative from one that tends to focus on theoretical economic models to one that has the potential to share economic gains across tenants and landlords alike, the author makes the case that “the right to stay in one’s home is just as important as the right to move.”

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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