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

Federation of American Scientists Brief and Showcase: "America Needs A National Housing Loss Rate"

📑 Read the policy brief here.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) selected FLH's policy proposal to create a National Housing Loss Rate as a winner of its “Creative Thinking To Boost Housing Supply” ideas challenge. We argue that just as America has a national unemployment rate, if we want to get serious about stemming our housing crisis then we need a National Housing Loss Rate to track how, where, and why 10 to 20 million Americans lose their homes each year. 

On February 29th, Yuliya Panfil presented the proposal at a showcase hosted by FAS (pictured above). Panfil also wrote an OpEd for InsideSources ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union Address to highlight the need for this national metric. Read the FAS brief here, and see the full list of FAS-selected proposals here.

Blog Post: "How to Use ARPA Funds to Improve Local Eviction Data"

📑 Read the full blog post here.

Last month, FLH and the National League of Cities held a webinar offering guidance to state and local governments on using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to advance eviction data collection and analysis. Gathering and analyzing eviction data can help jurisdictions craft better policies and more effectively target resources to those most in need. FLH Policy Associate Helen Bonnyman wrote a blog post highlighting key takeaways and useful resources for cities, counties and states wanting to improve data infrastructures to prevent housing loss.  

Foreign Policy Article: "Ukrainians Are Using an App to Return Home"

📑 Read the full article here. 

FLH Director Yuliya Panfil and New America’s Digital Impact and Governance Initiative Senior Advisor Allison Price co-wrote an article in Foreign Policy showcasing the ways in which Ukraine’s eRecovery program is transforming the post-conflict property compensation and return process. eRecovery is the world’s first-ever example of a government compensation program for damaged or destroyed homes rolled out digitally, at scale, in the midst of a war. According to Ukraine’s Housing, Land and Property Technical Working Group, since its launch last summer the eRecovery program has processed more than 83,000 compensation claims for damaged or destroyed property and paid out more than 45,000. 

New America Presents FEAT at NICAR Journalism Conference

🗺️ Explore the Foreclosure and Eviction Analysis Tool (FEAT) here.

New America hosted a hands-on workshop at the 2024 NICAR conference–an annual conference for data journalists, on March 9th, in Baltimore, Maryland. The workshop taught journalists reporting on housing loss in their local communities to source court eviction and foreclosure data and use FEAT to analyze this data to contextualize their reporting. FEAT is an easy-to-use web tool, developed in partnership with DataKind, that allows users to better understand where housing loss is most acute, when during the year housing loss rises and falls, and who is most impacted.

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

Storymap: Owned Away from Home: Using data on street addresses, land use classifications, property tax bill mailing addresses, and more, the researchers at the company Regrid were able to evaluate where ownership sits for approximately 95 million residential properties, comprising 85% of US housing. They found that 5% of US housing stock is owned by out of state owners, and 20% is owned by investors who live in a different zipcode within the same state. California homes have the smallest proportion of out of state owners, while Washington D.C., the US Virgin Islands, Nevada and Florida have the largest. As concerns mount over corporate real-estate buy-ups and predatory out of state landlords, this sort of mapping effort is critical in establishing a baseline and understanding local investment dynamics.

Helen Bonnyman

New York Times: A Life Without a Home: A record number of Americans are experiencing homelessness as our country's housing crisis continues. The most recent Point-In-Time Count, the annual census localities conduct of residents experiencing homelessness, revealed the highest number of unhoused people since the count began in 2007. Unhoused individuals are often left out of policy discussions about homelessness, despite being subject matter experts on the topic. This interactive New York Times OpEd compiles interviews, photos, and writings from people experiencing homelessness in a variety of ways (in a shelter, in a car, in a tent, in a motel, or doubled-up with a relative or friend). 

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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