Welcome to the Equitable Housing Institute 

“Housing is a necessary of life.”
United States Supreme Court
Block v. Hirsch, 256 U.S. 135, 156 (1921)
(per Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)

 Featured Articles

U.S. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HOLDS HEARING ON EHI’S DRAFT ECONOMIC FAIR HOUSING ACT

On October 15, 2021, a Congressional subcommittee heard Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, testify in support of the proposed Economic Fair Housing Act (EFHA). Its provisions were proposed initially by EHI, and EHI assisted Mr. Kahlenberg with his hearing preparation.

Mr. Kahlenberg, who has spearheaded the public advocacy for the EFHA, testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance. He pointed out that exclusionary housing practices have a severe and ever-increasing impact on housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income Americans. He also noted that those practices have disproportionate effects on members of minority groups.

Mr. Kahlenberg also pointed out that the EFHA differs from the numerous other proposals that he testified about (including the Biden Administration’s proposals) because the EFHA would contain strong enforcement provisions (the same ones already in the Fair Housing Act)—and would expand them to cover exclusionary housing practices against all low- and moderate-income Americans. For more, please click on CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON EHI STATUTORY PROPOSAL. 

DECEMBER 2021 EHI UPDATE AVAILABLE

You may access it here. 

FEDERAL EVICTION MORATORIUM RULED INVALID BY U.S. SUPREME COURT

The revised moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on August 3, was ruled invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court on August 26. Further information on the status of evictions, and measures to prevent them, is available through organizations such as the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. See, e.g., https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/national-eviction-moratorium. 

EHI ISSUES REPORT ON DISPLACEMENT PROBLEMS IN GENTRIFYING, URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Resistance by local residents to proposals for new housing in their vicinity is the chief, underlying obstacle to housing stability, fairness and affordability for low- and moderate-income Americans—and an increasing proportion of middle-income Americans. Exclusionary zoning and other regulatory barriers to needed housing growth tend to flow from concerns of current residents about possible adverse effects on them from new development in their vicinity. 

An increasingly frequent concern of low- and moderate-income city dwellers in recent years has been displacement from their neighborhoods, as a result of gentrification (an influx of higher-income people into a lower-income neighborhood).

EHI issued a report in June on Approaches to resolving displacement concerns in gentrifying, urban neighborhoods. It discusses a range of strategies for preventing or minimizing displacement. The report focuses on several anti-displacement strategies that sometimes may be crucial to the wellbeing of residents at risk of displacement, and also to minimizing resistance by residents to new development in their neighborhood--including needed, new housing. 

In EHI's view, strong anti-displacement policies in gentrifying, urban neighborhoods can promote greater residential mobility for minority group members, more integrated housing, and a healthier, more stable and affordable residential market. To do so, however, we think they should be part of an effective, overall strategy to cure the shortages of housing affordable to low- and moderate-income people--and to end housing discrimination--throughout the jurisdiction. To access EHI’s new report, you may click on Resolving displacement concerns in gentrifying, urban neighborhoods.

Century Foundation report highlights advantages and challenges OF EHI’s draft Economic Fair Housing Act

In April 2021, The Century Foundation (TCF), a major American think tank focusing on social policy, issued a report on several new legislative approaches to reducing exclusionary housing practices. Among those approaches is EHI’s initial draft Economic Fair Housing Act.

The TCF report highlights many advantages to an Economic Fair Housing Act, as well as five key challenges that such a proposal will have to address. The report stems from a December 2020 Roundtable of housing and land use experts, which it hosted, and at which EHI presented its initial draft EFHA provisions.

The report’s author, TCF Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg, summarized its findings in an op-ed in the New York Times. He argued that President Biden should add an Economic Fair Housing Act to his housing agenda. Mr. Kahlenberg noted that the statute envisioned by TCF and EHI is unique among major, current housing proposals because it would: (1) ban exclusionary housing practices unlawful across the board, and (2) provide among its remedies a right of legal action by people discriminated against, comparable to the one that victims of racial discrimination currently can use under the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

One of the major challenges to an EFHA is the risk of displacement of low- and moderate-income urban dwellers due to gentrification—even as needed housing is added in their neighborhoods. EHI’s June 2021 report, Approaches to resolving displacement concerns in gentrifying, urban neighborhoods (mentioned above) addresses that challenge in detail.  

During the rest of 2021, EHI will continue work on other key challenges to enactment of an EFHA. For more specifics about TCF’s report, you may click on CENTURY FOUNDATION SUPPORTS EHI DRAFT ECONOMIC FAIR HOUSING ACT.

EHI ISSUES INITIAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STATUTE TO BAN EXCLUSIONARY HOUSING PRACTICES COMPREHENSIVELY

Major reform of land use regulations is needed, in order to combat exclusionary zoning and other economically exclusionary housing practices. There is an emerging consensus to that effect among housing policy experts, economists, and even Presidents of the United States—across the political spectrum. (For more about that virtual consensus, please click on EMERGING CONSENSUS ON REGULATORY BARRIERS TO HOUSING AFFORDABILITY.)

In response, EHI issued a preliminary report in December 2019 that contained its initial recommendations for a new statute that would ban exclusionary and discriminatory housing practices comprehensively—including economically exclusionary housing practices. Such a statute could be enacted by any state, or by the federal government (in a somewhat different form). To access that report, please click on TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE BAN ON EXCLUSIONARY HOUSING PRACTICES.

In November 2020, EHI prepared initial provisions toward a federal legislative proposal on the subject, with explanatory comments. To access that document, please click on ECONOMIC FAIR HOUSING ACT DRAFT PROVISIONS--NOV. 2020. 

Disparate impacts of Covid-19 on minority groups INCLUDE GREATER EXPOSURE DUE TO UNHEALTHY HOUSING CONDITIONS

In the United States, the Covid-19 pandemic has been exceptionally disruptive for the Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic communities. For example, as of July 2020:

• Black people were more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as White people.
• Indigenous people accounted for more than 56 percent of Covid deaths in New Mexico (home to part of the Navajo Nation), although indigenous people were only 8.8 percent of the state’s population.
• Hispanic Americans between the ages of 40 and 59 had been infected at a rate five times greater than White people in the same age group, nationwide.

Actually, the available statistics likely understate the disparate impacts of Covid substantially, because many states are inadequately reporting demographic data for Covid-related cases and deaths among minority group members. 

An important factor in Covid's disparate impacts is that a much higher proportion of minority group members have to live in overcrowded and/or substandard housing. That problem compounds other disparate impacts of the pandemic--such as the facts that people of color are more likely to: (1) have “essential” jobs in crowded workplaces; (2) rely on crowded public transportation; and (3) suffer from pre-existing health conditions. Studies have linked many of those pre-existing conditions to substandard and overcrowded housing.

Economically exclusionary housing practices are a major cause of the disproportionate housing problems of minority group members. Those practices (exclusionary zoning and other, overly-restrictive, housing-related practices) prevent the building and preservation of sufficient amounts of housing affordable to low- and moderate-income Americans—especially in and near high-opportunity communities. Also, by pushing housing prices up, those policies prevent many low- and moderate-income families with children from accessing adequate housing units. 

In Summer 2020, EHI law clerk Jesse Brennan documented disparate racial impacts of Covid-19, and the relationship of those disparate impacts to housing problems. To access that memorandum, please click on RACE, COVID-19, AND HOUSING. For more on the health-related effects of exclusionary housing practices, please click on CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT & XHPs.