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Research & Policy
Rent Regulation for the 21st Century
A primary goal of rent regulation is to protect low-income renters from unexpected spikes in their monthly housing costs. As a solution to housing instability, however, rent regulation has several potential drawbacks: it can reduce the overall supply or quality of rental housing; it can create a two-tiered system that leaves tenants in unregulated housing unprotected; and it often benefits higher-income, rather than lower-income households. The policy brief instead recommends pairing broad-based anti-gouging rent regulation paired with targeted subsidies as the best way to stabilize low-income renters while avoiding the drawbacks of strict, broad rent regulation and means testing.
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Research & Policy
Bolstering the Housing Safety Net: The Promise of Automatic Stabilizers
In a new paper published by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, Robert Collinson, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Benjamin J. Keys propose three stabilizers that build on the lessons of the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic to backstop housing before the next crisis hits.
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Rent Payments in a Pandemic: Analysis of Affordable Housing in New York City
One of the most pressing housing policy questions in the wake of COVID-19 is how rent payment rates have changed during the pandemic. In a new report, we analyzed rental payments from over 18,500 primarily below-market rate units from New York City to understand how renters’ payment rates and rental arrears evolved during the health crisis.
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Research & Policy
Advancing Racial Equity in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs
To explore inequities in housing insecurity and inaccessibility of housing assistance faced disproportionately by Black, Latino, and Native American renters—issues that existed prior to and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic—the NYU Furman Center, The Housing Initiative at Penn, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition collaborated on a research brief: “Advancing Racial Equity in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs.”
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Learning from Emergency Rental Assistance Programs Lessons from Fifteen Case Studies
The NYU Furman Center together with the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP), and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) surveyed 220 rental assistance programs and conducted hour-long interviews with program administrators of 15 select programs. A year into the pandemic, we summarize some of the key takeaways necessary to craft and implement efficient, responsive, and equitable emergency rental assistance.
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COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance: Analysis of a National Survey of Programs
To better understand how government agencies and their partner organizations responded to the explosion of rental needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NYU Furman Center, the Housing Initiative at Penn, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition collaborated on a research brief, “COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance: Analysis of National Survey of Programs.”
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NYU Furman Center Comments on Intro 1572-A
The NYU Furman Center submitted a public comment on Intro 1572-A suggesting ways in which the bill can better address racial inequity under the NYC housing system. The testimony, authored by Executive Director Matthew Murphy, Legal Fellow Noah Kazis, and Senior Policy Fellow Mark A. Willis, recognizes and endorses the need to study and identify where our land use system exacerbates racial inequality and how it can reduce it.
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Data Updates
Data Update: Rental Assistance Need and Federal ERA Allocation in New York State
Last December’s stimulus package from the federal government provided much-needed federal resources for rental assistance, however the method for allocating the funding across states and cities is key for ensuring a fair distribution of the limited funds. The stimulus package extended the eviction moratorium for one additional month, and provided $25 billion in rental assistance to states and localities through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Localities with populations of at least 200,000 can apply to the Treasury Department for direct assistance, which will be allocated according to a formula based on population share. However, direct assistance is limited to 45 percent of the localities’ population share, well short of potential need.
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Housing Characteristics of Small and Mid-Sized Cities
In this post, we examine the population and housing characteristics in small and mid-sized cities in order to better understand their potentially unique needs and solutions. We focus on key indicators used to assess local housing needs and guide housing policy strategies and compare them across small, small-mid, mid-sized, and large cities. For these four groups of cities, we examine average population changes, rent levels and rent burdens by income, racial gaps in homeownership, and principal city/suburban rent differences.
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News & Events
Under One Roof: Building an Abolitionist Approach to Housing Justice
The NYU Furman Center hosted this virtual event, comprised of two panel discussions. The first panel provided a history and overview of abolitionist concepts, from the end of chattel slavery to present day impacts of American segregation. The second panel explored the application of an abolitionist lens to address racial injustice in the field of housing policy today.
