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Research & Policy
NYU Furman Center Comments on HUD’s January 2020 AFFH Proposed Rule
Under the Fair Housing Act and subsequent federal legislation, local jurisdictions that receive federal funding have a duty not just to prohibit discrimination in housing, but also to affirmatively further fair housing. For decades, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) failed to ensure that the recipients of HUD assistance fulfilled their obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing”—to identify and proactively address barriers that would preclude people from accessing housing based on a series of protected characteristics outlined in the 1968 Fair Housing Act as amended: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, and family status. After a promising regulation addressing these longstanding shortcomings was finalized in 2015, HUD proposed a new rule in January 2020 once again overhauling the AFFH regulatory framework, despite the early promise of the 2015 changes. The NYU Furman Center, with MIT Professor Justin Steil, submitted formal comments in response.
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Data Updates
What are the Housing Costs of Households Most Vulnerable to Job Layoffs? An Initial Analysis
As the COVID-19 public health crisis grows in New York City and across the United States, there is significant concern about the economic effect the crisis will have on workers in occupations susceptible to mass layoffs. Workers in a number of sectors face significant income loss due to closures, reduced hours, and cancellations. While a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill that expands unemployment benefits was signed into law last Friday, not all affected workers will have access to the expanded aid. In an effort to understand the scale of the issue and disparities when examining potential impacts by race, we reviewed pre-crisis incomes and housing costs of New York City residents who work in occupations that are more vulnerable to income loss (“vulnerable occupations”).
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Data Updates
New York’s Housing Insecurity By The Numbers
U.S. Congress, New York State, and New York City policymakers are in the process of developing a financial package with programs that will provide emergency housing assistance to address the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on housing stability and the housing market. To help inform these efforts we’ve outlined the following key information about New York City and New York State households and provides context for New York’s unique housing market.
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Research & Policy
Public Housing Repairs and Resident Health
A new study published in Health Affairs, conducted by Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen, researcher Kacie L. Dragan, and NYU Wagner Dean Sherry A. Glied explores whether transferring ownership to private developers, and subsequent housing renovations led to improvements in residents’ health over a three-year period. The authors conclude, “While the ownership transfer and broad-based renovation do not appear to have appreciably influenced any individual health outcome in the three years after renovation, they may have modestly moved the needle on aggregate health.”
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Research & Policy
Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City
While many of the benefits associated with the Housing Choice Voucher Program may help children succeed in school, there is little evidence to date showing impacts on children’s educational outcomes. A new study by NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Keren Mertens Horn, and Sarah A. Cordes fills this gap. Titled “Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City” and published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the paper analyzes whether, and to what extent, vouchers improve educational outcomes for children.
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Research & Policy
Getting Low-Income Families to High-Opportunity Neighborhoods: Results from Small Area FMR
In The Effects of Small Area Fair Market Rents on the Neighborhood Choices of Families with Children , NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen together with Samuel Dastrup and Meryl Finkel of Abt Associates Inc. evaluate how subsidy caps that vary according to ZIP Code alter the pool of affordable units, and whether they influence where families with vouchers live.
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Research & Policy
Reforming Housing Assistance
NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen, along with co-authors Robert Collinson and Jens Ludwig, recently published Reforming Housing Assistance in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In the article, the authors review current federal housing assistance policies and the research evidence supporting each policy. They subsequently identify and propose strategies to address three key challenges these programs face in meeting their stated objectives.
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Research & Policy
Understanding Trends in New York City’s Evictions Data
The NYU Furman Center’s new data brief, “Trends in Housing Court Eviction Filings,” shows that citywide, the total number of eviction filings is decreasing. In 2017, private landlords initiated 176,590 eviction filings, down 4.6 percent from 2016 and 7.8 percent from 2010. Overall, the trends from this study indicate an increase in rental stability from 2010 to 2017, though this stability is not felt evenly throughout the five boroughs.
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News & Events
Understanding HUD’s Proposed Changes to the Disparate Impact Standard
Courts have long recognized that “disparate impacts” constitute a violation of protected rights under the Fair Housing Act. Together with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at U.C. Berkeley, the NYU Furman Center submitted public comments last week arguing against a new rule proposed by HUD on three main grounds.
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Research & Policy
Updating CRA Geography: It’s Not Just About Assessment Areas
NYU Furman Center Senior Policy Fellow Mark A. Willis offers his suggestions on how to effectively modernize one crucial regulation authorized under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Published by the Penn Institute for Urban Research, the paper proposes a method to evaluate the CRA performance of large retail banks that use the internet to serve customers located beyond their branch network.
