December 09, 2021

Chicago announced a new affordable housing package that will finance 2,400 rental units in two dozen developments across the city. This package is the largest affordable housing project the city has ever approved, worth more than $1 billion in city and federal funds and private money spent on development. “While we’re very excited about the sheer volume of what we’re able to do, it’s also about getting to our mission, which is the equitable distribution of affordable housing across all 77 community areas,” said Marisa Novara, the city’s housing commissioner.

A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found landlords are less likely to respond to applicants with Black- and Latino-sounding names when renting properties. Researchers tracked interactions between property managers and fictious renters with names and found that white-sounding names received a 60 percent response rate, compared with a 54 percent and 57 percent response rate for those with Black- and Latino-sounding names. The persistent bias against renters of color contributes to rising residential segregation and can have a critical impact on residential location choices and access to opportunity.

A new report authored by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a coalition of unhoused residents found nearly 1,500 unhoused people have died on the streets of Los Angeles during the pandemic, with the most common cause of death being accidental overdose. The study found that the average age of unhoused residents who died was 47 years old and that Black residents are disproportionately affected by homelessness, making up 25 percent of all deaths, while constituting only 8 percent of the region’s population. This is largely because of long-standing historical and structural racism. “When people are passing away outdoors and on the sidewalks, that is a failure of the state,” said Chloe Rosenstock, coauthor of the report and an organizer with Street Watch LA, an advocacy group for the unhoused.

Evidence shows early childhood education is positive for children and parents, but its price tag makes it inaccessible for families with low incomes. The pandemic has only created more affordability barriers. Over the summer, a new preschool program opened in Aurora, Colorado that offers free preschool to children who live in subsidized housing and distributes food to their families. Recognizing the gap such programs fill, the state plans to launch universal preschool in 2023.