January 30, 2020

On Tuesday, the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council announced that its Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority will form a first-of-its-kind, regional “Moving to Work” agency. This is the first use of a 2015 law allowing nearby housing authorities to join together to form regional agencies. The partnership’s first priority is creating a shared pool of Section 8 housing vouchers and streamlining the processes by which the 44,000 people they serve can move throughout the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area.

Recent data indicate that an uptick in California’s train-related mortality rate is connected to the state’s homelessness crisis. The number of recorded people hurt or killed on state rail lines increased by 84 people from 2017 to 2018. Researchers posit that decreasing tolerance for homeless people occupying public parks and city sidewalks have led people to seek refuge near train tracks, increasing their vulnerability and creating a locomotive “public health crisis,” according to Farhad Mansourian, general manager of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit. 

The Houston Housing Authority recently announced plans to build two mixed-income apartment complexes in the Second Ward’s gentrifying East End neighborhood, a historically working-class, Latinx community. The complex could help counter the predicted displacement of low-income families from their longtime neighborhood, and would include units for families earning less than 30 percent of the area median income. In response to opposition, experts, such as Kyle Shelton, deputy director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, say that research shows “there aren’t really negative impacts [of low-income units], on everything from property values to schools.”

Boston and Philadelphia recently announced they will both be launching local rent-subsidy programs in an attempt to supplement federal vouchers in the face of increasing unaffordability. Other cities that offer local rent subsidies include Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Portland, and Washington, DC. The $2 million Philadelphia program will provide vouchers of up to $300 for low-income renters.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Annual Homeless Assessment Report found that though Black people make up 13 percent of the US population, they represent half of the homeless population. The figures reflect poverty status statistics according to race. Although white and Latinx people make up a larger share of the population, Black people experienced more poverty in the past year than any other minority group. Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said that the report is “an urgent call to action.”