September 30, 2021

A new report by Freddie Mac found that homes in Black and Latino neighborhoods were more than twice as likely to be undervalued than homes in white neighborhoods. The report analyzed 12 million appraisals between 2015 and 2020. Though only 7.4 percent of homes in majority-white areas were undervalued, that proportion rose to 12.5 percent and 15.4 percent of homes in Black and Latino areas, respectively. “This is a persistent problem that disproportionately impacts hundreds of thousands of Black and Latino applicants,” said Michael Bradley, a senior vice president at Freddie Mac.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs, awarded the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina a grant that will allow them to double their services to veterans who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. In total, the federal government has awarded $4.4 million in in Tribal HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing grants to 28 tribes and tribally designated housing entities. “There were only five tribes across the nation that got this. It just tells how far our housing department has come. It tells the commitment they have to veterans,” said Lumbee tribal chairman Harvey Godwin Jr.

The number of Americans moving to areas with a history of wildfires increased 21 percent between March 2020 and February 2021. This migration—likely happening in part because of affordability pressures and desires for more space amid the pandemic—raises risks to lives and property, especially as wildfires become more frequent and destructive. “These are places that have burned and will burn again and despite that—despite the very visible indication of that in many cases—people are still moving,” said Kimiko Barrett, a researcher at Headwaters Economics.

Remote and economically distressed areas in Alaska are battling the effects of extreme effects of climate change on housing. The nonprofit Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) is pioneering sustainable and resilient architecture to prepare for the future. It has built 22 prototypes that can withstand high winds, extreme snowfall, and temperature swings. “If we cannot predict what the climate is going to do, then all of our architecture should be adapted,” says Aaron Cooke, CCHRC architect. “Your building has to be able to change.”