While experts, speaking at the at the recent ULI Housing Opportunity 2016 conference in Boston, agree that a mixed-income environment is still the best platform to lift people out of poverty, they also said that new approaches and partnerships are needed to deliver on mixed income’s promise of economic mobility and racial and social integration.
A new generation of “social-impact investors” are eager to place their equity in housing as a platform to address a variety of issues they care about, including economic mobility and disparities in health outcomes and educational attainment. Panelists at the recent ULI Housing Opportunity 2016 conference in Boston discussed platforms aimed at expanding the pool of equity investors with the potential to shore up the supply of affordable and workforce housing.
In theory, mixed-income communities offer low-income residents a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder, get a better education, and lead healthier lives. But a look at the data so far shows our current strategies are largely inadequate, said Aaron Seybert, social investment officer at the Kresge Foundation, speaking at the ULI Housing Opportunity Conference in Boston.
A new ULI report describes a variety of public financing tools for cities seeking to reinvent themselves and attract greater private investment. The report, however, is not about any one specific financing tool or taxing mechanism, but about the leadership, strategic vision, and political will necessary to create a plan for reinvention and execute it. Expert panelists discussed how these challenges played out in Pittsburgh; Greenville, South Carolina; and Cincinnati at the recent ULI Housing Opportunity Conference in Boston.
ULI Chicago partnered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to identify barriers to the returning older, historic buildings back to productive use.
A Q&A with Richard Meier, chair of the ULI UK residential council on purpose-built rental housing in the UK and a new guide for UK developers and investors to learn more about this asset class.
In February, Enterprise Community Partners unveiled an ambitious policy platform that is intended to improve the lives and outcomes of housing-insecure families.
Lisa Belkin’s book, Show Me a Hero, was first published in 1999, leading to a 2015 HBO six-part miniseries that dramatized what happened when Yonkers, New York, was ordered by a federal judge in 1985 to end its practice of racially segregating its population through its public housing program and school system.
