Addressing the pandemic-exacerbated housing crisis demands an all-hands-on-deck approach. Residents, practitioners, policymakers, funders, and researchers must come together to learn and act in real time to keep renters stably housed. In fact, innovative policy solutions have been designed and implemented over the past two and a half years, and the present moment provides us an opportunity to better understand and assess the effects and future prospects of a more stable and secure housing market for renter families. 

In this context, the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative launched in April 2020 to solicit and respond to the most pressing questions policymakers and practitioners have faced throughout the pandemic. Comprising four research institutions, seven practitioner networks, and multiple partner researchers, the collaborative works in real time to address questions around what forms of rental assistance and eviction prevention show the most promise, how renters are responding to financial stress, how landlords are responding to arrears, and which regulatory and legislative fixes have been most effective.

Join the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative and the Urban Institute for insights from published and upcoming research on how policymakers, researchers, community members, and funders can work together to support renter stability and equitable rental housing in the US during and beyond the pandemic.

Opening remarks

• Solomon Greene, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, US Department of Housing and Urban Development

Panel 1: Leveraging and Learning: How Are Local Governments Using Federal Dollars for Renter Stability?

• Samantha Fu, Policy Associate, Research to Action Lab, Urban Institute

• Elizabeth Kneebone, Assistant Vice President, Community Development Research, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Panel 2: Eviction Prevention after the Emergency Rental Assistance Program

• Alexa Eisenberg, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Poverty Solutions, University of Michigan

• Ray Kong, Legal Director, Lawyers for Equal Justice, Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice

• Katherine M. O’Regan, Professor of Public Policy and Planning, Director of the Master of Science in Public Policy Program, and Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York University

• Zach Neumann, Cofounder, Executive Director, and Attorney, Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project; Nonresident Fellow, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center, Urban Institute (moderator)

Additional speakers to be announced.

Date: Friday, November 19, 2021Time: 12:15-1:15 pm ET

Location: Virtual

Speaker(s): Sharon Cornelissen, Alexander Hermann

The economic impacts of the pandemic have been most acutely felt by Black, Hispanic, and Asian households in the United States. In this talk, Sharon Cornelissen, a Center Postdoctoral Fellow and Alexander Hermann, a Senior Research Analyst at the Center, will report on new research that uses data to measure and better understand racial and ethnic differences in the economic impacts of COVID. Their results indicate that during the second half of 2020 Black, Hispanic, and Asian households were two-to-three times more likely to fall behind on housing payments than white households and while some of these inequalities can be explained by disparities that preceded the pandemic, new pathways created by COVID-19 aggravated housing insecurity for Black, Hispanic, and Asian households.

Registration required

You will need Zoom to attend this event.

Join MBA for another installment in the Convergence webinar series. This webinar will provide an update on Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs including the state of play, best practices, challenges, and more. Panelists will discuss how to effectively distribute ERA funds to help keep residents stably housed through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Note: This webinar is the sixth in a six-part webinar series on “The Physics of Affordable Housing” which features experts speaking on different housing affordability topics.

Each session will be a 45-minute interactive conversation offering a variety of perspectives.

Time

3:00-3:45 PM ET

Objectives

• State of play on Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA)

• The best practices of administering Emergency Rental Assistance

• Challenges Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs) face while trying to administer the funds in an expedient and efficient manner

• Overview of the current ERA regulations from Treasury

• How ERA helps keep people stably housed during a pandemic

Who Should Attend?

• Commercial/multifamily staff

• Commercial/multifamily members

• Members with “Affordable” in their title

Speaker(s)

• Grant Carlson, Policy Advisor, Mortgage Bankers Association

• Sarah Garland, Managing Director, Debt and Structured Finance, CBRE; Co-Chair, MBA's 2022 Affordable Rental Housing Advisory Council (moderator)

• Pamela Kestner, Chief Deputy and Acting Deputy Director of Housing, Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development
  

The American Rescue Plan includes billions of dollars for the housing and education needs of children, youth, and families experiencing homelessness through the Treasury Department’s Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program and the Education Department’s Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP-ESSER) funds. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to significantly reduce homelessness in some communities and end it in others.

In this USICH webinar, presenters will cover:
• An overview of the ERA program;
• An overview of the ARP-ESSER and ARP-HCY funds;
• Promising state and local partnerships between the ERA and the K12 systems; and
• Recommendations for developing these partnerships.

Presenters will include:
• Staff from the departments of Education and Treasury, and the National Center for Homeless Education;
• Leaders from state and local communities with promising partnerships, including Connecticut and Columbus, Ohio; and
• Anthony Love, interim executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH).

Who should attend?
• State Coordinators for Homeless Education
• Local homeless education liaisons
• Other school and district personnel (school counselors, school social workers, teachers, and administrators)
• Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) administrators and practitioners
• Continuum of Care staff
• Child welfare workers

Want to make sure all your questions are answered? Take this 1-minute survey to inform the webinar content: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SX8BNV8.

As more than 1 million homeowners exit forbearance over the coming months, states are solidifying plans to disperse close to $10 billion from the federal Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). The fund is designed to prevent foreclosures, losses of utilities, and other hardships that have emerged during the pandemic. Taking cues from the distribution of emergency rental assistance, as well as the Hardest Hit Fund from the Great Recession, states can deploy these funds most strategically by identifying borrowers at greatest risk of default, as well as by supporting homeowning households of color before time runs out.

Join the Urban Institute for a virtual event exploring the data and geography of distressed borrowers, along with a new tool to help policymakers and agency staff allocate funds. Hear from policymakers, housing industry experts, and state representatives as we discuss challenges, roadblocks, and solutions to deploying these funds.

Join Advocates for Ohio's Future for a webinar about Ohio's $5.36 billion allocation of State Fiscal Recovery Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Since these recovery funds were announced on both the state and local levels, we've seen many local governments reach out to their residents to identify and prioritize the needs of their communities through an open, public, transparent process before deciding on an investment/recovery plan.

In June, Governor DeWine and the General Assembly spent more than two-thirds of Ohio’s first payment of $2.7 billion. They did this with no opportunity for public input. With $850 million remaining of the first payment and $2.7 billion more yet to come, Ohio needs to have a robust state recovery plan. Since there are no plans from the Administration or the General Assembly to hold hearings, we thought we would have one of our own.

AOF members have a lot to say on what everyday Ohioans need for health and economic recovery. Our friends from:
-Ohio Association of Foodbanks
-Children's Defense Fund Ohio
-Ohio Poverty Law Center
-Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio
-Enterprise Community Partners
-The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health and Family Services Providers
-Ohio Council for Home Care & Hospice

...will share their priorities, why investments in their proposal is needed and what impact they will have for the populations they serve. We hope you will join us!

The pandemic-exacerbated housing crisis demands an all-hands-on-deck approach. Residents, practitioners, policymakers, funders, and researchers must come together to learn and act in real time to keep renters stably housed. The Housing Crisis Research Collaborative was launched in April 2020 to solicit and respond to the most pressing questions policymakers and practitioners have faced throughout the pandemic. Comprising four research institutions, seven practitioner networks, and various partner researchers, the collaborative works in real time to address questions around what forms of rental assistance and eviction prevention show the most promise, how renters are responding to financial stress, how landlords are responding to arrears, and which regulatory and legislative fixes have been most effective.

Join the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative and the Urban Institute for insights from published and upcoming research on how policymakers, researchers, community members, and funders can work together to support the stabilization of renters in the US during and beyond the pandemic.

SPEAKERS

• Lisa Bates, Associate Professor, Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University

• Elijah de la Campa, Senior Research Associate in Economics and Urban Analytics, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

• Nathaniel Decker, Postdoctoral Scholar, Terner Center for Housing Innovation, University of California, Berkeley

• Lauren Lowery, Program Director, Housing and Community Development, National League of Cities

• Mark Treskon, Senior Research Associate, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center, Urban Institute

• Reed Jordan, Housing Affordability Grant Program Manager, Wells Fargo (moderator)

• Mercedeh Mortazavi, Vice President, Global Philanthropy, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (moderator)

The economic shock of the pandemic has taken a financial toll on tenants and landlords, including providers of affordable housing. Many housing providers are facing significant financial pressures, from rising insurance rates to declining collections. Providers of affordable housing are navigating significant stresses on their portfolios while continuing to address the needs of their buildings and tenants. In the long run, the challenges facing providers and tenants alike threaten to destabilize the long-term feasibility of the nation’s housing stock. Join Enterprise and other housing providers to learn how they are balancing financial losses to ensure tenants' long-term housing stability – and the impact on affordable housing preservation.

Speakers will include:
Jacqueline Waggoner, President, Enterprise Community Partners Solutions Division
Maria Torres-Springer, Vice President for US Programs, Ford Foundation
Brian McLaughlin, President, Enterprise Community Development
Michael Butchko, Vice President of Business Intelligence, NeighborWorks
Gayle Filo, President, Enterprise Residential
Dontae Latson, Executive Director, Rocky Mountain Communities
Trevor Samios, Senior Vice President of Connected Communities, WinnCompanies

This event is part of a four-part webinar series supported by JPMorgan Chase & Company. Past sessions are on Enterprise Community Partners’ YouTube channel. Our July panel, Eviction Prevention as a Preservation Strategy, examined the link between ensuring residents can remain in their homes and affordable housing preservation. Our August panel, How to Harness the Legal System to Prevent Evictions, considered how the judicial and legal systems can provide an innovative pathway to protect residents from eviction and allow landlords to collect back rent.

*I understand that my registration also subscribes me to future announcements and related content about Enterprise Community Partners.

2021 Eviction Prevention Roundtables 

Hosted by housing stabilization coalition of columbus/franklin county 

To: Property owners and managers with rental properties in Columbus/Franklin County

 

The Housing Stabilization Coalition invites you to participate in virtual Roundtables on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 3:30-4:30p during 2021.

 

The purpose of the Roundtables is to share financial assistance available in Columbus/Franklin County to prevent evictions and learn from your perspectives.

 

Registration is required via the link below: 

·       September 9, 2021 

 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0oduiorjoqG9yZTuJicLBy6_dFV-qq1NcC 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the session.

 

Please email Tiffany Wright, coordinator, Housing Stabilization Coalition, if you have any questions. 

As the nation urgently seeks to prevent renters from losing their homes, the legal and judicial systems offer a viable path to effective eviction-prevention strategies. Even absent legislative changes, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice have made a national call to judges, attorneys and court administrators to institute protocols and practices that ensure household stability.

Join Enterprise as we explore the role the legal and judicial systems play in the eviction process, the impact of court policies and processes on residents, and the safeguards needed to ensure renters in your community can avoid eviction – and create a fairer playing field when eviction filings do happen. Our panel will share a range of strategies and best practices that leaders in the legal system and courts can implement to stem the tide of the pending eviction crisis and provide long-term stability for families.

Panelists:

• Eric Dunn, Director of Litigation, National Housing Law Project
• Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota
• Danielle Hirsch and Zach Zarnow, Principal Court Management Consultants, National Center for State Courts
• Honorable Annette M. Rizzo (Ret.), JAMS (Judicial Arbitration Mediation Services)
• Christine Stoneman, Chief Federal Coordination and Compliance Section, U.S. Department of Justice

This 90-minute webinar is the second in Enterprise’s four-part series on innovative responses to prevent evictions and preserve affordable homes. The series examines the short and long-term impacts of eviction on families and the economic viability of the mom-and-pop owners who represent the nation’s largest sector of property owners. We look at emerging best practices and innovations that promise to create a more equitable housing system. Stay tuned for dates and registration information on the next two events

*I understand that my registration also subscribes me to future announcements and related content about Enterprise Community Partners.

>> TUESDAY, JULY 27TH AT 11:00 AM EST

Join the Frost Brown Todd Project Finance team as they discuss how the American Recovery Plan Act and other COVID recovery measures can be utilized for public-private projects in your community. Demonstrating measured and catalogued impacts of the pandemic will be a key part of ensuring eligibility.

Those in economic development, planning, tourism, hospitality, infrastructure, and the professionals that help finance those industries should consider attending.

Register below for this month's webinar Innovating Cities: Navigating the ARPA Maze on Tuesday, July 27th at 11:00 AM EST.

The COVID relief packages has brought over a billion dollars to our state to help keep Ohioans stably housed. Join COHHIO to hear from local and national experts on how we can invest emergency rental assistance (ERA) dollars as quickly and effectively as possible. We’ll explore innovative ways ERA can be used to address homelessness, and hear Ohio-based providers in urban and rural communities describe how they are deploying these funds to help keep vulnerable residents stably housed during this pandemic and beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many Americans facing severe financial distress and a looming surge in eviction lawsuits due to unpaid rent. Over the past year, 43 states and the CDC temporarily halted evictions by issuing moratoria that prohibited the filing or the enforcement of eviction lawsuits. Currently, however, most state-level moratoria have lapsed, and the federal CDC moratorium is slated to expire on June 30th.   

So what happens next? The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Eviction Lab invite you to participate in an interactive webinar about what state policymakers can do to establish both immediate and long-term solutions to manage the eviction lawsuits that experts warn will soon flood court dockets.   

During the webinar researchers Emily Benfer (Wake Forest University) and Peter Hepburn (Rutgers University-Newark) will present on how states can apply lessons learned from the moratoria to address the eviction crisis moving forward. The presentation will be followed by a panel of leaders from state and local governments across the country, who will share their experiences with adopting policy changes and provide practical tips and strategies for other state leaders exploring this issue.  Panelists will include:  

• Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General

• Anne-Louise Wirthlin, Director of Access to Justice and Strategic Collaboration at Tennessee Courts

• Julie Gonzales, Colorado State Senator

• Mark Dodds, Senior Manager at City of Philadelphia’s Division of Housing and Community Development

The panel will be followed by Q&A session with the researchers and state leaders. Attendees are encouraged to come prepared with specific questions or suggestions they have about eviction policy solutions in their jurisdictions. 

The event will feature the digital release of the Furman Center’s annual State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods in 2020 report, and a panel discussion of the report’s Focus Chapter. Building on original data we gathered in partnership with the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, this year’s Focus Chapter identifies actual rent payment patterns during the pandemic. The pandemic compounded existing inequities across New Yorkers, many of whom struggled to manage monthly rent payments even before the pandemic hit. Our launch event will examine what this means for New York’s renters and the city’s recovery.

DETAILS

Date:April 29Time:2:00 pm - 3:00 pmEvent Category:Upcoming

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated preexisting housing challenges for many low- and moderate-income US renter households, leading to a crisis in which an estimated $25 to $34 billion in rental payments were outstanding as of late 2020. However, there is very little data on how landlords have responded to this financial strain. In this session, Elijah de la Campa, a Senior Research Associate in Economics and Urban Analytics at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, will present preliminary findings from a recent Center-supported survey of landlords in a dozen US cities.  He will present findings on the magnitude of the rent arrears crisis, the steps landlords have been taking in response to loss of income, and their willingness to participate in public and non-profit rental assistance programs.

Join a virtual town hall discussion to learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine. Hear from professionals who work with people facing homelessness about why they made the choice to get vaccinated, and their experience with the vaccine process.

Join NLIHC for a webinar on March 12, 2021 at 1 pm ET to learn how emergency rental assistance programs can incorporate racial equity in their program structure and effectively serve households with extremely low incomes. The panel discussion will feature two successful programs: the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System, led by Destination: Home and Sacred Heart Community Service, and the State of Washington's Eviction Rent Assistance program. Program administrators will share their innovative strategies and lessons learned on how to advance racial equity and serve tenants with the greatest needs in their communities.

Panelists include:

Chad Bojorquez, chief program officer at Destination: Home
Erin Stanton, director of family assistance at Sacred Heart Community Service
Milan Balinton, executive director at African American Community Service Agency
Emily Burgess, performance manager at Washington State Department of Commerce
Kathryn Dodge, grant manager at Washington State Department of Commerce
Rebecca Yae, senior research analyst at National Low Income Housing Coalition (moderator)

With newly-developed vaccines, a recently-approved relief package, and a Biden-Harris Administration, 2021 brings a renewed hope of relief for tens of millions of Americans reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. A flurry of recent legislation aims to provide housing and unemployment relief to our most vulnerable communities. The Federal eviction moratorium has been extended through the end of March 2021, and the most recent stimulus package includes $25 billion in emergency rental assistance. The Continued Assistance Act provides a one-time $600 stimulus payment to qualifying Americans, extends the extra $300 per week of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), and increases Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation.

But as we saw from the highly flawed deployment of CARES Act housing and unemployment aid, if this large-scale roll out of rental assistance and unemployment insurance is not handled correctly, it will leave our most vulnerable residents behind, further deepening existing inequities.

After almost a year of experience, what have we learned about delivering aid to those who need it most? How do we ensure the public is better served by the implementation of policies and services that are intended to benefit them? What can different states and localities learn from each other’s experiences and how can we design better systems to ensure that we move from disaster to recovery in the most equitable way?

Please join New America’s Future of Land and Housing Program and New Practice Lab to explore what went wrong in 2020 - via the recent findings of our Displaced in the Sunbelt report and Unpacking Inequities in Unemployment Insurance report - and hear from housing and unemployment insurance experts on how to improve the roll-out of this critical assistance in 2021.

Not feeling like yourself? You don’t know why? Do you feel this way every year this time? There’s a name for it. Let’s talk about what “It” is, how to recognize it, and how to treat it.

Wellness starts in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. As we have seen while navigating this pandemic, taking care of ourselves by eating well, staying active, not smoking, getting the recommended immunizations and screening tests, and seeing a doctor when we are sick all influence our health.

Our health is also determined in part by access to social and economic opportunities; the resources and supports available in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities, the quality of our schooling, the safety of our workplaces, the cleanliness of our water, food, and air, and the nature of our social interactions and relationships. The conditions in which we live explain in part why some people are healthier than others and why Americans more generally are not as healthy as they could be.

Our Speak Up Speak Out Advocacy series will highlight the importance of understanding how to stay in tune with your mental health and gain tools to advocate on your own or your family’s behalf.

January features Stephanie K. Starks, LISW-S owner and therapist Starks Counseling

“Just the Facts:  You Decide”

The Covid Vaccine and the African American Community

​

African Americans have a long history of skepticism and mistrust of the medical and health care industry.  From the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, The John Hopkins medical invasion of Henrietta Lacks to the recent Coronavirsus Epidemic, African Americans have become increasingly more concerned with trusting the US Medical Industry in its entirety.

​

As Advocates in the area of healthcare reform and equity for multicultural communities, MACC has assembled a national panel of African American doctors for this urgent conversation.  The January MACC Cultural Conversation will focus on the growing concern and resistance within the African American community to the vaccine.  

Join us on Thursday, January 28 at 2pm ET where we will highlight lessons learned and successes in designing and implementing emergency rental assistance programs. In the past year, numerous state and local governments created or expanded emergency rental assistance programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis. University of Pennsylvania’s Housing Initiative at Penn, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition surveyed over 200 program administrators to better understand how choices in program design and implementation have impacted key outcomes, including how many tenants applied for assistance and how many households were served. The webinar will highlight early findings and lessons learned from the survey and other relevant research and provide concrete recommendations on how programs can move forward to efficiently and effectively use the $25 billion of emergency rental assistance from the COVID-19 relief package.

On January 5, 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department launched the $25 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program (“ERAP”). While financial rental assistance is a key strategy to address rental debt, emergency rental assistance programs alone are insufficient to prevent a mass eviction crisis and protect the public health.

NHLP is hosting this webinar for the Housing Justice Network to address how rental assistance, paired with other policies to stabilize renter households, can help ensure the immediate and future economic stability of low-income tenants.

Mariel Block from NHLP will moderate a panel of local advocates from across the country. Discussion topics will include (1) best practices for the administration of rental assistance, (2) how to structure successful repayment plans, and (3) local rent cancellation campaigns and other policies to protect tenants’ credit.

It’s time for us to take a close look at how COVID-19 and virtual classrooms have impacted our children, physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.

Wellness starts in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. As we have seen while navigating this pandemic, taking care of ourselves by eating well, staying active, not smoking, getting the recommended immunizations and screening tests, and seeing a doctor when we are sick all influence our health.

Our health is also determined in part by access to social and economic opportunities; the resources and supports available in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities, the quality of our schooling, the safety of our workplaces, the cleanliness of our water, food, and air, and the nature of our social interactions and relationships. The conditions in which we live explain in part why some people are healthier than others and why Americans more generally are not as healthy as they could be.

Our Speak Up Speak Out Advocacy series will highlight the importance of understanding how to stay in tune with your mental health and gain tools to advocate on your own or your family’s behalf.

January features Stephanie K. Starks, LISW-S owner and therapist Starks Counseling

COVID-19 Vaccination for People Experiencing Homelessness 
Tuesday, January 19
2-3 p.m. ET 

CDC staff will provide the most recent updates about COVID-19 vaccination for people experiencing homelessness. The webinar will cover COVID-19 vaccine basics​, safety​, the prioritization of persons experiencing homelessness for COVID-19 vaccination, special considerations for the vaccination of this population, and an example strategy from the Minnesota​ Department of Health.

Presenters: 

• Emily Mosites, PhD, MPH: Homelessness Unit, CDC Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force

• Nathan Furukawa, MD, MPH: Disproportionately Affected Adults Populations Team, CDC Vaccine Task Force

• Blair Harrison, MPH: Minnesota Department of Health

This one hour webinar is intended to provide information about COVID-19 vaccination for people experiencing homelessness. The webinar will consist of a presentation from CDC COVID-19 response and a state health department followed by a Q&A session.

Trauma, Community Violence & The Black Community: How Did We Get Here and How Do We Heal

Like a pebble dropped in a pool of water, let’s discuss and explore the impact of community violence on all of us, and how to begin to heal from the shared traumatic experiences of 2020.Wellness starts in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. As we have seen while navigating this pandemic, taking care of ourselves by eating well, staying active, not smoking, getting the recommended immunizations and screening tests, and seeing a doctor when we are sick all influence our health.

Our health is also determined in part by access to social and economic opportunities; the resources and supports available in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities, the quality of our schooling, the safety of our workplaces, the cleanliness of our water, food, and air, and the nature of our social interactions and relationships. The conditions in which we live explain in part why some people are healthier than others and why Americans more generally are not as healthy as they could be.

Our Speak Up Speak Out Advocacy series will highlight the importance of understanding how to stay in tune with your mental health and gain tools to advocate on your own or your family’s behalf.

January features Stephanie K. Starks, LISW-S owner and therapist Starks Counseling

Come join us for a safe space to discuss and process the mental and emotional toll that COVID-19 has had on our community.

Wellness starts in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. As we have seen while navigating this pandemic, taking care of ourselves by eating well, staying active, not smoking, getting the recommended immunizations and screening tests, and seeing a doctor when we are sick all influence our health.

Our health is also determined in part by access to social and economic opportunities; the resources and supports available in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities, the quality of our schooling, the safety of our workplaces, the cleanliness of our water, food, and air, and the nature of our social interactions and relationships. The conditions in which we live explain in part why some people are healthier than others and why Americans more generally are not as healthy as they could be.

Our Speak Up Speak Out Advocacy series will highlight the importance of understanding how to stay in tune with your mental health and gain tools to advocate on your own or your family’s behalf.

January features Stephanie K. Starks, LISW-S owner and therapist Starks Counseling

Housing is a foundation for economic mobility and opportunity, but many Americans struggle to afford a place to live. And racist policies and practices—historical and ongoing—have created entrenched inequities in access to homeownership, quality housing, and resource-rich neighborhoods. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these problems worse. Past crises like Hurricane Katrina and the mortgage crisis and subsequent Great Recession offer us crucial lessons. In the face of the pandemic-related housing crisis, policymakers can do more than craft policies that return households to a prepandemic status quo. Instead, they can embrace economic mobility and racial equity as their goals.
 
Please join the Urban Institute and Enterprise Community Partners for a virtual discussion exploring policies for a stronger, more equitable housing recovery from the pandemic. We will start by presenting four housing policy principles and related strategies from a new report, An Equitable Framework for Housing Policy Solutions for COVID-19 and Beyond: Reflections on Lessons from Hurricane Katrina and the Great Recession. A moderated panel discussion will follow with practitioners who have been applying innovative strategies on the ground to address the current housing crisis and pave the way for more fair and just housing beyond the pandemic.