By Mariia Zimmerman Across the Bay Area, local leaders from the public sector, philanthropy, the tech sector and other regional employers, and community advocates have forged a new regional housing compact. The CASA Compact, released in December 2018, is a 15-year emergency policy package to confront the region’s housing crisis head-on with strategies designed to […]

Community organizations and fast capital are integral to building and preserving affordable housing in the Bay Area Last spring in Oakland—an epitome for the nation’s affordable housing crisis—Bay Area for All (BA4A) was hoping to prevent two families in East Oakland from being displaced by an institutional investor. The investor had purchased the families’ homes […]

More than 2 million Americans are evicted from their homes each year and millions more forced to leave neighborhoods and communities because of a national housing and displacement crisis. All six SPARCC sites share the common challenge of displacement and it’s a major focus of our work. As SPARCC enters its third year and looks […]

It’s imperative that climate adaptation measures and reconstruction efforts after extreme weather are designed to include low-income and communities of color and bolster them against future climate, social, and economic hazards.

By Dr. Tiffany Manuel (@DrTiffanyManuel) All across the country, there is an explicit public conversation going on about gentrification and displacement. While such topics have been fodder for debate and analysis in academic circles, they are not ones that typically lead the nightly news or play out in contentious PTA meetings. Today, however, that’s exactly […]

By Mariia Zimmerman Displacement of local residents, business, and culture has emerged as an increasingly common challenge among the regions in the Strong, Prosperous, and Resilient Communities Challenge. In late 2018, representatives from the six SPARCC sites and the SPARCC national team came together to elevate the crisis of displacement, to explore the drivers of […]

By Stephanie Gidigbi, Sasha Forbes, and Marissa Ramirez The Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) has collaborated with LOCUS Developers on a National Opportunity Zone Report that highlights the social equity and vulnerability of designated opportunity zones with key recommendations for public and private sector leaders. The report identifies which Opportunity Zones are positioned […]

By Sasha Forbes More U.S. households are headed by renters than at any point since at least 1965. In fact, renters have become the majority in almost a quarter of the nation’s 100 most populous cities. In Memphis, that number is as high 58 percent and in Chicago, 51 percent. Renters in the U.S. are […]