Center for Justice Innovation’s Post

Good to see #communitylandtrusts supporting this new cross-party vision calling for affordable, quality, secure Homes for All. 🏡 Government can and must fix the housing crisis. 🏡 We need an ambitious long-term strategy. 🏡 We need robust governance to hold housing policymakers to account. #affordablehomes #communityledhousing #affordablehousing

Register now for an upcoming town hall next month to discuss efforts to discuss the human right to housing in California. Learn more about what a right to housing means, why it matters, and how international human rights principles apply to our work to advance housing justice in California. Who: Speakers include Former United Nations Rapporteur Leilani Farha, California Assemblymember Matt Haney, Policylink’s Housing Director Rasheedah Phillips, and Professor Farah Hassan. Event co-hosts include UCLA’s Promise Institute for Human Rights, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Housing Now!, ACLU California Action, PolicyLink, National Homelessness Law Center, Power California Action, and Western Center On Law & Poverty. Panelists will explore how international human rights principles can inform our housing justice work in California, how a human rights framework applies to housing policy at the state and local levels, as well as the status of the campaign to pass ACA 10 -- a bill to enshrine the human right to housing in the state constitution. https://lnkd.in/gBZ9gA8Q

When folks come to me and ask why we at United Way haven’t “solved” poverty yet here is one aspect of that conversation that bears repeating and deserves exploration... Housing, policy, influx of investments, and so on. The issue is complex. Check out the series linked below for a bit more:

We're happy to share that the latest report from our B.C. Eviction Mapping Project, titled BC’s Eviction Crisis: Evidence, Impacts and Solutions for Justice, is available on our website! The report outlines data gathered from 698 survey respondents between June 2022 to September 2023, and outlines recommendations for law reform. Trends emerged from the data that can be categorized into four themes: 1. Impacts of Eviction Across Income Levels and Across British Columbia 2. Profile of Eviction for Indigenous Tenants – Mechanisms and Impacts 3. “Landlord’s Use” Evictions Remain Extremely Prevalent 4. Barriers to Using the Residential Tenancy Branch Read the full report and view the interactive online #BCEvictionMap at https://lnkd.in/g6hFwwH3. #DTES #evictionmapping #evictionmap #bctenants #rentalhousingcrisis #bcre #vanre 

Cities of all sizes struggle to find sufficient housing for low- and middle-income families. On Nov. 15, city, housing, and social organizations will gather in a virtual summit to discuss the issue and brainstorm solutions! #affordablehousing #Housingcrisis

I recently had the pleasure of reading a letter from the Federation of Calgary Communities (FCC), written by Leslie Evans, the Executive Director of FCC. Imagine the difficulty of assuming the role to represent 156 community associations across the City of Calgary. The FCC provides services to community volunteer organizations to improve board governance, community building initiatives, and financial literacy among other laudable assistance programs.   The letter submitted by Leslie does not try to summarize “the perspective” of all Calgarians on the issue that will soon be voted on by City Council. The issue at stake, discussed in the Council Meeting that began on April 22nd, concerns whether to amend the planning bylaw by changing current zoning for low-density residential to allow R-CG or row housing.   Leslie Evans’ letter deserves to be read in its entirety, but I'd like to highlight a few key points that help us to think about politics, policymaking, and how we’re facing issues in the public interest today. Leslie points out:   - Confusion in terms: “the confusion between sound planning principles concerning ‘growth and change’ and the housing affordability crisis has caused division within communities”; - Absence of substantial evidence supporting the proposed rezoning; - Inconsistencies in responses across silos of various expertise, processes, and departments; - A noticeable shift away from treating communities as partners, with residents often relegated to passive roles of "listening and learning"; - Significant concerns about trust, honesty, and transparency within the planning process.   As I listen intermittently to the 5-minute presentations from residents addressing City Council on April 29th, now past 9 o'clock at night, this being the seventh day of such presentations, including a Saturday Council meeting, I'm struck by the courage of residents to speak their truth and demand a better policymaking process. #YYC #CalgaryCouncil #YYCRezoning.

Housing insecurity and justice system involvement often create a reinforcing, vicious cycle that has long-lasting effects for individuals, families, and communities, as well as government systems. The people harmed by this cycle are overwhelmingly low-income people of color. The NYU Furman Center’s Housing Solutions Lab partnered with the Center for Justice Innovation to explore innovations in housing solutions for justice-involved people. This paper explores ways that, in jurisdictions across the country, justice system actors and housing agencies have partnered to break this cycle. What the researchers found is that solutions exist. So often people throw up their hands at this problem, understandably given what we all know about the housing market. However, in diverse places across the country, housing and justice system practitioners are working together to design solutions. These innovations fall into four approaches: 1️⃣Preventing criminal justice involvement 2️⃣Connecting people early to resources 3️⃣Expanding access to housing 4️⃣Increasing housing supply Read our full report which highlights where this work is already happening, identifies successful approaches, and pinpoints the ingredients needed for the required collaborations: https://buff.ly/3VS5OiQ

Not my usual leisure read, but REALLY good read nonetheless. I love one that gives me a shift in perspective. Highly recommend! 💡”The public peace--the sidewalk and street peace--of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves." Disadvantaged neighborhoods with higher levels of "collective efficacy"- the stuff of loosely linked neighbors who trust one another and share expectations about how to make their community better- have lower crime rates." 💡“Eviction itself often explained why some families lived on safe streets and others on dangerous ones, why some children attended good schools and others failing ones. The trauma of being forced from your home, the blemish of an eviction record, and the taxing rush to locate a new place to live pushed evicted renters into more depresed and dangerous areas of the city.” 💡“All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary. Because it is unnecessary, there is hope. These problems are neither intractable nor eternal. A different kind of society is possible, and powerful solutions are within our collective reach.” 💡“We have affirmed provision in old age, twelve years of education, and basic nutrition to be the right of every citizen because we have recognized that human dignity depends on the fulfillment of these fundamental human needs. And it is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.”

Defining housing justice: an audiovisual exchange of struggle and action Addressing the current global housing requires a justice lens. According to UN figures, 2.8 billion people experience some form of housing inadequacy, and of these over one billion live in informal settlements. In February and March 2024, IIED held a series of meetings with groups from organised communities, activists and academics, to collectively discuss the meaning of housing justice for them. These online dialogues brought together representatives from ten organisations across seven countries. The exchanges were captured in a series of videos produced by each organisation to showcase what housing justice means for their members. The lived experiences of those on the front line of housing injustice are exposed in a series of videos which collectively shows what housing justice would look like for them. Read the insight by Alexandre Apsan Frediani and Camila Cociña for the full story. --> https://lnkd.in/eWTZeGUg #housing #urban #HousingJustice #HousingCrisis #InformalSettlements

Explore scalable and sustainable solutions to the affordable housing crisis with a new report developed by the @partnership-for-the-bays-future Antioch Policy Grant team – @city-of-antioch, @hope-solutions and Multi-Faith Action Coalition. This collaborative approach offers practical solutions while emphasizing the imperative of community-driven policymaking and the empowerment of underrepresented voices. The report’s findings and recommendations reflect a commitment to innovative, inclusive, and equitable housing strategies that can serve as a model for other communities facing similar challenges. https://lnkd.in/gTftFRYs