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Housing Perspectives

Research, trends, and perspective from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

Online Fall Events Will Focus on Equitable Development, Homelessness, and Other Key Issues

Although we’re working remotely, we still are hosting a variety of virtual events this fall on a range of housing-related issues, including equitable development, how architecture can address homelessness, and the state of US housing in the pandemic. We’ll also release a new report examining whether older Americans have access to livable neighborhoods, and continue our lunchtime research seminar series.

Featured Events

On the afternoon of Friday, September 25, we are co-sponsoring “In Pursuit Of Equitable Development: Lessons from Washington, Detroit, and Boston,” a half day symposium that will examine equitable development, a relatively new concept in planning and community development that aims to help low-income neighborhoods and communities of color become places that provide economic opportunities, affordable living, and cultural expression for all residents. At the event, leading practitioners and scholars from Washington, DC, Detroit, and Boston will explore current efforts to bring equitable development to their communities.

On Tuesday, October 13, architect Michael Maltzan will deliver the 20th annual Dunlop Lecture, “Addressing Homelessness: What Can (and Can’t) Architecture Do?” Maltzan will discuss his work with the Skid Row Housing Trust in Los Angeles and what it suggests about the ways in which architecture and other design professions can help address problems of housing affordability and homelessness. After the lecture, Mike Alvidrez, CEO Emeritus of the Skid Row Housing Trust, and Helen Leung, Co-Executive Director of LA-Más, a non-profit urban design organization in Los Angeles, will join Maltzan and GSD Dean Sarah Whiting for a conversation about their work in lower-income and underserved communities.

Our biweekly Housing Research Seminar Series, which is already underway, will feature presentations by our own researchers, faculty affiliates, and fellows. At the next seminar, being held at lunchtime tomorrow, Holly Samuelson, an associate professor of architecture at the GSD, along with a current and former student, will discuss whether climate change might increase the risk of mold in housing. Upcoming seminars will feature new research on the spending choices made by cost-burdened renters, issues related to housing families displaced by the decades-long civil war in Colombia, and how Airbnb affected the residential housing market in New York City before COVID-19.

Finally, the Center will release two major reports this fall: our 2020 State of the Nation’s Housing report in mid-November, and a new report examining whether older adults have equal access to livable neighborhoods in the United States, to be released October 30. Keep an eye on our website for details about all these events, and we’ll look forward to Zooming with you soon.