Embedding an Equity Approach in HUD’s Learning Agenda

Angela Glover Blackwell
Sarah Treuhaft
PolicyLink

Achieving equity in housing means dramatically improving living conditions for the 23 million households in this country—disproportionately people of color who face the additional burdens of systemic racism—that experience housing insecurity and economic insecurity. To advance equity at the scale needed, HUD’s Learning Agenda must both reach beyond the agency’s current programs and constituents to inform the next generation of housing policy and approach every learning question with an equity lens. We offer three recommendations: (1) expand the scope to include questions that identify program and policy solutions that leverage contributions by other government agencies and other housing system actors; (2) adopt a framework for equity analysis that includes assessing multiple dimensions of equity (procedural, distributional, structural, and restorative), integrating deeply disaggregated data, and focusing on those households with the highest housing needs as a strategy to build a housing system that works for all; and (3) incorporate into the agenda key housing issues and solutions that are gaining traction at the community level and are being demanded by the housing justice movement, such as eviction prevention, social housing, rent stabilization, corporate ownership, and housing reparations.