Our new report finds that service coordinators in publicly funded housing helped older adult residents cope with the challenges created by the pandemic.
Last spring, students in one class at the Harvard Graduate School of Design explored the intractable problem of rental affordability in four US cities: Austin, Louisville, Rochester & Stockton, and offered five promising insights and approaches.
This year, the pandemic, calls for racial justice, and climate change combined to bring the country's housing challenges to the fore, but historically low interest rates and strength in housing sales could lead an economic recovery.
Joint Center for Housing Studies
of Harvard University
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies helps leaders in government, business, and the civic sectors make decisions that effectively address the needs of cities and communities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, service coordinators played a pivotal role in the support of older adult residents of publicly funded housing properties. Some independent housing operators employ service coordinators to increase residents’ self-sufficiency, physical security, social connections, and the delivery of long-term community-based supportive services. This report presents results from a survey conducted between June 23 and July 17, 2020 to explore the experiences of these service coordinators during the early months of COVID-19.
This year, the COVID-19 pandemic, a powerful movement for racial justice, and the devastating impacts of climate change have combined to bring the nation’s longstanding housing challenges to the fore. The economic crisis has worsened rental affordability challenges and put homeowners at risk of foreclosure, widespread calls for racial justice have pointed out sharp disparities in access to decent affordable housing, and a series of powerful hurricanes and raging wildfires have shown how vulnerable the country is to the impacts of climate change. However, historically low interest rates, strength in the for-sale market and in homebuilding could lead a broader US economic recovery.
The GSE reform question, i.e. how should the government-sponsored enterprises of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac end their conservatorships, has proven to be one of the most vexing in Washington in the past decade. Don Layton concludes that the Biden administration, if it is to successfully address the GSE question, must follow one of two possible paths in the next twelve to twenty-four months.
