Resources

There are many great sources of data and ways to keep up with current policy discussions to be found on the internet. Below are links to some of my favorites:

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. See in particular their annual State of the Nation’s Housing report.

NYU’s Furman Center. You can also sign up for their weekly digest email. Their focus is typically–but not exclusively–housing issues in NYC.

The Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center posts interesting research and maintains an Urban Wire Blog.

Shelterforce. An online magazine about housing and community development. You can sign up for their weekly digest email or follow their Rooflines blog.

Texas Housers studies, reports on and advocates for housing policy change in Texas. They have an excellent podcast, A Little Louder. You can also sign up for email digests.

The Texas Eviction Solidarity Network maintains a dashboard for evictions in Travis County. You can also volunteer to observe and track eviction court proceedings in Houston.

The UT Opportunity Forum website posts information on events where student and faculty research is presented. Join their email list to receive invites to upcoming events.

Data sources

A guide to housing data on the US Census website.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a number of datasets on programs and housing finance.

HUD also maintains a mapping website where you can explore the spatial distribution of various forms of subsidized housing and how these overlap with various demographic patterns, exposure to hazards, etc. Use their Desk Guide to start.

Social Explorer now has American Housing Survey data, and also HUD’s Picture of Subsidized Households dataset, LIHTC and Building Permits data–although not as current as can be found on the HUD website. UT students can access the professional version of the site by accessing through the UT Library online.

The Princeton Eviction Lab maintains data on evictions across the country that you can download or explore using their interactive maps and charts and also their policy scorecards. (See link above for data on Travis County, Texas).