Housing Brass Tacks

Housing Brass Tacks event digests

Reports published on Urban Omnibus from Housing Brass Tacks events

What Can Architects Do?

In the thorny thicket of housing problems, from cost to supply to quality, what roles can architects play? Architects Susanne Schindler, Jared Della Valle, and Deborah Gans offer possibilities.

Community Land Trusts

These days, “CLT” is a watchword for affordable housing and anti-displacement activists nationwide, including the residents and organizers behind a South Bronx initiative that’s building steam.

Limited-Equity Co-Ops

If owning a home means security, stability, and the American Dream, those remain out of reach for most apartment-dwelling New Yorkers. But can limited-equity co-ops provide another way?

A housing court case can make the difference between safe at home and out on the street. Jenny Laurie of Housing Court Answers explains how it works and what throws the scales of housing justice out of balance.

Property Taxes

Confusing, reviled, unfair, arcane — and important. Explore the labyrinthine system of property taxes.

Illegal Hotels

Like many companies in the “sharing economy,” Airbnb prides itself on “disrupting” the traditional marketplace — but at what cost to New York’s affordable housing?

Development

For the season's ninth and final Housing Brass Tacks discussion, two developers — one for-profit, one not-for-proft — laid out the nitty-gritty of building affordable housing.

Public Housing Transformed

Catherine Fennell and Crystal Palmer, two authorities on Chicago's public housing transformation, probed the problematic mythos of public housing—from the "failure" of tower complexes to the virtues of mixed-income redevelopment.

NYCHA

In our seventh Brass Tacks discussion, Rasmia Kirmani-Frye, President of the Fund for Public Housing, leveled with us on public housing’s unique role in the city and the challenges NYCHA must face.

Beyond Shelter

In the latest Brass Tacks discussion, representatives from Coalition for the Homeless and Picture the Homeless considered homelessness as a symptom of our housing crisis and efforts to create permanent housing solutions.

Fair Housing for All?

Fred Freiberg, executive director of the Fair Housing Justice Center, explained the ins and outs of proving and pursuing housing discrimination.

Discrimination Documented

Excerpts from three documentary films, screened at the first Housing Brass Tacks film night, tackle how inequality is inscribed in the housing landscape.

The Money

This time on Housing Brass Tacks: Where does the money come from, and what’s it used for? Mark Willis, the Senior Policy Fellow at NYU’s Furman Center, takes us through the structure of affordable housing finance.

Affordability

In last week's Housing Brass Tacks discussion, Hunter College scholar Matthew Lasner laid out the history of the fight to make housing affordable: from zoning codes to co-ops, it's always been hard-won.

What HUD Does

Holly Leicht, former Regional Administrator for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, got down to the nuts and bolts of what HUD does. Here's a little of what we learned.

Housing Brass Tacks events

An event archive of Housing Brass Tacks, a biweekly series of informal conversations at the League with scholars and experts engaging complicated topics in housing policy.