As part of their regular functions, city and county agencies, community-based organizations and businesses gather data about people, properties, and transactions. These local data are a valuable source of information about local housing needs and whether a locality’s existing housing policies are effective. But they also come with some challenges.

The Lab is committed to helping cities unlock the power of local data and will host Data Talks, a series of five mini-webinars between November 2023 and August 2024. Each webinar will be held from 12 noon to 12:45 p.m. and will address different topics related to utilizing local data to improve housing policies. The topics will include data collection and analysis, examining data from rental properties, surveying residents, assessing housing quality, and presenting data to the public.

Tune into each 45-minute session for a short presentation, a fireside chat with a city or housing authority partner about their experience with using or collecting local data, and an opportunity to engage with panelists via a Q&A session. 

Our series kicks off on Thursday, November 16, with Session 1: Local Housing Data 101, a primer on local data and the benefits and challenges of using these data to inform housing policy. This episode will feature a fireside chat with Kimberly Rubens, Chief of Policy and Research at Baltimore City’s Department of Housing and Community Development.