The Housing Solutions Lab at NYU Furman Center announced the award of $75,000 in grants to three research teams for innovative housing policy research in small and midsize cities. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the awards aim to generate new housing policy knowledge and help identify evidence-based local housing policies that may promote racial equity, increase access to opportunity, and improve health and well-being for residents.

The diverse research projects were selected through a competitive process that generated a wide range of proposals on topics from housing affordability and homelessness to segregation. “We were delighted with the quality of proposals we received for the Lab’s first round of research funding,” said Housing Solutions Lab Director, Martha Galvez. “The breadth of issues and diversity of the communities explored in these proposals reinforced our belief that small and midsize cities are ripe for housing policy innovation and research.”

The selected projects were awarded based on policy relevance, research design, innovation, and their focus on addressing housing disparities. The selected projects and teams are:

Community Land Trusts in Welcoming Cities: Building Inclusive Housing Models for Immigrants. C. Aujean Lee, PhD (University of Oklahoma) and Shakil Bin Kashem, PhD (Kansas State University), Dwayne Baker, PhD (Queens College)

Using Provider Certified Qualified Minor Verification in Connecting Unaccompanied Minor Youth Experiencing Homelessness in Rural Communities with Housing and Services: A process and outcome evaluation. Hsun-Ta Hsu, PhD (​University of Missouri) and Sarah Myers Tlapek, PhD (Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri)

Modernizing Code Enforcement Using Remote Sensing: Assessing the Effectiveness and Equity of Satellite Imagery-based Building Change Detection. Daniel E. Ho and Jennifer Suckale, PhD (Stanford University)

Each team will receive $25,000 to execute their project over two years. Housing Solutions Lab researchers will provide ongoing support with policy expertise, research methods and dissemination of findings. The teams are the first group of scholars that the Lab will support in a broader effort to build a national community of housing policy researchers focused on small and midsize cities.