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Permanent Child Payments Would Deal a Historic Blow to Poverty
Like a tree twisted by a shadow above it, everything about anti-poverty policy in the United States has been shaped by one unusual decision: not to give poor people cash. Want housing, but can’t afford it? Join a voucher waitlist. (Oh, and also sign up separately to 17 other waitlists for particular buildings or organizations.) Launched a small business and need to eat while it grows? Sorry, your state might...Read more » -
It Should Be Legal to Live in More of Oregon’s 1.5 Million Empty Bedrooms
When thousands of people are living in tents and doorways, it makes no sense for the government to stop people from living indoors. But that’s exactly what some cities and counties do by capping the number of “unrelated occupants” who can legally share a home, no matter how large. Both Oregon and Washington are considering state laws that would strike down these outdated rules. The Oregon bill, HB 2583, is...Read more » -
A Federal One-Two Punch to Protect Renters—Pandemic and Beyond
Together, these two strategies can turn around the coronavirus housing emergency, and set the course for long-term housing abundance and affordability.Read more » -
Cities Cling to Laws That Shut Out Non-traditional Family Groups
UPDATE: The “Golden Girls Bill” (SB 6302) died when time ran out for it to get heard on the House floor before the cutoff on Friday, March 6. The gutting amendment passed by the House Committee on Local Government proved too much for legislators to repair in the limited time of a short session. Bad news for Washingtonians hoping for relief from the housing affordability crunch: state representatives, acting at...Read more » -
Event: Conor Dougherty and the Fight for Housing in America
Join Sightline executive director Alan Durning and New York Times reporter Conor Dougherty for an evening of conversation about housing affordability at the Forum (Town Hall) in downtown Seattle on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Dougherty—whose book, Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America, was released on Tuesday—and Durning will tell cautionary tales of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as outline decades of history and economic forces that brought us to...Read more » -
The Books We Love Best in 2018
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Listen In: Vox’s ‘The Impact’ and NPR’s ‘Planet Money’ on Democracy Vouchers
Vox’s podcast “The Impact” kicked off its second season last week with an episode devoted to democracy vouchers. The 30-minute episode, hosted by Vox senior policy correspondent Sarah Kliff, provides an informative look at the origin, implementation and use of democracy vouchers in Seattle politics. Among the key voices in this episode was Sightline executive director Alan Durning, who provided the backstory on how Sightline played a key role in...Read more » -
Could State-Led Upzones Happen Here? 7 Lessons from Modern Cascadia
For housing advocates, could there be a better way? As urban housing shortages drive poor people out of job-rich cities, as middle-class families risk their life savings on exurban tract housing because it’s what they can afford, and as the planet keeps ticking toward deeper climate-driven disasters, is there some path to fair, abundant, transit-friendly housing that doesn’t require battling the forces of stasis up an endless staircase of 2...Read more » -
More Homes, All Shapes and Sizes, for All Our Neighbors
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part summary of housing affordability messaging recommendations resulting from Sightline Institute focus group testing. Find part 1 here. Sightline has conducted two rounds of focus groups to expand our understanding of Seattle attitudes about the burdens and benefits of growth, hopes and dreams for the kinds of places people want to live, and a menu of possible affordability solutions. In the second...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 6/29/2018
Alan Durning This brilliant piece strikingly illustrates how building more homes—of all shapes and sizes—is a solution to our climate-changing cities’ problems, and also to our surging homelessness problems, and our deepening economic apartheid problems, and our traffic congestion problems, and our racial inequality problems, and our opioid abuse problems, and our access to job opportunity problems, and our access to good schools problems, and so on. Everyone who works...Read more »
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