Housing is vital to our everyday lives and influences our health, safety, community belonging, and upward mobility. The Urban Institute provides changemakers with data, insights, and technical assistance to ensure all people can access high-quality, disaster-resilient homes in safe and healthy neighborhoods.
Urban’s housing experts can help you establish housing priorities, mobilize action toward achieving those priorities, and assess progress. Learn more about how we work in the About section.
The more than 1.2 million mobile homes located throughout the US are uniquely vulnerable to climate extremes, but policymakers can help increase the resilience of these homes while preserving their affordability.
Urban’s housing experts support and partner with leaders in state and local governments, philanthropy and advocacy, housing finance, and cross-sector organizations. Together, we work to ensure all people can obtain stable, affordable housing and the social and economic opportunities it affords.
Urban’s experts can support you at every step of your process—from establishing locally relevant housing priorities to mobilizing local action to measuring and assessing progress. Read more about how we work below, and reach out to [email protected] to partner with us.
Our independent research and analysis can help you strengthen your policy, programmatic, and investment decisions.
Zoning Restrictions and Demand Have Divided Chicago into Three “Cities,” Limiting Housing Availability: Urban examined detailed data on demographics, housing, and land-use policy to develop a typology of neighborhoods in Chicago. With the Metropolitan Planning Council, we identified strategies to help Chicago achieve housing affordability and abundance.
Data Tools and Modeling
We apply cutting-edge processes to analyze data and build interactive data tools that can help you understand how current and proposed policies affect individuals and communities.
Mapping Neighborhoods with the Highest Risk of Housing Instability and Homelessness: The State of Oregon integrated our index into its prioritization of applicants for emergency rent assistance. The state combined index scores with other local factors, including whether applicants had experienced hardship from wildfires in previous years.
Convening
We design virtual, hybrid, and in-person gatherings for you to engage with diverse change agents on timely issues, discuss new evidence, and explore how policies play out in reality.
Rental Crisis Working Group: Urban convened researchers, advocates, industry experts, policymakers, and philanthropic organizations to develop collaborative solutions to stabilize renters and multifamily-building owners during the COVID-19 health crisis. Urban’s early research on emergency rental assistance (ERA) helped shape the national ERA program and improve local capacity to administer the program.
Strategic Advising and Technical Assistance
Our evidence-informed advice can strengthen your programmatic and investment strategies to ensure you achieve your objectives.
Housing Innovation Grants: As JPMorganChase deploys grant capital, Urban provides training and peer learning to nonprofit organizations, mission-driven developers, and lenders in Baltimore. These organizations are expanding their capacity to alleviate residential vacancy and stabilize Baltimore neighborhoods.
Community Engagement
We collaborate with the communities at the center of our research to ensure the solutions to your questions are inclusive, sustainable, and genuinely address people’s needs and challenges.
Nothing About Us Without Us: How Community Engagement Can Help Create Disability Forward Research: The Urban Institute, in partnership with The Kelsey, undertook new researchto understand the existing and future housing needs of people with disabilities. We worked with a community advisory board composed entirely of people with disabilities and took a community-engaged approach to quantitative research.
Program Evaluation
Our experts can help determine whether your programs, services, and investments are effective and reach the communities they aim to support.
Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative: Urban continues to be a critical partner to multiple Denver agencies and nonprofits working to curb homelessness and improve residents’ well-being. Building on the significant impact of a pioneering supportive housing program Urban helped design and evaluate, our experts are now assessing the City and County of Denver’s effort to reduce arrest rates, health care use, and associated Medicaid costs by providing supportive housing to people experiencing chronic homelessness.
