Launched by the Urban Institute in 2024, the Stabilizing Home initiative convened a cohort of city housing practitioners from nine midsize cities (cities with populations of less than 1 million) to codevelop strategies for rental housing stability at the local level and share lessons learned. This brief synthesizes the key insights from those cities, highlighting practical, replicable lessons and strategic opportunities for other local governments looking to design and implement solutions that foster stable housing for renters. 

Why This Matters

In cities across the US, renters are facing increasing housing insecurity, with more households struggling with rising rent costs. State and local policymakers, especially housing agencies and authorities, can use this brief as a practical reference for designing or refining rental housing stability programs, drawing on tested approaches from peer cities to benchmark their programs against, identify gaps, and adopt replicable strategies for improving housing stability outcomes for the renters they serve. Local policymakers and community-based organizations can use this brief to ground their work in concrete examples of what other communities have done to push for new approaches in their communities.

Key Takeaways

• Housing challenges are deeply interconnected with other policy areas. Effectively addressing housing instability requires intentional cross-sector alignment across housing, city planning, code enforcement, public health, social services, and other agencies, with a shared focus on outcomes.
• Local funding sources are unlikely to replace ARPA-scale funding, underscoring the need for sustainable financing mechanisms and careful targeting of limited funds toward programs with clear impact or cost savings.
• By making administrative data publicly available, cities also can strengthen transparency and accountability, empowering residents, nonprofits, researchers, and other stakeholders to engage in community discussions and drive action.

How We Did It

The Urban Institute convened representatives of nine cities for four quarterly sessions in 2024 and 2025. During those sessions, the participants explored a housing stability framework, shared challenges and priorities, and participated in applied workshops and expert presentations on housing stability. This brief summarizes the strategies with the greatest potential for being replicated and scaled.