Housing justice is a multifaceted, individual experience, making it difficult to quantify and to measure progress. To further develop this field, we created a practical scoring tool for policymakers and practitioners to evaluate the extent to which housing policies and programs are achieving housing justice. In the process, we also gathered learnings from other scoring tools, metrics, and data sources.

This page includes a suite of products, including (1) a housing justice scorecard tool, (2) learnings from public policy–related scoring tools, and (3) a compilation of metrics and data sources with potential for measuring housing justice.

Why This Matters

Few things are as inseparably interwoven with quality of life and well-being as housing. Yet many Americans struggle to find housing that is safe, secure, and affordable, especially groups that have been historically marginalized. Recent housing policy changes implemented by the Trump administration could exacerbate these issues, including the criminalization of homelessness, weakened housing-discrimination protections and fair housing guidelines, and reduced federal resources for nonprofit services providers. At the same time, work focused on the reparation of past harms for marginalized groups has been facing both political and legal challenges in recent years. It’s important that changemakers doing this work consider any potential risks they may face given the evolving legal and political landscape.

Despite these challenges, the housing justice movement continues to work toward rectifying historical and systemic disparities and ensuring that everyone has access to housing. Our team has set out to contribute to the housing justice field by focusing on improving practices for evaluating and measuring progress toward housing justice.

What We Found

This body of work is designed to improve how practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and community members measure progress toward housing justice in order to improve their understanding of housing justice. We conducted this work in three phases:

1. We reviewed scorecard, report card, and evaluation tools—in particular, tools focused on housing, justice, or other socioeconomic disparities. We gathered themes and lessons learned to inform our new housing justice-focused scoring tool. We also identified gaps in the field, including challenges with temporality, data limitations, and a lack of consideration for procedural justice.
2. We developed a framework for measuring housing justice that considers both shapers—policies and programs that could shape a resident’s experience of housing justice, for better or for worse—and reflectors—measures that are reflective of the performance or outcomes of those policies and programs. We conducted a scan of available metrics and data sources that could measure these components of housing justice.
3. Finally, we developed a scorecard tool designed to help practitioners and policymakers better understand the procedural justice of their housing policies and programs.

How We Did It

This work followed an iterative process. We conducted a review of public policy-related scoring tools to understand themes, strategies, and gaps in the field. We conducted a scan of metrics and data sources that could measure housing justice. We presented our findings to relevant stakeholders for feedback, including a community advisory board. We then designed a scorecard tool to measure the procedural justice of housing policies and programs. We tested the scorecard on real-world housing programs and received feedback from a municipal team that oversees one of the test case programs.