Brandon Weber

Project Homekey: A Model for Addressing Homelessness?

California’s Project Homekey, a new initiative by Governor Newsom to acquire and retrofit hotels for permanent supportive housing, was hailed as a transformative solution to homelessness when it was launched in mid-2020. A new report by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center…

How Affordable Housing Makes Communities Wealthier

The Urban Institute has a new research brief out on the local economic benefits of affordable housing, focusing on a case study in Alexandria, VA. Key takeaways: New affordable housing projects in Alexandria increased home values within a one-block radius…

How Apartment Bans Keep Americans in the Poor House

A new literature review by Federal Reserve staff economists Jia et al (2022) assesses the evidence from the economic costs of reduced migration. In particular, the review adds context to the findings of Hsieh & Moretti (2019) that restrictions on…

LA’s Apartment Bans Promote Segregation – and High Housing Costs

Single-Family Zoning in Greater Los Angeles, a new study by Menendian et al (2022) at UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, examines new evidence on the relationships between exclusionary zoning, household income, home value, educational attainment, educational performance, and environmental…

The Compounding Hazards of Housing Stasis

What happens when Americans can no longer afford to move? A new paper by psychologists Buttrick & Oishi (2021) argues that a U.S. national decline in residential mobility – our ability to move to different regions of the country for…