Archive for month: April, 2020
April 29, 2020
Montgomery County Council passed “The COVID-19 Renter Relief Act”, effective April 24, 2020, which prohibits landlords from increasing existing tenants’ rent by more than 2.6% after April 24 and during the COVID-19 catastrophic health emergency signed by the Governor of Maryland on March 5, 2020.
“This bill is an important step in helping our Montgomery County residents during this difficult time,” Councilmember Jawando said. “We have yet to know the full damage that will occur as a result of Covid-19 or what the actual recovery will be like for those who have lost jobs and their income. Our residents deserve the stability of knowing that their housing is protected. Today the Council has sent a strong message that our renters cannot be taken advantage of during this health crisis.”
Learn more on Montgomery County’s website.
April 28, 2020
Do you have questions about COVID-19 that you’d like to bounce off your peers? Has your organization developed best practices that may be useful to others in the field? Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity to share resources or brainstorm with fellow HAND members? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you’re in the right place!
HAND’s COVID-19 E-List is an online space for members to share resources, explore ideas, and most importantly – collectively act on solutions to serve our communities. Let’s connect. Let’s learn from each other. Why? Because we’re #AllInThisTogether.
But first things first – follow the below steps to subscribe. If you think you’d be interested in any of the additional topics listed (more details below), feel free to subscribe to those as well:
How to Subscribe
- To access your E-List subscriptions, log into the Members Only Portal.
- Navigate to the My Profile tab.
- Hover over the My Features menu and click on the E-List button on the drop-down menu.
- You will now see the E-Lists that you are eligible for. Toggle the Subscribed button to join the desired E-List. If you want to subscribe, but not receive the emails, toggle the Email Delivery button.
You can access more detailed instructions with screenshots here.
Members Only Mondays
Meet us on the E-List every week for Members Only Mondays! We encourage you to post your questions and comments every Monday, but feel free to keep the conversation going throughout the week.
More E-Lists
We know the value of peer-to-peer communication, so we want to ensure we can facilitate as many meaningful connections as possible. With that said, we’ve created additional E-lists to cater to various sectors of our membership below. If any of these peak your interest, go ahead and subscribe!
- The C-Suite (CEOs, Executive Directors)
- Asset Management
- Green Building
- Service Providers
- Emerging Leaders
Think there should be additional topics listed? Let us know at info@handhousing.org.
April 25, 2020
This announcement was originally published by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Board of Directors held a special virtual meeting on April 22 on COVID-19 coordination and approved principles for reopening the National Capital Region once it is safe to do so. To that end, the board approved a resolution and statement directing local city and county managers to work together to develop a coordinated, safe, and scientifically-informed strategy. The board also urged area residents to continue the social distancing actions that are slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chair Ann Wheeler noted the value of regional cooperation on COVID-19, saying it has contributed to procurement [of equipment], cooperation of residents staying home, and ”it will matter as we begin a slow and measured response to reopening.”
“I appreciate that while [the statement] tells our constituents that we are working together to plan the reopening of the region, it begins by stressing the time is not now and we continue to need the public to stay at home and practice social distancing, said Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner.
D.C. Council member Robert C. White, Jr. said the commitment to coordinate is essential given the region’s interconnectedness. “Our borders are porous… so in both addressing the public health aspect [of COVID-19] and tour recovery, we know that we operate, we function, we rise and fall as a region.”
Read the full announcement here.
April 25, 2020
This post was shared by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research.
HUD has released the median family incomes and income limits for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. Median incomes are used as the basis for income limits in several HUD programs, including the Public Housing, Section 8 Housing Choice and Project-Based Voucher, Section 202 housing for the elderly, and Section 811 housing for persons with disabilities programs, as well as in programs run by agencies such as the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Agriculture, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Community planning and development programs, as well as HOME investments, also rely on HUD income limits in their administration.
FY 2020 median family incomes are calculated for all metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties in the U.S. and Puerto Rico using data from the 2017 American Community Survey and from the Puerto Rico Community Survey. Values are projected forward to the midpoint of FY 2020 using a Consumer Price Index (CPI) forecast. The very low-income limits (usually calculated as 50 percent of median incomes) are the basis for calculating all other income limits, as they are the most rigorously defined. Income limits are adjusted according to family size. The FY 2020 median family income estimates and income limits are based on metropolitan area definitions, defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) using community relationships from the 2010 Decennial Census, as updated through 2017.
Visit the FY 2020 Income Limits page on HUD User to access the data and documentation.
April 25, 2020
MaGrann is partnering on a rapid response effort to provide safe housing to patients during the COVID-19 crisis. MaGrann’s MEP engineering team is working with the
Modular Mobilization Coalition, a nationwide group of modular housing manufacturers, providing a solution for the healthcare facility shortage in America today.
The coalition will produce thousands of individual standardized Supplemental Care Units (SCUs) a week to create much needed field hospital capacity across the country. After the crisis ends, these units will be modified as a long-term solution to help address homeless, veteran and affordable housing issues. MaGrann is providing MEP engineering and resilience consulting support on delivering safe and durable homes in responding to the medical crises of today and permanent housing needs of the future.
Interested in learning more about this work? Contact MMC today.
April 23, 2020
RED LINES, WHITE PAPERS, & BLUE PRINTS: A FOUR-PART LEARNING SERIES EXPLORING THE DIMENSIONS OF RACISM AND STRATEGIES TOWARDS RACIAL EQUITY
SESSION 2: IMPLICIT BIAS
Many thanks to the cohort of 120 members & partners who joined us for the second installment of Red Lines, White Papers, & Blue Prints: A Four-Part Learning Series Exploring the Dimensions of Racism and Strategies Towards Racial Equity this month! In light of COVID-19, HAND has converted its Training & Capacity Building programs to a webcast format to protect the health and safety of its membership. This virtual convening built on the foundation of the first installment (Structural Racism), and we were pleased to welcome Julie Nelson (Director, Government Alliance on Race & Equity) as the featured speaker.
This thought-provoking program explored Implicit Bias – a concept based on an emerging body of cognitive research which identifies ways in which unconscious patterns people inevitably develop in their brains to organize information actually affect individuals’ attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though individuals may not even be aware that those biases exist within themselves. Years of exposure to structural and cultural racialization and privilege have embedded stereotypes and biases in individual psyches and the broader culture. Due to the link between cultural stereotypes and narratives, and systemic policies, practices and behaviors, implicit bias is one part of the system of inequity that serves to justify inequitable polices, practices and behavior.
Hear more thoughts directly from the cohort and Julie below.
Thank you to our series sponsors, DC Housing Finance Agency, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo and Meyer Foundation!
REFLECTIONS FROM THE COHORT
“This training is so greatly needed. I have been engaged in the racial equity space formally for about 9 months. I consider it a great privilege to now have the opportunity to learn about it specifically within the affordable housing field with my colleagues. It is desperately needed training throughout the field and I am so grateful to HAND for providing it on this large scale in such a well done manner.”Judith Cabelli, Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development
“The breakout sessions were fantastic…my group had a wide mix of disciplines, race and gender, and levels within organizations that it was a really great opportunity to gaindifferent perspectives.”
Maryann Dillon, Housing Initiative Partnership
“As I reflect on this moment, I am clear as you are that there was a crisis or many crises before this one. The issues of racial inequity and racial violence and racial injustice that we see in our communities, and that our major systems exact on the most vulnerable people in many cases in our communities all that existed prior to COVID-19. What COVID-19 has done is ripped the veil away, it has shined a brighter light on these issues, it has exacerbated in many ways racial inequity. The flip is also true – racial inequality and racial inequity is exacerbated by COVID-19.”Ronald Galvin, The Democracy Collaborative
(Series Facilitator)
NOTEWORTHY REMARKS FROM JULIE NELSON
On the importance of having a shared definition:“We have to be able to normalize conversations about race. If we come to this conversation and some people are thinking that we’re just talking about individual acts of bigotry, trying to identify who the racist is in the room and other people are using terminology like institutional and structural racism, we’re going to have a hard conversation because we don’t have a share of analysis. We don’t have commonly held definitions.”
On the importance of “Brave Space” over “Safe Space”:
“Sometimes we hear people say, ‘I just want safe space.’ We need to recognize that the idea of safe space is a little bit of a misnomer. We need to create space that is brave so that we can move into tensions that may be felt and also recognize that often times within our organizations, the space is not safe for people of marginalized groups. So if you’re a person of color, if you’re a woman, if you’re transgender, that thinking about what safety means is different based on our organizational policies and practices, so really focusing on creating space where we can take some risks and move into that tension.”
On acknowledging a history of racism in the United States:
“…We need to be really clear that racial inequities are not random. They’re not natural. The reason that we have racial inequities is because they were intentionally created over the vast majority of our country’s history. So laws, policies, practices around who could be a citizen, who could vote, who was allowed to own property, who was property, who could marry whom – all of these were laws, policies and practices that intentionally created racial inequities century after century after century. One of the reasons why it’s so important for us to understand history is that if we don’t understand what those policies and practices were that created racial inequities, then it’s most likely that we’re going to be coming up with surface-level solutions that aren’t actually going to get us to the results that we want.”
On interrupting implicit bias:
“Institutional intervention is what disrupts or prevents implicit bias from playing out.”
On channeling our power & influence to influence positive outcomes:
“Every single one of us on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on an annual basis – we are making decisions. If we’re just making the same old, same old decisions, we’re going to keep getting the same outcomes. So looking at those decision-making opportunities that are influencing outcomes and inserting race into choice points – the decisions that are being made. Now some of us might feel like, ‘you know I don’t have much power, I don’t have much influence’ – this is where I want to push you a little bit. All of us have power and influence – how we use that power and influence individually and how we use it collectively. And the truth is that often times the cumulative impacts of many small choices can be as significant as the impact of big decisions. So the main thing is we don’t want to replicate the status quo, we want to get to different decisions being made.”
On the definition of institutional racism:
“Policies, practices, and procedures that work better for white people than for people of color without regard to intent. Sometimes it’s unintentional, sometimes it’s in inadvertent. But frankly, we have less interest in that whether it’s direct or indirect because what we want to do is focus on the impact. Not the intent, but the impact.”
On drawing similarities between racist tactics used historically and in the present-day:
“…For us to be aware of the tactics of racism that have played out historically and what we see playing out now – that it is clear that there’s some of those tactics that may have shifted over the course of time, but thinking about the reality of the institution of slavery and the separation of families that took place, it was a necessary part of slavery: separation of families. And for us to be able to think that that was a historical reality and it’s a current reality, that the separation of families that’s taking place intentionally at the borders now – it’s the same tactic. Thinking about the recent CARES Act and the response to COVID-19 – who’s going to get that $1,200 payout and thinking about the historical tactic of who has had access to things like employment and unemployment. There are similarities in tactics and while we have made progress in some ways, the reality is that the same tactics are playing out today, and so for us to be able to be proactive in those interventions to get tactics that are actually about interrupting institutional and structural racism.”
On the nuances in where we locate affordable housing:
“These are complex conversations right and we do ourselves no good to shy away from the complexity of it, and so when we’re talking about this idea of investing in neighborhoods where there historically has not been affordable housing and whether people actually want that, that’s one nuance to the conversation, and then that other nuance that we’ve got to be able to discuss is when gentrification is taking place in neighborhoods that historically have been affordable, and then you’ve got communities that are recognizing that and you’ve got displacement taking place – you need to have strategies to mitigate that as well. So being clear about what the desired result is, but the unintended consequences – whether you’re talking about the moving to opportunity approach or whether you’re thinking about displacement and gentrification, what we’ve seen is most effective is that it’s not singular strategies, and that we’ve got to be able to come up with multiple strategies for intervention.”
On implementing shared fate as a racial justice narrative:
“Shared fate means that it’s not a zero-sum game – that in fact us developing systems and structures that work better for people of color is something that is about our collective fate – that an injury to some hurts all of us in the long run.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
April 21, 2020
HAND joined Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) and nearly 30 philanthropic, business and nonprofit leaders in a public statement calling for fair and equitable treatment of the District of Columbia as part of federal stimulus legislation related to the COVID-19 crisis.
The statement outlined the gravity of losing $750 million needed to address racial and economic inequities and to support thousands of small businesses, nonprofits, and over 700,000 residents. It noted the District’s important role in the operation of national sites and museums, and the federal government, its contribution to the nation’s tax base, and the established precedent of having treated DC as a state in other legislation.
An excerpt reads:
“The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, treated Washington, DC differently than virtually all other federal legislation by funding it comparably to U.S. territories rather than states—which meant it lost some $750 million in essential financial support (the District of Columbia was allocated about $500 million compared to $1.25 billion for states). This break with Congressional precedent should matter to everyone. As representatives of philanthropic, business and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Washington region (DC, Suburban Maryland, and Virginia), we are adamant that it is both fair and appropriate that future COVID-19 legislation maintain decades of past practice by funding DC comparably to states.
DC’s population of 705,000 is higher than some states. Its residents pay the highest per-capita federal income taxes in the country and together pay more taxes than 22 states. A U.S. Senate report notes, ‘Congress already treats the District as if it were a state for the purpose of over 500 statutory purposes — from federal taxation to military conscription to highway funds, education funds, and national motor voter requirements. The Supreme Court has also deemed DC the equivalent of a state for certain constitutional purposes…'”
Read the full statement here.
April 21, 2020
This blog post was originally posted by American Public Health Association.
Author: Tia Taylor Williams, Director of APHA’s Center for Public Health Policy
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought more attention to the field of public health. Every day, people are seeing and hearing from epidemiologists, clinicians, laboratory scientists, researchers and more. While the spotlight is on the field, we should seize this moment to bring national attention to our greatest imperative: reducing health disparities and advancing health equity.
The public health field has an opportunity to shape the discourse about COVID-19 inequities to ensure that the root causes of the problem are acknowledged and addressed within, and well beyond, the pandemic.
As calls for race and ethnicity data in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality are heeded, we’re learning more about the communities and populations being disproportionately impacted. The prevalence of preexisting conditions — such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease — among people who are dying from COVID-19 is also being emphasized.
As public health professionals, we know these same chronic conditions plagued low-income and communities of color at alarmingly high rates for decades before the current pandemic. We also know that these health disparities are the result of years of intentional disinvestment in communities. Lack of access to basic services, living wage jobs and affordable quality housing, education and health care are all veiled by a system that assigns value and structures opportunity based on how a person looks, i.e., racism.
At the same time, we know that as a country we are reluctant to understand, acknowledge and address how America’s legacy of racism, discrimination and exploitation has created present-day conditions of racially segregated and under-resourced neighborhoods.
If history is a predictor, as the pandemic persists and more data are collected, our suspicions about who is being hit hardest will be further substantiated. We can also expect that there will be many different arguments used to downplay or detract from the real issues.
As health equity champions, we have to be ready to redirect those diversions. By applying an equity lens, we can shift the narrative to focus on the root causes of COVID-19 disparities:
- Racism, not race. Yes, it is important that disparities in COVID-19 testing, treatment and death rates are identified so that resources are funneled to where they are most needed. However, it is not being black, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian or Pacific Islander that causes poorer health outcomes; it is how individuals and communities are treated because of their race or ethnicity.
- Social and economic factors, not genetics. There may be some genetic differences among those who are able to recover from COVID-19 and those who succumb to it. However, until the research is definitive, we should avoid overemphasizing the influence of genetics on COVID-19 outcomes and disparities.
What we do know is that overall health status is heavily influenced by socioeconomic factors, including place of residence, educational attainment, income and wealth. While there’s not much we can do about genetics, we can change socioeconomic factors through policies and systems changes.
- Environment and neighborhood conditions, not just behaviors. Health behaviors are important. They are also shaped by environment and access. Asking communities to eat healthily is futile if there are no affordable options — or healthy options at all — in their neighborhoods. This may seem like a no-brainer to those of us who live and breathe this work, but it’s important that this message is conveyed to broader audiences.
At a time when family resources are dwindling and being spread even thinner, we must avoid finger-pointing and placing the blame on the behaviors of individuals in marginalized communities. We know racism is a driving force for the social, economic and environmental conditions, i.e., social determinants that influence health. For example, black and Hispanic communities have higher rates of exposure to air pollution, which has recently been associated with increased risk of COVID-19 death.
We are public health. Social justice is in our roots. We look upstream to identify the causes of the causes. It is critical, during the pandemic and after, that we bring attention and action to addressing systemic and structural factors that shape who has power, where and how people live and, ultimately, what access and opportunities they have for good health.
For more on health equity and COVID-19, visit APHA’s COVID-19 and Equity page.
April 15, 2020
REGISTER TODAY
MORE ABOUT THE SUMMIT
Save the date for the Race, Equity & the Future of Greater Washington Regional Summit, September 18, 2020, at Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC), where over 800 regional leaders from Greater Washington—D.C., Northern Virginia, and Suburban Maryland—will convene to examine existing disparities and co-create a new path toward a racially just and equitable region. While Greater Washington is one of the most socially, culturally, and economically vibrant regions in the country, it is also impacted by disparities in every aspect of life— housing, employment, education, justice, wealth and health; and through aligned and measurable action, cross-sector leaders can close the gaps.
The Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers, in partnership with HAND, Bridges Across the River, Center for Nonprofit Advancement, Greater Washington Community Foundation, Leadership Greater Washington, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, and United Way of the National Capital Region, will host this one-of-a-kind summit.
LEARN MORE
April 14, 2020
RED LINES, WHITE PAPERS, & BLUE PRINTS: A FOUR-PART LEARNING SERIES EXPLORING THE DIMENSIONS OF RACISM AND STRATEGIES TOWARDS RACIAL EQUITY
SESSION 1: STRUCTURAL RACISM
Many thanks to the cohort of 120 members & partners who joined us for the kickoff of Red Lines, White Papers, & Blue Prints: A Four-Part Learning Series Exploring the Dimensions of Racism and Strategies Towards Racial Equity in early March! Hosted at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Total Health, the first session laid the foundation for the series with the topic of Structural Racism. We were pleased to welcome New York Times Bestselling Author of How to Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, as the featured speaker. The powerful program delved into racism in its institutional and structural forms, and challenged cohort members to reflect on how racial equity can play a role in the work of affordable housing and community development.
We asked a few of our cohort members to share their initial reflections from the session:
Kahlil Gross, Senior Vice President – Director, City First Bank
Joanna Hoffschneider, Founder, Resolute Consulting LLC
John Spencer, CPA, HAND Founder & Senior Vice President, Victory Housing
More on what they had to say can be found below, followed by key moments from the speaker himself.
Thank you to our series sponsors, DC Housing Finance Agency, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo and Meyer Foundation!
REFLECTIONS FROM THE COHORT
What struck you most about Mr. Kendi’s remarks?
KG: His comment about needing to have hope in order to be a change agent is what has stuck with me the most. Our problems often
look very bleak and overwhelming and it feels like people will never change enough to solve the problems we’re facing. Especially when you consider how long we’ve been dealing with them. What also struck me was his knowledge of how these issues present themselves globally. It reaffirms the common denominator I see in most effective change agents and that’s that they eventually approach these issues from a global perspective…or at least understand them from that perspective.
JH: Considering when our actions help an individual in need who may be oppressed by a racist power structure, versus when our actions actually work to change a racist power structure. Acknowledging that while each of these actions are positive, they are not the same thing. We should not fool ourselves that individual help equates to systemic change.
JS: In some respects, Mr. Kendi’s remarks upset our affordable housing development paradigm by applying a different, and likely new, lens to the work we have been doing for years to preserve and create housing for low- and moderate-income families. While we all know the housing crisis has yet to be solved and is worse now facing new challenges in higher costs, reduced supply, gentrification and income equality, we also could take some pride in our successes along the way. Mr. Kendi’s remarks helped us understand we still have a long way to go and that instilling a racial equity lens in all that we do will truly help individuals, families and communities. To be an antiracist is to be an active participant in achieving racial equity.
If you had to describe how you felt leaving the program in one word, what would it be?
KG: Cautiously-optimistic.
JH: Humbled.
JS: The most appropriate word for me would be “challenged.” Though preserving and providing affordable housing is already demanding work, it is not enough to go work with the current processes and programs available. Rather, you need to consider the outcomes of the housing and services you are providing, and if those outcomes are not equitable then you need to change those programs to truly achieve success.
Have you reflected on how structural racism impacts you in your career and other areas of your life? What are your initial observations?
KG: Absolutely. It became obvious to me in grad school that the driving forces behind the community development industry is the white middle and upper-class establishment. The solutions that come through the community development industry to address the problems in our neighborhoods don’t get funded or implemented until they understand the problem. That means that the pace of progress, as it relates to most federal and philanthropic dollars, is always limited by their ability to view us as equal…needing the same systems, advantages and supports that they have.
JH: I’ve thought a lot about the twin concepts of individualization/generalization: When do we (I) observe a behavior by an individual (such as a homeowner) and see that behavior as representative of a group – most commonly a racial group? When do I see an individual’s behavior as representing simply that individual? When do I benefit from these extrapolations myself? When do I make them? How do I hold myself accountable for the uncomfortable truth that I do make them? And how can I challenge myself and others to see individual behaviors as just that?
JS: You definitely reflect on where you are in your life and that not everything you are or you have achieved is because of your own efforts. Whether it is the home and community you grew up in, the schools and educational opportunities you had, and the career ladder you followed, at some level you know that it was because of structural racism that was prevalent and perpetuated during those times in your life. I’m thankful that the area I’m from, the experiences I’ve had, and the career I chose, gave me opportunities to understand those disparities and try to do something about it.
NOTEWORTHY REMARKS FROM IBRAM KENDI
On defining structural racism:
“When I think of structural racism, I think of the structure. What I think of is a set of collective policies – and really I define racism 
itself as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas.”
On the role of self interest in racist policies:
“We’ve been taught this narrative that institutions, individuals push policies because they’re ignorant and hateful – they hate Native people, they hate Asian people, they hate Black people or they’re just ignorant…so what we then need to do is teach them, is get them to start recognizing the human unity and love that persists…it sounds great, but the fact of the matter is what has always been behind structural racism has been self interest, has been economic self interest, has been political self interest, has been cultural self interest, and I think most Americans can understand that during the enslavement era people were enslaving people first and foremost to make money, and that by 1860 this small group of mega slave holders in the south who owned the vast majority of the four million Black people were the richest and most powerful group of people not in the United States, but in the world. Why were they engaged in this racial slavery? To make money – and they made lots of it…We’re still living in times of self interest…Back then it was literacy tests and grandfather clauses and poll taxes. Now it’s voter id laws, now it’s ‘let’s purge voters from voting rolls,’ now it’s ‘let’s cancel forms of early voting,’ now ‘let’s eliminate polling spots in Black and Latinx communities…'”
On the narrative of the American dream hurting Americans:
“…The narrative of the American dream itself, when it became extremely popular…that happened after World War II in the 1950s. What was happening in the 1950s in the sector? That is when you had the suburbanization of America. How did the suburbanization of America happen and who did it hurt? So when we look at for instance, the structure and the set of policies and then who benefitted from it – the actors who were not only critical in the expansion and the building of the suburbs, but the blockbusting of urban areas…the people who were benefitting the most were not black people who were forced, and Latinx people who were forced to stay in these urban centers…”
