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Journal Article
Recent Findings on Residential Instability in Oakland
Safe, stable, and affordable housing is central to ensuring healthy, sustainable, and inclusive communities. Amid COVID-19-related economic shocks and a worsening housing crisis, residents in cities across California are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of housing. This report draws from a unique, longitudinal dataset of over 14,000 residents to examine residential instability–in the form of moving and household crowding–in the City of Oakland, California. It presents trends from the last 20 years, with an additional focus on patterns emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic.The ...
Journal Article
Lessons Learned from Small Business Lending During COVID-19: A Case Study of the California Rebuilding Fund
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced California businesses to shut down in March 2020, the fate of small businesses, which often had fewer reserves to draw upon when trying to survive the shutdowns, became particularly concerning. Federal aid measures, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), brought relief to many business owners, but their deployment also confirmed what many small business advocates feared: business owners in the most vulnerable communities and underrepresented business owners often struggled to obtain assistance. At the same time, small business lending capital dried ...
Journal Article
Recent Innovations in Reducing Home Energy Costs and Improving Resilience for Low- and Moderate-Income Renters and Homeowners
Community Development (CD) practitioners across the western U.S. are engaging in new efforts to reduce energy costs and improve resilience for low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities and other populations that face barriers to economic participation and household financial stability. Energy costs and resilience are factors in housing stability, which impacts economic participation. New federal and state funding sources, as well as growing involvement from philanthropy and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)-motivated investors, have prompted growth in energy cost savings and resilience (ECSR) ...
Journal Article
The Rapidly Growing Home Care Sector and Labor Force Participation
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the growing need for home care workers, who support their elderly and disabled clients in their homes with activities of daily living, and on the challenges of recruiting and retaining workers in the industry. This brief describes the state of the home care sector and its connection to the economy. It looks at home care as a rapidly growing industry facing significant challenges and at home care’s role in enabling working-aged family members to participate in the labor force,i which supports the Federal Reserve’s maximum employment mandateThere is ...
Journal Article
Pandemic Homebuyers: Who Were They, and Where Did They Buy?
Stable and affordable housing is foundational for participating in the economy, and homeownership is the primary form of wealth accumulation for most American families. Housing demand changed as households responded to the economic and social environment of the COVID-19 pandemic. As households moved because of these changing conditions and homebuying surged, many popular narratives emerged around migration patterns, “hot” places to buy, and what types of buyers were succeeding in the market.This research brief employs mortgage data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to examine ...
Journal Article
Overwork Impacts on Low-Wage Workers: Insights from the Food Manufacturing Sector in Oregon and Washington
Unstable scheduling refers to such employer practices as last-minute schedule changes, lack of advance notice, requiring employees to be on-call, split shifts, “clopening,” and variable hours and shift times. Evidence has shown that such practices can lead to underwork, or involuntary part-time hours, particularly for service-sector workers. But another, less-explored dimension of unstable scheduling practices—and the focus of this analysis—is overwork. Overwork stems from practices that can limit the ability of workers to get adequate rest and can heighten the bodily and emotional ...
Journal Article
Housing market recovery in the 12th district: implications for low- and moderate-income communities
Following the aftermath of the Great Recession, national indicators are starting to show signs of improvement in the housing market. However, such indicators mask the realities of what?s happening on the ground in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities that were disproportionately affected by the housing crisis. Complicating matters is the unprecedented role of investors in the housing recovery and the changing nature of local housing markets. There are pressing concerns around the potential impact of investor ownership on communities, tightening rental markets, and the ongoing challenges ...
Journal Article
Housing Stability and Family Health: An Issue Brief
Soaring housing costs are the topic of many recent discussions in the San Francisco Bay Area, but receiving less attention are the implications of high cost housing on the health and well-being of families who are expecting or who have young children. This research brief presents a snapshot of housing instability for families with children in the Bay Area. It synthesizes a growing body of literature to reveal how housing instability during pregnancy and early childhood has particularly negative long-term consequences, while also highlighting promising ways to support housing stability. ...
Journal Article
Disruptions from Wildfire Smoke: Vulnerabilities in Local Economies and Disadvantaged Communities in the U.S.
Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, are measurably affecting vulnerable populations, labor, housing, and education. This report describes how wildfire smoke disrupts various sectors of the economy across the United States. Wildfire smoke is a growing problem for groups that face greater economic barriers than the general population, such as low-income families, housing-vulnerable communities, and frontline workers.
Journal Article
Who Moved and Where Did They Go? An analysis of residential moving patterns in King County, WA between 2002–2017
From 2002-2017, moderate and middle socioeconomic status (SES) King County residents exhibited greater rates of moving compared to the lowest and highest SES residents. Geographically, movement rates were highest in East King County and North Seattle. High-SES residents were the least likely to move during all years.The percentage of King County residents in the high-SES group increased by 8.9 percentage points between 2002 and 2017, while the percentages of middle-, moderate- and lower-SES residents decreased (by 3.3, 3.2, and 2.4 percentage points, respectively).Neighborhoods in Seattle and ...