Hurricanes Katrina and Rita magnified the worst of America’s inequities and policy failures. The physical, economic, and social conditions that fueled the hurricanes’ devastation of individual lives and neighborhoods—
concentrated poverty, isolation from opportunity, neglect of low-income communities, and a lack of political accountability to the region’s most distressed areas—are painfully clear.  As the one-year anniversary of the hurricanes approaches, the Gulf Coast is beginning what will be a long process to help displaced residents return to their communities and restore the region’s infrastructure and economy. 

Rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast poses a tremendous challenge, but also a historic opportunity to create a brighter, more equitable future for the region.  Since last summer’s storms, PolicyLink has been working to advance equitable development in Louisiana, meeting with and advising a diverse range of organizations, including the funder consortium Living Cities; the Louisiana Recovery Authority; the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus; the Louisiana Legislature; the Louisiana Housing Alliance, a newly-formed statewide housing advocacy coalition; and several organizing networks, including ACORN, PICO/LIFT, and the Jeremiah Group.  

PolicyLink was the first national organization to work on the ground in Louisiana on statewide housing policy.  During a complex, fast-paced set of post-Katrina legislative sessions, PolicyLink provided analytical support to the Legislative Black Caucus and technical assistance to help bring over 40 organizations together to form the Louisiana Housing Alliance.  PolicyLink framing and advocacy helped shape The Road Home, Governor Kathleen Blanco’s $10 billion housing program, by pushing for provisions to assist renters along with homeowners affected by the disaster. 

Katrina’s chaotic aftermath also revealed the dire need for a comprehensive communications system to connect residents, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to government and community information on disaster relief and rebuilding.  PolicyLink convened a team of leading technology experts, policy advocates, and service providers to design and launch LouisianaRebuilds.info, a world-class web portal to serve as a centralized resource on the rebuilding process.  LouisianaRebuilds.info (which includes a toll-free telephone number, 1-877-LA-Rebuilds, to provide information to those with little or no computer access) launched in early March in tandem with The Road Home housing program, which is featured on the portal. During the first two months of use, LouisianaRebuilds.info received over 100,000 visitors and four million hits; the portal is currently logging 2,000 to 3,000 visitors per day.

As planning and policy efforts move forward, PolicyLink will continue working with local organizations to build their advocacy capacity, advocate for inclusionary zoning and other housing policies that can provide opportunity for historically disinvested low-income communities of color in the region, and lift up equitable development solutions for Louisiana and New Orleans.

To learn more about PolicyLink work in Louisiana, visit http://www.policylink.org/Louisiana.

As computers became ubiquitous in the global economy, pundits, politicians, and business leaders hailed information technology (IT) as a leading source of job growth and attractive wages.  Workforce development advocates highlighted the need to capitalize on this potential by connecting low-income, underemployed populations to IT training. With the implementation of innovative skill-building programs across the United States—and the dot-com boom-and-bust of the 1990s—researchers and practitioners confronted two critical questions:  do newly-trained workers remain employed in high technology jobs; and have these formerly-disadvantaged program participants sustained wage gains over time?

University of California, Berkeley Professor Karen Chapple led the first longitudinal analysis of graduates from community-based IT programs, analyzing the career trajectories of alumni and compiling case studies of training intermediaries in the New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC regions.  Moving Beyond the Divide summarizes the study’s findings, and lifts up best practices for helping people cross the digital divide, enter the IT field, and advance in their careers. 

The policy brief is a collaborative effort between PolicyLink and the Institute of Urban and Regional Development designed to connect university research with policy strategies in an accessible document for community-based practitioners and advocates.  Moving Beyond the Divide aims to revive a national conversation about the important role of local providers in training low-skilled job seekers and can bring these issues to the attention of policymakers, advocates, employers, and training providers.

To download a free copy of Moving Beyond the Divide in PDF, visit http://www.policylink.org/Research/IT_Workforce/.  The abstract and full report on Chapple’s research, Promising Futures:  Workforce Development and Upward Mobility in Information Technology is available online at http://www-iurd.ced.berkeley/edu/pub/abstract_mg200501.htm.

On Wednesday, May 17, 160 residents and activists joined the Fairmount/Indigo Line Coalition for a rally in Dorchester, Massachusetts to urge the state’s Executive Office of Transportation to “Break Ground, Not Promises.”

It's been a year since the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) announced plans to improve the Fairmount Line by adding new stations in Dorchester, an underserved neighborhood in Boston that is home to a significant number of low-income residents and people of color. Residents are still waiting for the money to be released and are demanding that the state live up to its promise by completing upgrades at four stations and breaking ground on a fifth new station, at Columbia Road, for that densely populated area.

Coalition leaders noted that insufficient stations and inferior service give the Fairmount Line the lowest ridership of all MBTA commuter rail lines despite passing through some of Boston’s densest residential neighborhoods. Rally speakers made clear connections between the need for new stations and the importance of affordable housing and tenant protections around those stations, to ensure residents aren’t displaced following improvements.

District 4 Councilman Charles C. Yancey lauded the efforts of the Fairmount Coalition, noting that this struggle's roots actually go back 50 years, to when the original transit lines still served this historically vibrant community. Changing demographics in the 1970s and ‘80s led to the removal of those lines, a situation whose remedy "is long overdue." He pledged his support to make sure that the state honors its commitment to restore viable transit to the area.

For more information about the Fairmount coalition, visit http://www.clf.org/programs/cases.asp?id=636

After a three-year struggle, the DC Campaign for Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning celebrated a major policy win. In May 2006, the Zoning Commission issued a historic ruling to create a mandatory inclusionary zoning (IZ) program in the District of Columbia.

Under inclusionary zoning, developers include a percentage of low- and middle-income units in their market-rate projects in exchange for non-monetary compensation (such as density waivers or other zoning variances) that reduces construction costs. Inclusionary zoning will increase the production of affordable housing in the District, support the creation of mixed income communities, and prevent rising prices from driving low- and moderate-income residents out of their neighborhoods.

The DC Campaign for Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning—a diverse coalition of more than 65 groups, including affordable housing advocates, local labor unions, social service providers, civic associations, policy groups, and faith-based organizations—worked tirelessly to build public and political support for inclusionary zoning in Washington, DC. 

Some highlights of the policy include:

1. Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. Implementing mandatory inclusionary zoning (instead of a voluntary provision that offers developer incentives but no requirement for affordable housing) guarantees that the policy will be applied fairly and predictably, ensuring that every development in the growth areas of the District will have housing affordable to a range of incomes.
2. Benefits for Low-Income Families. IZ will serve families at both 50 percent ($45,000 for a family of four) and 80 percent ($72,000) of the area median income. The layering of other housing programs will enable these units to serve even lower income households.
3. A 99-year Affordability Control Period. This affordability period applies to both rental and ownership units, and allows the District to better meet its long-term needs for affordable housing.

The campaign is moving into the final stages of advocacy, which include mapping areas of the District where IZ will apply and finalizing administrative components of the policy. For more information, visit the campaign website, www.dciz.org.