Dear Atlas users,

We’ve had an exciting month, from launching the Racial Equity Data Lab to equipping housing advocates across the country with new data on the Covid-driven rent debt crisis. As summer kicks off, we remain focused on producing research and data tools to advance an equitable recovery and shared prosperity. Here are some updates:

Clearing $19 Billion in Back Rent Urgently Needed for Equitable Recovery

This week, we released new national and local data on our Rent Debt Dashboard, produced in partnership with with Right to the City Alliance. As of the end of April, 5.8 million renters — overwhelmingly low-income households of color who’ve lost employment income during the pandemic — owe nearly $19 billion in back rent. With the federal eviction moratorium scheduled to expire at the end of June, clearing this debt is urgently needed to prevent an eviction crisis and make equitable recovery possible. In California, our data was included in a report from Housing NOW, BARHII, and PolicyLink about how the state can strengthen its rental assistance programs. See the data for your community on the dashboard and check out our updated analysis. 

Rent Debt Data Supports “Cancel the Rent” Campaign in Oregon

In partnership with Oregon’s Community Alliance of Tenants, the Atlas team released a new fact sheet on rent debt and households behind on rent in Oregon. Even as economic recovery is picking up, in Oregon one in 10 renter households, many of whom are people of color and have low incomes, still owe a total of $170 million in back rent. These renters were the hardest hit by pandemic shutdowns and layoffs, underscoring the continued need for renter protections and rent cancellation as part of an equitable recovery. The new data were presented at the Oregon Cancel the Rent Digital Town Hall alongside stories and learnings from tenant leaders. You can find a recording of the town hall here.

Getting Started in the Racial Equity Data Lab: Create Your Own $15/Hour Fact Sheet

Last month, we launched the Racial Equity Data Lab, a new space on the Atlas where you can create unique data displays, dashboards, and maps. The Lab has everything you need to tell your community’s equity story using Atlas data: ready-to-use datasets, data visualization basics, and a step-by-step guide to get you started. You can watch the recording from our introductory webinar here.

Join us this Thursday, June 3, at 12 pm PT for the second installment of our three-part webinar series, “Getting Started in the Racial Equity Data Lab: Create Your Own $15/Hour Fact Sheet.” Through this series, the Atlas team and our partners at Tableau and Lovelytics will walk you through each step of creating your own $15/hour fact sheet, from accessing the data to publishing a custom visualization that you can download, share, and use to advance equitable recovery strategies in your community. If you missed Part 1: Exploring Your Data, you can watch the recording or follow the instructions in the step-by-step guide on the Lab to update the data for your fact sheet. Click here to register for Part 2: Designing Your Data Viz.

Atlas Team Presents to House Committee on Ways and Means

On May 21, the Atlas team shared the National Equity Atlas with the Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee of the US House of Representatives on a panel titled, “Measuring What we Value: Bridging Gaps in Data and Reporting on Race and Ethnicity”that included experts in disaggregated data Randall Akee, Nancy Lopez Ninez Ponce, and Rhonda Sharpe. The Committee recently created a Racial Equity Initiative to address the role of racism in perpetuating health and economic inequities. The Atlas team shared our work to highlight the power of disaggregated data to advance equitable, targeted solutions.

You’re Invited: Join the Measurable Equity One Year Challenge

Join Clear Impact and the National Equity Atlas team for a webinar on June 15 (11 am PT / 2 pm ET) to learn more about the Measurable Equity One Year Challenge. Clear Impact designed this challenge to help government, non-profit, and foundation leaders assess, plan, and advance racial equity using a suite of free resources and tools, including a Racial Equity Scorecard powered by Atlas data. Register here.

In the News

This month, U.S. News, The Intercept, Duluth News Tribune, Governing, The Daily Californian, MPR News, Berkeley News, Minn Post, and AL.com all cited findings from our Rent Debt Dashboard, on both the national and local level. StreetsBlog cited our commute time indicator, which reveals that Black workers have 12 percent longer commute times than their White counterparts. Finally, Reuters covered the launch of our Racial Equity Data Lab.

- The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI)

April 27, 2021

Dear Atlas users,

With the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the Atlas team stands in solidarity with George Floyd’s family. True justice would be a world where George Floyd was never murdered. We remain committed to supporting the fight for racial equity and systemic justice through our analyses, disaggregated data tools, and campaign support. Here are some updates:

Join Us for the Launch of the Racial Equity Data Lab on May 6

The National Equity Atlas is America’s most detailed report card on racial and economic equity – and now we’re democratizing our data even further help you to build your own custom Atlas-powered data dashboards. Join us on May 6 at 12:00pm Pacific / 3:00 Eastern for the launch of the Racial Equity Data Lab, a new space on the Atlas where you can create unique data displays, dashboards, and maps. The Lab has everything you need to tell your community’s equity story using Atlas data: ready-to-use datasets, data visualization basics, and a step-by-step guide to get you started. We’ll also share a starter dashboard focused on the importance of raising the minimum wage. For example, in Dallas, fewer workers earn at least $15 now than in 1980, due entirely to racial inequities. Join this webinar to hear more about the Lab, how we’re using it to support equity campaigns, and how to create custom data visualizations for your community. Register now!

New Rent Debt Dashboard Tracks Covid Impacts to Support Broad Renter Protections

Stabilizing renters experiencing housing insecurity is key to an equitable recovery and lasting prosperity for our communities, so we partnered with Right to the City Alliance to equip advocates and policymakers with timely, local data on the extent of renter debt and the characteristics of households affected by it. Our regularly updated data reveals that the renters behind on rent owe an average of $3,400 – and the vast majority of them are low-wage workers, disproportionately people of color, who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the economic shutdowns. Without sufficient eviction protection, debt relief, and financial support, these Covid-impacted renters will be left behind. Visit the rent debt dashboard to see the data for your community, and check out our accompanying analysis.

In the News

This month, Forbes highlighted the Atlas as a key tool for advancing racial equity on a municipal level. Denver7 TV aired a story featuring the findings and implications of our rent debt analysis, and Planetizen also highlighted the data in our rent debt dashboard. Government Affairs called for the Biden Administration to develop equity indicators modeled after the Atlas. And ABC Cleveland, Energy News Network, and Akron Beacon Journal all cited our data in their coverage of racial inequities. See a complete list of media coverage here.

- The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI)

José Velasquez has lived in Boston for the past 28 years. In April 2006, he and his family moved into a 14-unit apartment building on Meridian Street in East Boston. The landlord didn't maintain the place very well, but Velasquez was able to take care of some of the repairs and upkeep himself, and the rent increases were manageable. Then new owners took over the building this summer, and Velasquez and all of his neighbors were given 30-day eviction notices — as with many such mass evictions — so their building could be renovated and rented out at a higher market rate.

Most of the building's residents moved out. But Velasquez and his wife, who live with their adult daughter and niece, both of whom require special care, decided to stay and fight. "I've always paid rent on time. I've never failed them. So I feel I have rights," he explained in his native Spanish. A few days after he received the eviction notice, Velasquez connected with other tenants and organizers through City Life/Vida Urbana, a local housing justice organization that helps people facing eviction or rent hikes stay in their homes. So when the #RenterWeekofAction kicked off its nationwide campaign of coordinated direct actions and renter assemblies with a citywide march in Boston on September 16, Velasquez was there.

Resisting gentrification and building renter power

"[At the march] I spoke with the community about the help we need and the role of Vida Urbana. The event was really beautiful," Velasquez recalled. "We need to defend our rights because, if we don't, the rich come to step over us. We need to fight for the well-being of our families." He continued, "The rich are coming to Boston to buy properties, turning them into condominiums and making buildings expensive. But the poor also want to live well and care for our families."

His story is all too common: throughout the United States, as rents rise and wages remain stagnant, a growing number of renters are unable to afford the cost of housing. Boston is no exception.

Renters across the country are being squeezed and displaced," said Darnell Johnson of Right to the City Boston. "While the crisis is worsening, we also believe that renters are beginning to wake up to enormous power we have when organized. At Homes For All, we're supporting communities in organizing tenants unions and neighborhood groups to defend our housing, reclaim our communities, and win community control of land, housing, and development that impacts working-class people."

To address these challenges, Right to the City and its partner organizations are focused on building power among renters — and in Boston, where more than 390,000 people live in renter households, there is plenty to build on. Sixty-five percent of Boston's residents are renters, and after paying their rent and utilities they contribute nearly $7.5 billion to the Boston economy each year.

But in this city, where the economy and the population are both growing, many long-term residents are at risk of displacement. According to a recent National Equity Atlas analysis of housing affordability and the economic impact of burdensome rents in Boston, from 2000 to 2015 median rents in the city increased by 18 percent, while median renter-household incomes actually declined by 11 percent. So it's not surprising that during the same period, the share of renter households who are rent-burdened (spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs) jumped from 42 percent to 51 percent.

The financial burden of high rents isn't only a challenge for families who can barely make ends meet; it's also a strain on the local economy. If no Boston renters were housing burdened — if they spent only what they could afford on rent — they would have an extra $764 million to spend in the community each year, with people of color enjoying the largest percentage gains. Latino renters like the Velasquez family would see a 16 percent increase in their annual disposable income (income after paying for rent and utilities), and their Asian or Pacific Islander counterparts would see a 19 percent gain. On average, each rent-burdened household in the city would have an additional $9,300 each year to help cover the costs of necessities like food, transportation, health care, and childcare.

Renter protections can reduce the high costs of displacement

In the context of accelerating gentrification and skyrocketing rents, the City of Boston has taken a two-pronged approach to address housing affordability: One set of strategies focuses on increasing the supply of affordable housing, setting aside millions of dollars to help affordable housing developers compete in the city's fast-moving real estate market for both existing buildings and new development space. Another group of policies aims to help existing tenants stay in their homes.

Yesterday, the city council passed the Jim Brooks Community Stabilization Act, a just cause eviction ordinance that will "help protect residential tenants and former homeowners living in their homes post-foreclosure against arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, or retaliatory evictions" and give the city greater ability to track evictions in real time. Another legislative proposal would give tenants the right of first refusal on foreclosed properties. And city officials are also working to provide incentives to property owners to keep tenants — and rents — stable.

Last year, Mayor Marty Walsh launched the city's Office of Housing Stability (OHS) with an explicit anti-displacement mission to help residents find and maintain affordable housing. As part of its broad anti-displacement agenda, OHS regularly tracks building sales to identify residents who may be at risk for mass eviction, and reaches out to tenants to inform them of their rights. So when OHS staff heard about the clearing out of the building where the Velasquez family lives, they immediately reached out to City Life/Vida Urbana.

"In the case of a no-fault eviction, tenants can get an additional six months — up to a year for elderly or disabled tenants — but we are finding residents agreeing to leave after just six weeks," said Kate Brady, senior program manager at OHS. "Massachusetts has a lot of tenant-friendly protections, but they only work if people know when and how to assert them." That's why OHS is pushing for state-level legislation that would guarantee a right to legal counsel for tenants facing eviction. "With a right to counsel, tenants can rebalance a power imbalance in which the vast majority of landlords have an attorney, but only 6 percent of tenants do," Brady explained.

For many low-income residents, that imbalance is exacerbated by a mix of market forces that drive up property values while driving down workers' economic power. In May of this year, one month before he received his eviction notice, Velasquez, who works in maintenance, asked his employer for a raise after he heard that several of his co-workers had received pay increases. Instead, his hours were cut. "They took one day off my schedule and reduced my pay," he explained. "They said they didn't have money for me but they were hiring other people."

Not long after, to entice Velasquez to give up his apartment, the building's new owners offered to pay him $400 per month for a period of a year — but he knew it wouldn't be enough. "I said no, because if I leave, the other apartments [out there] are too expensive." According to data from, the median market-rate rent for a two-bedroom unit in Boston was $2,400 a month as of July 2017, and Velasquez estimated that even the cheapest places where he could move with his family cost around $1,800. "Right now, I pay $950," he said. "We break even with the current rent, so I couldn't pay double. I just couldn't afford it."

Beyond the family budget, OHS points to the potential public savings in shelter and health-care costs as another incentive to help renters stay in place. "Preventing displacement not only keeps families stable in terms of their work, schools, and communities," explained Lisa Pollack, director of communications for the Department of Neighborhood Development, "the costs savings can be astronomical." Pollack added, "We really need to get farther upstream" to prevent crises rather than just responding to them.

For the tens of thousands of families in Boston struggling to get by, the difference could be life-changing. "Before I learned about Vida Urbana I would just think and cry inside," Velasquez said. "But now I have learned that everyone must defend their rights. Even if you don't speak English and are an immigrant, even the undocumented — we all have rights."