The Impact of Advocacy Organizations on Low-Income Housing Policy in U.S. Cities

Abstract

Financial support for affordable housing competes with many other municipal priorities. This work seeks to explain the variation in support for affordable housing among U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Using multivariate statistical analysis, this research investigates political explanations for the level of city expenditures on housing and community with a particular interest in the influence of housing advocacy organizations (AOs). Data for the model were gathered from secondary sources, including the U.S. Census and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Among other results, the analysis indicates that, on average, the political maturity of AOs has a statistically significant, positive effect on local housing and community development expenditures.Affordable housing 1 continues to be a critical problem in the United States. The gap between the housing units needed and those available to lowerincome Americans increases every year (Schwartz 2010). Furthermore, recent economic and foreclosure crises have exacerbated housing problems,

Beyond NTEE Codes: Opportunities to Understand Nonprofit Activity Through Mission Statement Content Coding

“…Consider how this sample compares to one created with an NTEE major code. Code L denotes “Housing and Shelter” organizations and is frequently used by researchers to create a sample of housing and shelter nonprofits (e.g., Shea & Wang, 2016; Yerena, 2015). Table 1 lists the organizations from the HUD inventory alongside the number of beds or housing units they provided in 2012, their primary NTEE codes, and their organizational status.…”

Politics, power, and precarity: how tenant organizations transform local political life

“…A significant body of research on housing-related interest groups has focused on economic elites and non-profit advocacy organizations (Al-Turk 2016;Einstein et al 2020;Erickson 2006;Lilley 1980;Mollenkopf and Pynoos 1980;Yerena 2015Yerena , 2019. Another subset of research has attended specifically to organized residents within public housing (Feldman and Stall 2004;Feldman et al 1998;Howard 2014;Keene 2016;Rodriguez 2021;Williams 2004).…”

Strategic Action for Affordable Housing: How Advocacy Organizations Accomplish Policy Change

“…In past studies that focused on different policy domains, AOs have been identified as actors that make claims to influence decision-makers (Andrews and Edwards 2004; Lucio and Ramirez de la Cruz 2012; MacIndoe and Whalen 2013; Nguyen, Basolo, and Tiwari 2012; Prakash and Gugerty 2010; Yerena 2015). For the purpose of this study, advocacy is any activity that an organization undertakes to influence policies.…”

“…The choice of one county ensures that cities are subject to the same state law (affordable housing state mandates) and state sponsored housing programs and that all cities participated in the same regional housing market and experienced the same level of intercity competition. 4 Intercity competition incentivizes local decision-makers to adopt local policy in the city’s economic interest and therefore favor developmental policies over redistributive policies (such as those related to affordable housing; Basolo 1997; Yerena 2015). Los Angeles County is a highly competitive housing market (intercity competition is 1.1 standard deviations above the national mean).…”

“…One of these approaches involves the adoption and implementation of novel affordable housing policies that offer both supply and demand solutions. AOs are vital to the development and implementation of these kinds of affordable housing policies (Basolo 1997; Bratt 2012; Goetz 1995; Yerena 2015) and related services (MacIndoe and Whalen 2013). The policies AOs promote then lead the way in shaping cities’ responses to affordable housing concerns.…”