PolicyLink’s Post

Check out the latest article about #BostonsAFFH in Smart Cities Dive, where our Director of Housing, Rasheedah Phillips, emphasizes that while the zoning amendment allows developers “to pause and to consider their impacts [on] residents,” it didn’t “create the capacity for those residents to participate in that process.” Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gVn_Mf5z #HousingJustice #OurHousingFutures #ThrivingCommunities

The tide is turning on rent control. For decades, tenants have fought for rent control to prevent displacement and stabilize our communities. As housing affordability continues to be a pressing issue in households across the country, the Biden Administration is finally listening. Rent caps on Low-Income Housing Tax Credits were a small but important first step to expanding the benefits of rent control to all renters. Tara Raghuveer, director of the KC Tenants Union, and Tram Hoang, PolicyLink senior associate, share their thoughts in The New Republic: "There are a lot of parallels to the minimum wage narrative — the majority of economists opposed it, and since then we’ve had an empirical revolution, the data now shows how minimum wage works." https://lnkd.in/gkigcRKW

"We have the power to design the systems we want to see." - Ashleigh Gardere, PolicyLink Executive Vice President At last weekend's #ESSENCEFest, Ashleigh shared with Jennifer Jones Austin and the Global Black Economic Forum audience why she's committed to doing the work of redesigning the nation so that it works for ALL. https://lnkd.in/gKqgUWcG

Almost 250 years ago, this nation was founded under the revolutionary idea that all are created equal. The Constitution that followed this Declaration of Independence offered us the invitation to bring this idea to life under the mantle of “We, the People.” But, the promise of a nation for all remains unfulfilled because the democracy designed was only intended to serve some. It is now the work of our generation to take up the promise of “We, the People,” and re-found a country that truly serves all. It is precisely at this moment, when democracy is being challenged from all sides, and the limitations of our nearly 250 years of governing are coming to a breaking point that we must fulfill this mandate. This can only happen if we do the generational work of building a truly multiracial democracy––one that has not yet existed but is ours to create. Today is a great day to revisit Dr. Michael McAfee's piece – We Must Be Founders – in Stanford Social Innovation Review. https://lnkd.in/gmxpmyw5

In response to the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling to overturn the Chevron doctrine, the long-standing 40-year precedent where courts provide deference to federal agency expertise in the interpretation of statutes, Dr. Michael McAfee, President and CEO of PolicyLink issued the following statement: Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority represents a dangerous power grab that takes policy decisions out of the hands of agency experts and into the hands of judges. Each and every day, government agencies implement a vast array of policies that protect Americans—such as ensuring the safety of food, drugs, drinking water, and more. The dismantling of the Chevron doctrine will undercut many of these regulations. With one ruling, the court undid our country’s long-standing approach to governing established by the separation of powers principle. And because of this ruling courts will have more authority to determine the availability of medications and ignore the expertise of the Food and Drug Administration. Judges will have more power to decide the acceptable levels of toxins in our drinking water and in the air we breathe. Read the full statement here: https://lnkd.in/gC9uKPzv