Legal Levers for Housing Equity Research Hub

The Policies for Action Research Hub at the Center for Public Health Law Research will advance equity in a Culture of Health through applied empirical legal research, scholarship and translation activities. The hub's research project focuses on how laws and legal practices related to housing have influenced the availability of quality, affordable housing in socially and racially inclusive neighborhoods—and how the policies that work can be coordinated and scaled up for maximum national impact.

Using a mix of research methods, the hub will explore how local and regional communities are using law to build diversity in new housing, preserve diversity as neighborhoods change, ensure housing quality and safety, and support mobility within a housing market that meets community needs. The hub will combine an empirical approach to law with creative legal analysis to identify legal levers that promote equity in healthy housing, address current legal barriers to effective action, and develop new directions for legal doctrine. The hub team will work with key housing law experts from practice and academia, as well as the researchers working on healthy housing in the other Policies for Action Hubs and related RWJF programs.

The CPHLR hub is one of five research hubs across the country associated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Policies for Action Program. Founded in 2015, the program funds research identifying policies, laws, and other system and community levers in the public and private sectors that can support RWJF’s vision to build a Culture of Health.