Day One
Presented via Zoom, day one features panelists from across the country, offering best practice reflections and bold ideas suited to our Rhode Island context.
Get Housing RIght - Day One Registration
Schedule
10 – 11 am
Opening Plenary featuring Diane Yentel, President and CEO, National Low Income Housing Coalition
11:30 am – 12:45 pm
Session 1-A : Transformative Affordable Housing Policies
This panel covers lessons learned from France’s social housing programs, ideas for a potential federal “Social Housing Development Authority”, and the local outcomes of state affordable housing appeal systems.
Panelists
Jacob Carlson – Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, Brown University
Magda Maaoui – University of Cergy-Paris
Nicholas Marantz and Huixin Zheng – University of California Irvine
Session 1-B : The Right to Housing
This panel covers the international and national legal norms that connect human rights to housing access, the role doctors can play as patient advocates in the housing and justice systems, and national research showing that housing choice vouchers are most effective in addressing family homelessness.
Panelists
Eric Tars, National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Rahul Vanjani, Lifespan’s Transitions Clinic
Beth Shinn, Vanderbilt University
1:30 – 2:45 pm
Session 2-A : New Models for Community Wealth Building
This panel features research into new and creative mechanisms to expand community ownership, a proposal for shared-equity rental housing, and a model for community-driven investment into BIPOC small businesses.
Panelists
Moderated by: Andrew Posner, Capital Good Fund
Nia Evans, The Boston Ujima Project
Shane Phillips, UCLA Lewis Center Housing Initiative
Brett Theodos, Urban Institute
Session 2-B: Zoning for Housing Access
This panel presents a proposal for a Zoning Atlas, the impacts of broad legalization of 2 – 4 unit buildings in select U.S. states, and the current state of the MBTA Communities law in Massachusetts which requires by-right multifamily zoning in 175 communities.
Panelists
Sara Bronin, DeSegregate CT
Jesse Kanson-Benanav, Abundant Housing Mass
Noah Kazis, Legal Fellow at the NYU Furman Center and the Brookings Institute
3:30 – 5 pm
Closing Plenary, Creating Community Buy-In for Expanded Affordable Housing
This panel presents the stories and reflections of elected officials who sought to codify a comprehensive approach to housing, prioritizing racial equity and environmental sustainability.
Panelists
Moderated by: James Diossa, Former Mayor of Central Falls, Rhode Island
Lisa Bender, Minneapolis City Council
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, Cambridge City Council
