On December 13, 2016, the National Housing Conference hosted the third How Housing Matters Conference in partnership with the Urban Institute, HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, and the Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Housing with sponsorship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
    

More than 30,000 people gathered in Quito, Ecuador, from October 17 to October 20, 2016, for Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development and the last major United Nations conference of the Obama administration.
    

The recently released Family Options Study: 3-Year Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families report describes the results of “a landmark study in our long quest to eliminate homelessness in America,” said HUD Secretary Julián Castro.
    

HUD’s recently released report, Family Options Study: Three-year Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families, offers critical insights about the long-term effectiveness of various programs to address homelessness for families with children.
    

Finding affordable rental housing is difficult for seasonal farmworkers who travel to Washington state, the nation’s top producer of apples, cherries, red raspberries, and several other crops.
    

A new report from HUD’s Office of Economic Resilience and Office for International and Philanthropic Innovation, Scaling Solutions: Unleashing the Potential of Public-Philanthropic Partnerships, examines the role philanthropy played in HUD’s Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI).
    

In September 2016, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners convened for “Promoting Economic Mobility: Putting Evidence to Action for Communities,” a conference hosted by the Urban Institute and the Citi Foundation.
    

PD&R speaks with Lourdes Castro Ramírez, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, about a housing summit hosted by HUD’s Northern Plains Office of Native American Programs (NPONAP) and the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC) to explore innovative models and solutions to preserving and expanding affordable housing.     

The federal government has long recognized the connection between housing and health. As HUD Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research (PD&R) Katherine O’Regan noted in the Winter 2016 issue of Evidence Matters, part of HUD’s mission from the start has been the promotion of healthy and sanitary housing.
    

Sustainability, defined by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” has increasingly become a focus of both government policy and private practice.
    

Poor-quality, unhealthy housing poses both short- and long-term risks for resident safety and well-being and results in long-term costs to both individuals and society.
    

Even with a population of only 4,391, the town of Manchester in southwestern Vermont struggles with the high housing costs experienced throughout the state.
    

“Each one of us is part of the problem. Each one of us has the potential to be a part of the solution. Stop thinking this is someone else’s problem.”
    

The neighborhoods of Larimer and East Liberty, located three miles east of Pittsburgh’s downtown, are in the midst of revitalization as a result of years of community activism leading to a Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant in 2014.
    

Gentrification is a form of neighborhood change that occurs when higher-income groups move into low-income neighborhoods, increasing the demand for housing and driving up prices.
    

Located west of Portland, Oregon, in the city of Hillsboro, the new urbanist Orenco Station neighborhood embodies many of the region’s environmentally responsible urban planning policies.
    

Buildings account for a large share of electricity consumption, overall energy use, and carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
    

Although numerous studies suggest that pre-purchase homebuyer education and counseling benefits consumers, they fail to account for selection bias, limiting the usefulness of their findings.
    

In this column, Ismael Guerrero, Executive Director of the Denver Housing Authority (DHA), shares lessons learned from Habitat II and discusses priorities and expectations for the upcoming Habitat III conference to be held in October 2016.
    

University of Texas at Austin Wins First Place; University of Maryland at College Park Is the Runner-Up
The 2016 HUD Innovation in Affordable Housing (IAH) Student Design and Planning Competition came to a close on April 19, 2016, at HUD Headquarters.
    

In this column, Kymian Ray, Neighborhood and Community Investment Specialist, Public Housing Community and Supportive Services at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, highlights how HUD and other federal agencies are addressing the housing challenges of formerly incarcerated individuals.