Tools

Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”

Poverty & Race research Action Council (PRRAC)
HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.

The Boston Foundation Racial Equity Capacity Builders Directory

The Boston Foundation
As part of its continued work to support nonprofits as it centers and advances racial equity within its organizations, the Boston Foundation worked with partners to develop a directory of racial equity capacity builders currently serving Greater Boston nonprofit organizations. The directory lists 80 individuals and organizations providing racial equity capacity building services. Please use this as a resource for organizational racial equity goals.

The Ultimate Guide to DEI Investing in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Your Organization

Berrett-Koehler Publishers
In this comprehensive guide, we’ve compiled actionable and accessible resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the top leaders who have been doing the work to shape the future of a more inclusive economy. Read on for the most important trends and research-backed tools on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

COVID Community Data Lab

Boston Indicators
We’re scanning the best available data sources to analyze how our communities have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in early March. (Since public health experts are covering the dynamics of the virus spread, we focus here mostly on non-virus-related areas.) We’re looking at non-traditional sources like call volumes to the state’s 211 social service call center and road traffic through Mass Pike toll gantries. None of them are perfect, and there’s a lot of other data we wish we had. But taken together these sources paint a picture of how much our day-to-day lives have been altered across a few key domains.

COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard

Eviction Lab
Safe, stable, and decent housing has always been central to ensuring health and stability. Today, with the United States focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic, the broader and longstanding issue of income and housing insecurity has quickly become paramount to the health of an entire nation.To better understand the steps states have taken to prevent homelessness during and after the pandemic, the Eviction Lab and Columbia Law School’s Professor Emily Benfer have developed a policy scorecard for each state, distilling the contents of thousands of newly-released emergency orders, declarations, and legislation into a clear set of critical measures included in, and left out of, state-level pandemic responses related to eviction and housing.

COVID-19 - Racial Equity & Social Justice Resources

Racial Equity Tools
COVID-19 Racial Equity & Social Justice list includes information that we hope will help communities and activists as they work to understand and respond to the moment and for the long haul.

Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

Tema Okun, dRworks
This is a list of characteristics of white supremacy culture that show up in our organizations. The characteristics listed below are damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being proactively named or chosen by the group. They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking.

Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement

Sponsored by: U.S. Department of Arts and Culture
Created in partnership with Native allies and organizations, the Guide offers context about the practice of acknowledgment, gives step-by-step instructions for how to begin wherever you are, and provides tips for moving beyond acknowledgment into action.

Housing Matters

Urban Institute
Housing Matters is an online resource for the most rigorous research and practical information on how a quality, stable, affordable home in a vibrant community contributes to individual and community success.

Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast

Race Forward
A podcast that features movement voices, stories, and strategies for racial justice. Co-hosts Chevon Drew and Hiba Elyass will provide you with their fresh takes on race and pop culture, as well as, uplift narratives of hope, struggle, and joy, as we continue to build the momentum needed to advance racial justice.

Radical Imagination

Angela Glover Blackwell; Powered by PolicyLink
To imagine radically, means to think big, demand better, and redefine the terms of the struggle; the Radical Imagination podcast delivers all that. The debut season confronts the challenging issues facing our nation, including immigration, the need for big new economic ideas, the impact of climate change, revolutionary approaches to community safety and justice, and more.

Six Maps That Reveal America’s Expanding Racial Diversity

William H. Frey, Brookings Institute
A pre-2020 census look at the wide dispersal of the nation’s Hispanic, Asian and black populations.

The 1619 Project

The New York Times
The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Internalized Racism Inventory

Cultural Bridges to Justice
Fundamental questions to ask when taking an internalized racism inventory.

Boston Neighborhood Change Interactive Map

Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
A new interactive mapping tool showing the dramatic demographic, social, and economic changes that have occurred in Greater Boston since 1990. The tool includes data from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses and from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates for 2010 and 2016.

DataTown

Massachusetts Housing Partnership's Center for Housing Data
The site compiles community-level information from various data sources for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns, and visualizes that data in graphics and charts so it's easy to understand, print out and bring to a community discussion.

Prosperity Now Scorecard

Prosperity Now Scorecard
A comprehensive resource for data on household financial health, racial economic inequality and policy recommendations to help put everyone in our country on a path to prosperity.

Homes for Families: Family Housing Resource Guide Massachusetts

Brooke Murphy, UMass Boston Master of Public Administration Graduate Student
All of the resources, terms, definitions, subsidies and programs one should know to create affordable family housing in Massachusetts.

Green + Healthy Property Management: A Guide for Multifamily Affordable Housing

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
LISC created this Guide to help affordable housing owners define and pursue measures to reduce the use of energy, water, and harmful chemicals in their properties, reduce waste generated on site, create healthier living environments for residents, and reduce the carbon and environmental footprint associated with residential properties.

Equitable Development / Brownfields Planning

Groundwork USA
Groundworks USA's technical assistance team offers customized strategy, tools, and peer support for those in brownfield-affected communities seeking a more inclusive planning and redevelopment agenda in which everyone can prosper.

The National Equity Research Database, Boston Edition

Brandeis Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy
This is a database of 286 socio-economic indicators on a wide range of subjects, including demography, education, employment, health, housing, earnings and ancestry covering the Boston metropolitan area.

Building Blocks: Connecting People, Places and Policies

Enterprise Community Partners
A podcast for thought-provoking conversations about the current issues, trends, ideas and big questions facing the affordable housing and community development field in the United States.

MASSCAP Trainings: Recorded Webinars

MASSCAP
This resource contains all the past recorded webinars from MASSCAP (Understanding Immigrant Rights, Community Action Impact, Succession Planning, and More!)

Operationalizing Racial Equity & Inclusion at Living Cities: Tools for Getting Started and Keeping At It

Living Cities
These are some of the resources and contacts LC has shared with organizations who are looking to embed racial equity and inclusion into their work.

Housing Toolbox for Mass Communities

MHP
Strategies and best practices for the creation and preservation of affordable housing, with guides, tools and resources for local boards & committees, planners, municipal staff, developers, and volunteers.

Racial Identity Caucusing: A Strategy for Building Anti-Racist Collectives

Crossroads
This toolkit describes methods for anti-racism work and the value of caucusing

Understanding Systemic Racism

Race Forward
"What Is Systemic Racism?" is an 8-part video series that shows how racism shows up in our lives across institutions and society: Wealth Gap, Employment, Housing Discrimination, Government Surveillance, Incarceration, Drug Arrests, Immigration Arrests, Infant Mortality

Rejecting Bigotry, Demanding Action

Opportunity Agenda
Together with UnidosUS, The Opportunity Agenda completed public opinion and messaging research with this goal in mind: to tell a story of American diversity that reflects our values and our aspirations as a country stronger because of our myriad backgrounds, ethnicities, races, experiences – because of the parts of us that may make us different, but ultimately also make us stronger. This research provides guidance for those using their platforms to reject bigotry while demand action.

Rolling Back Inclusion

The Democracy Collaborative
In order to help communities across the country—both rural and urban—speak up in a moment in which the administration has made clear its intentions to scale back or dismantle these key federal frameworks, we will be tracking the new federal attacks on inclusive community development here, along with state-level measures enabled and encouraged by the new federal context.

Racial Wealth Audit

The Institute on Assets and Social Policy; Demos
This interactive online tool uses real-world examples to help policymakers and advocates explore and understand the causes and effects of the racial wealth gap.

The Cost of Affordable Housing: Does it Pencil Out?

Urban Institute and the National Housing Conference
This interactive online tool illustrates how charging rents affordable to low-income families makes it difficult to finance affordable housing without subsidy.

Documentaries about Gentrification

Gentrification Learning Community
These films can be used to learn about issues of gentrification in America

Gentrification Learning Community Resources

Gentrification Learning Community-Mel King Institute
This compendium of resources studied by the gentrification learning community includes broad perspectives for defining and tackling issues of gentrification

Racial Equity Tools

Center for Assessment and Policy Development
This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities and the culture at large.

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