(Photo by Jeff Turner / CC BY 2.0) Welcome back to The Weekly Wrap, our Friday roundup of stories that explain the problems oppressing people in cities and elevate the solutions that bring us closer to economic, environmental and social justice. Have news, resources or events that should be included in this newsletter? Let us know. We’re reachable at wrapped@nextcity.org. Rights Group Ask DOJ To Investigate War Criminal Visiting U.S. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before Congress on Wednesday was met by a standing ovation from elected officials, mass protest by activists ..read more

When New York State Assembly member Emily Gallagher moved to Brooklyn in the 2000s, the steady creep of gentrification was impossible to ignore. “I was floored by the reality that I was seeing. I was so disturbed,” says Gallagher, a Democrat who is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party. “How do we stop people being forced out of their homes because there’s new development here?” Convinced New York’s housing system was broken, she joined anti-displacement community organizations, eventually co-chairing a local activist group. As hard as they fought ..read more

(Photo by Samantha Schwartz / Burst) Housing vouchers are a federally-funded payment system. They’re used by low-income people to rent a home — any home. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. While the Fair Housing Act of 1968 offered legal protections against discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and disability, there is nothing in it that says you can’t discriminate against someone based on the source of their income. Jacqueline Waggoner is president of the solutions division at Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit that “exists to make a good home p ..read more

Left: Construction of the future King and Bathurst station, a transit-oriented development project that will be part of Toronto’s Ontario Line. Right: A rendering of the futute King-Bathurst station. (Images courtesy SvN) In my early twenties, I lived in Chofu, a city of over 240,000 people on the west side of Tokyo Metropolis. My apartment building was less than a 10-minute walk from Chofu Station, which is at the center of a bustling, fully “amenitized” mini-city, with easy pedestrian access to an urban-scale grocery store, ever-busy retail shops and restaurants, multiple sch ..read more

Aline, a client of Reestablish Richmond, practices driving in preparation for earning her license. (Photo courtesy ReEstablish Richmond) In the longer term, urbanists advocate for walkable, bikeable cities with robust public transportation and affordable housing close to high-quality employment opportunities. But in the meantime, refugees and immigrants newly arriving in the U.S. need to get to their jobs, schools, grocery stores and doctor’s appointments. Given language access barriers in Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles, getting a driver’s license can be harder than expected for many ..read more

A Capital One bank in New York City's West Village and Greenwich Village neighborhood.(Photo by Can Pac Swire / CC BY-NC 2.0) This analysis was published as part of The Bottom Line, my weekly newsletter reflecting on the challenges of addressing affordability, inclusive economic growth and access to capital. Subscribe to keep up with what I’m writing, thinking and reading every week. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is as special as it is frustrating. What makes the Community Reinvestment Act special is that, rather than saying what banks shouldn’t do, it says what they should do ..read more

(Photo by Jean-Pierre Chamberland / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) When it launched a first-in-the-nation anti-displacement fund in 2016, Seattle established itself as a leader in racial equity. But a new attack on the City’s Equitable Development Initiative (EDI), part of a national backlash against government efforts to address systemic racism and inequality, threatens that progress. The EDI finances the construction of community cultural and commercial space developed by community-of-color organizations in Seattle, often co-located with affordable housing. As of March of this year, the fu ..read more

(Photo by Jason Leung / Unsplash) Welcome back to The Weekly Wrap, our Friday roundup of stories that explain the problems oppressing people in cities and elevate the solutions that bring us closer to economic, environmental and social justice. Have news, resources or events that you think should be included in this newsletter? Let us know. We’re reachable at: wrapped@nextcity.org. Biden Administration Backs 5% Rent Cap for Federally-Backed Apartments The Biden Administration has proposed restricting tax breaks for large owners of federally subsidized housing that raise rents by mo ..read more

This story was co-published with Triad City Beat as part of our joint Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship For Racial Justice Narratives. Life was already chaotic when Mir Habibullah Akhagar and his family arrived in Washington, DC. They were one of hundreds of thousands of Afghan people fleeing the Taliban regime, which took over Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in Aug. 2021. His family’s evacuation to the U.S. took weeks to coordinate: weeks living in cramped hotel rooms, dodging heavy surveillance and catching long flights to make it to America. Now, they were refugees. Akhagar’s family was ..read more

(Photo by Levi Meir Clancy / Unsplash+) When community supervision in Benton County, Oregon enforced homelessness on me, I had two choices: Invest in a tent, car, RV, old school bus, etc., or rent a motel room until my money ran out. My options for motels were limited to The Rodeway Inn or the Super 8, both within easy walking distance of parole and probation and in my price range. The Super 8 manager quoted me a decent weekly rate, so for the next 17 months of my “community supervision,” I stayed there primarily until I survived probation and parole. Luckily, I had money and the ab ..read more