Recent CHURP Activities
CHURP research fellows Jalissa Worthy and Bezil Taylor presented a poster at a session of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) on January 15, 2025, entitled "Lifting the Voices of Resident Leaders in Public Housing: Exploring Lived Experiences with Leadership." This poster presentation reflects the insights of a national sample of resident leaders in public and assisted housing that will inform U.S. HUD's continuing improvements in supporting its residents in local Public Housing Authorities throughout the nation. The SSWR is a major professional membership organization of social workers, social welfare professionals, social work students, social work faculty and researchers in related fields. Its vision is to advance, disseminate, and translate research that addresses issues of social work practice and policy and promotes a diverse, just, and equitable society.
CHURP led the Presidential Session entitled Urban Renewal, Housing, and Inequality at the Southern Economic Association’s 94th Annual Meetings, November 23, 2024, and presented four CHURP research papers. Dr. Omari Swinton, chair of the Howard University Department of Economics and board member of the SEA organized the session. Rodney Green, Associate Director of CHURP chaired the session and presentations were made by CHURP members Sandra Crewe, Haydar Kurban, Jasmine Fuller, Beza Afework, and Digna Mosquera. Dr. Jevay Grooms and Felipe Juan served as discussants. The papers with co-authors are listed below.
Leadership Voices: Perspectives of Residents in Public and Assisted Housing “We have strengthened the power of resident voices”, Sandra Edmonds Crewe, Rodney Green, Tracy Whitaker, Bezil Taylor, Jalissa Worthy, Beza Afework
The Impact of Down-Payment Assistance on Participant Outcomes: Examining DC’s Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP) and Employer-Assisted Housing Program (EAHP). Bethel Cole-Smith, Howard University, Haydar Kurban, Daniel Muhammad, Susan Steward
Cooling Center Access for People Experiencing Homelessness (PEH) in the City of Dallas. Jasmine Fuller, Haydar Kurban
Inheritance and Racial Wealth Gaps: Analyzing Household Net Worth Dynamics. Beza Afework, Digna Mosquera
On November 22, Dr. Haydar Kurban presented a CHURP research paper titled, “Improving equity? The Short-term Impact of Inclusionary Zoning on Housing and Health Outcomes”, coauthored by Bethel Cole-Smith, Daniel Muhammad and Suan Steward at the APPAM Conference held at the National Harbor, MD, November 21-23, 2024.
Congratulations to CHURP Student Fellow Shane Henderson, who is presenting findings on the North Carolina A&T project entitled Assessment of Health and Safety Hazards in African American Low-Income Communities of Greensboro. The project is led by CHURP fellow Alesia Ferguson, Chair and Professor of the Built Environment Department at A&T. The research has been funded the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through CHURP. Please click on the QR code in the flyer to participate in the session!
On October 23, 2024, the Honorable Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Adrianne Todman visited CHURP. Since March 2024, she has served as Acting Secretary of HUD as part of President Biden’s cabinet. Howard University Senior Vice President Rashad Young attended this event on behalf of President Ben Vinson III.
CHURP research fellows Jalissa Worthy, Joseph Dean, Digna Mosquera, and Jasmine Fuller presented CHURP’s research on the insights of resident leaders of public and assisted housing, the creation of a rent control database, an analysis of the racial wealth gap, and the climate-change-induced challenges experienced by people experiencing homelessness (PEH) in urban communities. At the end of the event CHURP Director Haydar Kurban presented a gift to the Acting Secretary on behalf of Howard University, recognizing her long career in supporting public housing residents and other clients of HUD and her support of Howard University.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has been the lead funder of the Howard University CHURP, having awarded Howard University $4.5 million in 2022 to establish CHURP.
On October 7-8, 2024, Haydar Kurban, Director of CHURP, participated in the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) roundtable entitled In Search of the Next Generation of Housing Policy. A publication of the roundtable’s findings will be published in 2025.
On October 3rd, 2024, CHURP researchers Ajeune Lynch, Angela Bodley, and Taylor Ross attended the Black Aging Summit, an event powered by AARP and hosted by Aging While Black and Raymond Jetson. Alongside them is Julie Miller, Director of Thought Leadership, Financial Resilience Policy, Research and International Affairs at AARP. The summit addressed problems and solutions to the economic challenges Black elders face. Aging While Black focuses on 3 pillars to improve the aging experience for Black elders: recalibrating the village, embracing rapid change, and leaning into “sankofa”. Select CHURP researchers were able to contribute to the conversation by representing the center’s Aging in Place and AARP projects, which both study older generations and the transfer of wealth, closely connecting CHURP’s research to the summit’s goals.
On September 15-16 Drs. Haydar Kurban and Rodney Green participated in this year’s annual National HBCU Week Conference in Philadelphia, PA alongside CHURP collaborator Dr. Musibau A. Shofoluwe from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Maria L. Milligan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. On day 2 of the conference, President Biden announced a promise to add $1.3 billion in funding for historically Black colleges and universities.
CHURP was well-represented at the 8th Annual Freedom and Justice Summer Conference, August 1-3, at Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia. The conference was organized by three economics organizations representing Black, Hispanic, and Native American social scientists and activists. Rodney Green, CHURP Associate Director, presented his latest research on police accountability in a session entitled, “Systemic Racism and Its Components”. His research analyzed an original, novel pooled dataset of 30 jurisdictions over 20 years, leading to the finding that US Department of Justice interventions in local police departments failed to reduce police misconduct. Other papers at the session included “The Murder of George Floyd and the Behavior of the Minneapolis Police Department”, “The Economics of the Montgomery Bus Boycott”, and “What Makes Systemic Discrimination ‘Systemic’? Exposing the Amplifiers of Inequity.” Selections from the over 30 papers presented at the conference are available at Freedom & Justice Conference
On June 18, 2024 Haydar Kurban presented at Urban Institute. Urban Institute collaborated with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Policies for Action research program to discuss policies to expand equity-oriented affordable housing. Haydar Kurban presented in panel 2 about CHURP’s Inclusionary Zoning research.
On May 23, 2024, CHURP Associate Director Rodney Green participated in The University of California Washington Center’s conference on reparations. This event feature reparations scholars and activists from California universities to discuss the advances of reparations legislation in California at both the state-wide and local levels. The scholarly examination of reparations is especially relevant to the District of Columbia, which established, on the initiative of Howard University alumnus Councilperson Kenyan McDuffie, a task force on reparations in 2023. The task force will address the racial wealth gap due to centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, land theft, redlining, and discriminatory legislation including the racially discriminatory GI Bill of the 1950s and the 1935 exclusion of agricultural and domestic labor from social security benefits. See a review of the legislation from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute here.
Dr. Haydar Kurban, Director of CHURP, participated in this conference’s discussion about how cities can support the development of mixed-used, transit-adjacent housing. HUD leaders, including Todd Richardson and Solomon Greene, were instrumental in this project that compared urban development policy approaches in the United States and Germany. The report that served as the foundation for the discussion is available at the German Marshall Fund website: https://www.gmfus.org/news/breaking-barriers-affordable-and-abundant-housing