Posts in Report
Reimagining Criminal Justice: Leveraging Federal Grants to Foster Community-Based Criminal Justice Programs
Reimagining Criminal Justice: Leveraging Federal Grants to Foster Community-Based Criminal Justice Programs

Discussions about Vice President Kamala’ Harris’ record as a progressive prosecutor have offered an opportunity to consider what the next president could do to help spur equitable criminal justice reform. While recognizing that policing is largely a local endeavor, it is important to identify how the next president can leverage existing federal programs to contribute to larger criminal justice reform and equity efforts. In this paper we propose that the next administration restructure the Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) and Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants in order to support community-based criminal justice programs (CCJP) to achieve equitable criminal justice reform. These programs, which emphasize partnerships between law enforcement, prosecutors, and non-law enforcement organizations, aim to reduce crime and recidivism through rehabilitation, mental health services, and social support. The proposal we offer draws inspiration from Vice President Kamala Harris’s "Back on Track" program, which successfully helped first-time nonviolent offenders avoid incarceration through alternative sentencing that focuses on rehabilitation. The paper argues that similar programs, if federally supported, could help contribute to equitable criminal justice reform by fostering trust between law enforcement and communities, reducing police brutality while also preventing crime and recidivism.

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Publication, ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Race
Empowering Public Property: Simulating New Housing, Economic Development and Greenspace Policy with Newark’s City-Owned Property Inventory
Empowering Public Property: Simulating New Housing, Economic Development and Greenspace Policy with Newark’s City-Owned Property Inventory

This is a report about how cities can better organize and manage their data about the property they own in order to promote transparency and advance critical policymaking. Newark, like many legacy cities, owns hundreds of parcels through tax foreclosure and abandonment that can be put to more productive use and even generate needed revenue. Because of different inputs from different departments, its property data system contained duplication and gaps that prevented policymakers and stakeholders from getting a clear picture of these public assets. In partnership with city staff, CLiME helped to resolve the data organization problem and set property management on a new, more accurate and user-friendly course. Along the way, we learned details about the nature and amount of city-owned properties, how they’re zoned and where they’re located. We concluded that much more of this significant inventory can and should be put to work advancing long-held goals of equitable development. We built three demonstrations to simulate this usage that cover three major areas of policy: affordable housing production, commercial and industrial development and green space/environmental risk mitigation. Each of these is an area in which the Baraka administration is already active in setting aggressive policies. Some of those policies already make use of the asset of city-owned land. Until recently, it was impossible to see the scope of particular uses because the data did not readily permit it. Now the data is cleaner and clearer.

Individual break-out reports from the full report are also available:

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Publication, ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Economic Development
Limited-Equity Cooperatives: A Primer on Sustainable Affordability and Wealth Building

Limited-Equity Cooperatives: A Primer on Sustainable Affordability and Wealth Building is a research report on a promising alternative to traditional homeownership in a period of scarce inventory and high interest rates. Limited equity cooperatives offer communal ownership at more affordable prices—stabilty, wealth enhancement and long-term affordability. Author Elana Simon details the purpose and structure of such housing vehicles.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing
Barriers and Benefits of MBE Contracting in Newark

Locally owned businesses are vital constituent members of an economic community because they provide jobs to local workers, sustain the tax base for city services, offer goods and services that grow other businesses and build wealth for equity owners.  They are vital.  Where they are in short supply communities struggle to grow economically.  Where that growth has been stymied by factors arising from ingrained racism, growth is even more challenging.  Local businesses owned by Blacks and other people of color face a disproportionate range of constraints to growth including, but not limited to, patterns of market discrimination.  Given Newark’s overwhelmingly Black, Latino and working-class population, the city’s challenges with locally owned economic development are as great as anywhere in the nation.  There is evidence that recent trends have not been good for minority small businesses across the country.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEEconomic Development
Homes Beyond Reach: An Assessment and Gap Analysis of Newark's Affordable Rental Stock
Homes Beyond Reach: An Assessment and Gap Analysis of Newark's Affordable Rental Stock

CLiME conducted an affordability and gap analysis of Newark's housing stock and found a severe gap in low-rent units. We estimate that the City needs an additional 16,234 units renting for about $750 per month to meet residents' existing needs.

CLiME’s approach to assessing affordability is rooted in the local context. We calculate a Newark Median Affordable Rent (NMAR) of $763 per month. This is $330 less than Newark’s median market rent, and more than $600 less than Fair Market Rent (FMR), created by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We also develop a methodological innovation to integrate the City’s rental housing subsidies into the affordability analysis. This procedure, the first of its kind as far as we know, provides a much closer picture of affordability in a City where at least 28% of all units are subsidized.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Poverty, Race, Gentrification, Inequality
Pandemic Remedies
Pandemic Remedies

In this first installment of a faculty essay series, CLiME asked Rutgers professors affiliated with the center to provide brief analysis on some of the many institutional crises exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic and to offer solutions. Law Professor Rachel Godsil discuses the loss of public revenues to struggling communities and offers a pipeline to millions. Political Scientist Domingo Morel reveals the growing crisis in public pension fund commitments and a possible path to meeting those obligations. Law Professor Laura Cohen takes readers inside juvenile justice to show the increased risk of viral infection incarcerated youth face as well as the steps advocates are taking on their behalf. Director David Troutt looks into the future to interrogate claims that “we are all in this together” and offers an alternative set of policy priorities we would pursue if mutuality really mattered.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Housing, Race
Making Newark Work for Newarkers: Housing and Equitable Growth in the Next Brick City
Making Newark Work for Newarkers: Housing and Equitable Growth in the Next Brick City

Making Newark Work for Newarkers is the full report of the Rutgers University-Newark Project on Equitable Growth in the City of Newark, written by CLiME and incorporating research conducted in conjunction with a university working group whose work began last April. We viewed the goal of equitable growth first in the context of housing issues before expanding to think about the fabric of community life and economic opportunity in the city.

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ReportGuest UserGentrification, Inequality, Poverty, Housing, CLiME
Displacement Risk and Gentrification: The CLiME Displacement Risk Indicators Matrix (DRIM) Methodology
Displacement Risk and Gentrification: The CLiME Displacement Risk Indicators Matrix (DRIM) Methodology

As Newark experiences unprecedented growth potential, Newarkers express more and more anxiety about the prospects of housing displacement brought on by the processes of gentrification that have transformed urban neighborhoods across the United States. Given the recent history of other cities in its metropolitan neighborhood—New York, Hoboken and Jersey City—Newark would seem poised to attract the kind of global capital that has accelerated so much economic development among …

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ReportGuest UserGentrification, Poverty
Housing in Newark Research Brief: Status and Trends, 2000-2015
Housing in Newark Research Brief: Status and Trends, 2000-2015

The City of Newark is undergoing rapid transition, with creative political leadership and development cranes dotting its sky. In February 2016, CLiME launched a comprehensive study of housing trends in the City. In May 2016, CLiME led a Rutgers University-Newark anchor initiative that researching laws and policies that might promote more equitable growth in the City as it changes. This Housing Research Brief represents the first installment of our almost year-long work. It provides quantitative snapshots …

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ReportGuest UserGentrification
Recommendations to the City of Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka
Recommendations to the City of Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka

The Rutgers University-Newark Project on Equitable Growth was formed as a team of university researchers led by CLiME to provide research and recommendations about spreading the benefits of potential economic growth to all wards and neighborhoods in the City of Newark. Although housing and housing-related issues dominated our work, we viewed the task more broadly and asked: How does a working-class city in the midst of economic interest from a fast- growing metropolitan region harness …

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ReportGuest UserGentrification, Trauma, Poverty
Conference Brief - Psychological Trauma and Schools: How Systems Respond to the Traumas of Young Lives
Conference Brief - Psychological Trauma and Schools: How Systems Respond to the Traumas of Young Lives

On May 5, 2017, the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) hosted an interdisciplinary all-day conference on the institutional responsibility of schools in responding to childhood psychological trauma, particularly in low-SES communities where early life trauma exposure is disturbingly ubiquitous. The conference brought together a group of panelists and audience members from diverse fields related to childhood trauma.

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ReportGuest UserInequality, Poverty, Race, Trauma
Issue Brief: Child Poverty In Essex County 2000–2015
Issue Brief: Child Poverty In Essex County 2000–2015

County, New Jersey between 2000 and 2015. The number of children living in poverty in Essex County has increased over the past 15 years, and in some places, quite dramatically. Increasing numbers of Essex County’s poor children live in neighborhoods of extreme poverty. There are also preliminary signs that child poverty has spread into formerly no- or low-poverty neighborhoods.

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ReportGuest UserInequality, Poverty
Assessment of Trauma in School-Aged Children with Significant Emotional and Behavioral Challenges: A Pilot Study
Assessment of Trauma in School-Aged Children with Significant Emotional and Behavioral Challenges: A Pilot Study

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of exposure to childhood trauma and related disorder in a sample of children with significant emotional and behavioral problems, enrolled in a partial-hospitalization program serving the Greater Newark, New Jersey area.This exploratory study took place at a community-based, urban mental health clinic between Dec 2015 and August 2016.  Study participants included children aged 8 to 16 years. To assess exposure to traumatic events, children and parents/legal guardians completed the Traumatic Events Screening …

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ReportGuest UserTrauma
A Critical Review of the Psychological Literature
A Critical Review of the Psychological Literature

This report provides a critical and comprehensive review of the empirical literature on the sequelae of childhood exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), with special emphasis on low socioeconomic status (SES) populations at disparate risk for exposure to PTEs across the lifespan. First, I will outline the categories and characteristics of childhood PTEs. Second, I will synthesize research on the proximal and distal consequences of childhood PTE exposure. Third, I will identify significant mediators (i.e., how or why PTE-related outcomes occur) …

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ReportGuest UserPoverty, Trauma
A Vision For An Equitable D.C.

What would an equitable DC look like? Communities of color have faced decades of systemic racism and discriminatory policies and practices. These actions have barred people of color from certain jobs and neighborhoods and from opportunities to build wealth, leaving a legacy that persists today. If the nation’s capital were free of its stark racial inequities, it could be a more prosperous and competitive city—one where everyone could reach their full potential and build better lives for themselves and their families.

Washington, DC, is one of most racially segregated cities in the United States, stemming from public policies and private actions that once limited where black residents could live, whether they could secure mortgages, and whom they could buy homes from. Today, Wards 4, 5, 7, and 8 on the east have a majority of black residents, and Wards 2, 3, and 6 on the west are majority white. About half of Hispanic residents live in Wards 1 and 4.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEGentrification, Housing, Inequality
The Lasting Impact Of Foreclosures And Negative Public Records

While it is commonly understood that the 7 million foreclosures that occurred between 2004 and 2015 fueled the Great Recession and have held back a robust recovery, the role of adverse public records is just as significant and less recognized. Nearly 35 million consumers had adverse public records between 2004 and 2015 including bankruptcies, civil judgments and federal tax liens.

Combined with the 7 million foreclosures, this means more than one in five Americans with credit records suffered an adverse event during this period. While It is also commonly understood that the Great Recession ended on June 2009, the total number of consumers having their foreclosure or negative public records still on their credit report actually peaked in 2015. This paper examines the lasting impact of these negative records on consumer spending and economic recovery.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Inequality
Trauma-Sensitive Schools

Cheryl Sharp, MSW, MWT, Karen Johnson, MSW, LCSW, and Pamela Black from the National Council on Behavioral Health present an excellent overview of on Trauma-Sensitive Schools, including the following seven domains:

Domain 1 Student Assessment

Domain 2 Student and Family Involvement

Domain 3 Trauma Sensitive Educated and Responsive District and School Staff

Domain 4 Trauma-Informed, Evidence Based and Emerging Best Practices

Domain 5 Safe and Secure Environments

Domain 6 Community Outreach and Partnership Building

Domain 7 Ongoing Performance Improvement

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ReportRutgers CLiMEPoverty, Trauma
Oakland’s Displacement Crisis: As Told by the Numbers

Oakland stands at the center of a perfect storm. The city and surrounding Bay Area region are experiencing extraordinary economic growth, but housing production is not keeping pace with the escalated demands, nor is sufficient housing affordable to many existing residents and the expanding lower-income workforce. The current displacement crisis undermines the health and well being of its residents, and threatens the historic diversity that gives Oakland its strength and vitality.

The red-hot Bay Area economy is feeding a displacement crisis. Nearly 150,000 new jobs are expected to be added to the East Bay economy by 2020, but housing production is not keeping pace with escalating demands, nor is sufficient housing affordable to many existing residents and the expanding lower-income workforce. According to A Roadmap Towards Equity: Housing Solutions for Oakland, CA, the majority of current Oakland residents could not afford to rent or purchase homes at the current prices in their neighborhoods.1 This has strong implications for Oakland families who lose their housing due to eviction, foreclosure, or other events. The housing crisis imperils seniors on fixed incomes, artists, students, low-wage workers (there is no market level apartment listing affordable for a worker earning Oakland’s minimum wage of $12.55/hour), and even teachers, nurses, and first responders.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing
The Economics Of Inclusionary Development

Whereas many U.S. cities have experienced a post-recession economic revival, the accompanying run-up in housing costs is threatening to undermine this success by pricing workers out of cities, lengthening commutes, and diminishing livability, the report notes. As a result, local officials are turning to inclusionary zoning (IZ) as a way to combat the shortage of housing that is affordable to moderate- and lower-income workers.

IZ policies take a market-based approach to affordable housing development by requiring or incentivizing the creation of below-market-rate units in exchange for approval of a market-rate project. Inclusionary zoning leverages private development to achieve a public benefit.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Inequality