Alex Miller

Another Backroom Deal for Big Utilities - AAE - Alliance for Affordable Energy Call or email your Commissioner and urge them to reject this last-minute attempt to dismantle Louisiana’s energy efficiency program.

Commissioner Mike Francis of the Louisiana Public Service Commission is trying to kill energy efficiency investment statewide TOMORROW. This would take money from customers’ pockets in favor of utility company profit. Email him & other LPSC members now! #nolasky
www.all4energy.org/take-action/...

a maximalist strategy of opposition against every nominee as unqualified would have stood a better chance of creating the kind of public outrage that might have led to more republican defections, but i'm sure the imaginary family that chuck schumer relies on to guide his decisions disagreed

💸🏠 LIHTC funds most U.S. affordable housing—but its current design prioritizes private profit over lasting affordability & tenant rights.
States don’t have to accept this. I helped write @aforhj.org & @prrac.bsky.social's guide lays out strategies to make LIHTC work for people, not profit. 👇

The biggest problem we have today: why do the all-new Ruggable collabs look like the “before” pictures in those rug cleaning videos

Update for Federal career civil servants from former DOE Chief of Staff Tarak Shah: “Federal employee unions have filed a lawsuit to cancel the deferred resignation program entirely.” If you are a Federal employee considering resigning, please read Tarak’s post:

medium.com/@tarak.n.sha...

I posted something from NLIHC earlier in thread that looks at some of this geographic variability. Got to figure out how to get the full article from behind paywall.

New zoning bills would enact some Envision Evanston proposals statewide - Evanston RoundTable While changes to the city’s zoning code under Envision Evanston 2045 are shelved until at least late summer, the state legislature will consider adopting

And my challenge for myself over is to figure out when to support policies like this in the absence of federal support we know is needed for scaled-up affordable production. Illinois (where I’m orig from) is very different market than West Coast but Chicago area (esp suburbs) appreciating

Seattle is another market where I would believe that filtering up is happening. Very tight market, very rapidly appreciating, development is constrained. People likely being displaced to suburbs as city becomes wealthier.

My challenge to the market developers, though, is to be strong advocates for the affordable housing subsidies needed. You can’t show up with a filtering solution alone and expect rent burdened people to be part of your coalition

But ultimately household growth is happening in these places and demand is there to drive prices. So if we’re not advocating for zoning and policy solutions that address that, and accepting that market development is a big part of that picture… then I feel like we’re burying our heads in the sand

So first track of my argument: I feel like the policy argument is what hurts both of those potential solutions. There are lots of vested interests in not allowing new multifamily and denser development in urban/suburban places. And ESPECIALLY not subsidized affordable development, as we know

Ultimately that can only really be solved with a complimentary, robust subsidized affordable housing production effort that has regulatory priority. And I don’t mean to diminish the harms of displacement and relocation in general

I agree that when you have to demolish existing housing to build new, particularly in rapidly appreciating or high-cost areas, the residents in that former building often won’t find comparable homes they can afford in the area. And in places like SF, you even start to see filtering “up”

would love to see them, as a matter of fact

www.costar.com/article/1524...

New Study Examines Filtering Dynamics in U.S. Housing Supply New research published in Housing Policy Debate, “Has Housing Filtering Stalled? Heterogeneous Outcomes in the American Housing Survey, 1985–2021,” examines long-term trends and dynamics in the filter...

Some sources:

But in lots of places building more housing is essential even if it’s not subsidized. The trouble is it’s really hard to build enough in places where people want to be. High supply markets like Austin have seen rent growth checked and even reversed

I will admit that in some places the conditions needed for filtering seem almost prohibitive — eg Bay Area where high wages and long term underbuilding have made it pretty much impossible to catch up

This is the kind of discussion I want to be in with other smart planning people because I think filtering is in fact an important ingredient to solving the housing affordability crisis… along with major federal investments in housing that we are unlikely to see in the coming years.

RFK Jr. confirmation could hinge on one senator The Senate health committee chair's opposition would complicate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation as HHS secretary.

Once again, for La. voters:

- Sen. Cassidy may Lucy-the-football, but seems to be wavering on RFK
- Cassidy's DC office is at (202) 224-5824 - tell him to vote against (just say you're a voter, give name and ZIP, convey RFK is bad for the country)

www.politico.com/live-updates...

Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory

Here’s rhe link

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

@allidejong.bsky.social do you want to / can you share on this to a homeownership collaborative in Houston in 2025? We are (potentially) working on an alternative mapping tool to those found on Zillow & similar… and want to explain why some of the methods on climate, school quality, etc need work

Vote is today at 9am in council chambers. This is a bad deal for New Orleanians and will absolutely increase costs once the freeze is lifted in two years. Come to meeting or write a comment!

Got an email this week from a non profit I worked with on an EPA Community Change application- program received 2,700 applications requesting over $40 billion in funding. $2 billion was available.

Love it thank you

@sam-karlin.bsky.social Really appreciate your insurance coverage. Any plans for a story on the proposed natural gas sale in New Orleans? This will be a real bummer for the city if it moves forward

Also wondering with something like the “south loop” if you have kind of a level-of-classification problem. Like here we have Mid-City or Gentilly, each of which can be treated something like a neighborhood “region” or an area you would reference, but also contain a number of distinct neighborhoods.

Not to say that it’s impossible to adjust in a way that accommodates tract boundaries, or to analyze in other ways, of course.

The research and measurement piece is a good point - and that honestly is also one of the reasons why the old maps in New Orleans have stuck around; they are based on Census boundaries, which is obviously not relevant to sense of place, but makes population and demographic tracking a lot easier.