Content Selection Policy
The Housing Matters website publishes research summaries, editorial content, a news roundup, and event listings. We strive to share content that can help practitioners, policymakers, and researchers strengthen their work and use housing to reduce disparities and attain better outcomes.
Editorial content
Blog posts and other editorial content published on Housing Matters share evidence-based insights, promising practices, and compelling stories that highlight how housing intersects with other fields and influences individual and community outcomes. Most content is written by Urban Institute staff. All opinions expressed are the views of the individual author and not those of Urban, our editors, or funders.
Housing Matters prioritizes solution-oriented writing on the following topics:
- connections between housing and other fields, including health, education, climate and environment, and the criminal legal system
- equitable economic opportunities and asset growth through housing
- correcting injustices in housing and neighborhood opportunities
Typical Housing Matters content links high-quality evidence to timely policy discussions or practical decisions, offering lessons that can advance quality of life and residential options for all people, particularly those who lack access to safe, affordable housing. We aim to provide valuable and relevant insights to readers, whether editorial content addresses current policy debates or emerging research.
And we strive for all Housing Matters content to acknowledge the basic dignity of all people.
Research
Housing Matters summarizes and shares key findings from rigorous research on the connections between housing and well-being, opportunities, and outcomes. Our summaries seek to provide enough information to allow readers to make their own judgments about whether and how to use research to inform decisions, shape solutions, or inspire additional research.
We focus on selecting recent peer-reviewed research published in academic journals or lengthy, publicly funded program evaluation reports to summarize. We do this because these sources may be otherwise inaccessible to many mission-driven organizations, advocates, and policymakers. However, to encourage an array of voices, Housing Matters also occasionally summarizes findings from other sources, such as working papers or community-based reports. We usually select US-based studies, but non-US studies with findings relevant to housing policy and practice in the US are also eligible for inclusion.
Publication on Housing Matters does not constitute an endorsement of the findings or research methodology. Authors of the research summarized on Housing Matters may have affiliations with any academic or nonacademic research organization or may be unaffiliated researchers. Research by Urban Institute staff or funders must adhere to the same quality and content standards as independent work.
Full-text links may send readers to free download options, subscription-based journals, or book publication information. For those unable to access research through organizational subscriptions, we recommend seeking the assistance of a librarian or contacting the author to inquire about full-text access. Authors have advance access to the research summaries to improve quality control and prevent factual errors.
News roundup
The Housing Matters news roundup summarizes a selection of articles related to housing quality and affordability, subsidy programs, homelessness, neighborhood change, and partnerships between housing and other sectors or policy domains. The editorial staff bear sole responsibility for the selection of news and determination of whether an opinion piece merits inclusion in the roundup. To subscribe to the newsletter, click here.
Events
Organizations whose work relates to the goals of the Housing Matters initiative may submit event information to share on this website by emailing details to [email protected]. Eligible events include webinars, webcasts, trainings, forums, and conferences. Events may be hosted online or in person and may be free or fee based. We do not share political event information.