Last year was the hottest year on record , and 2024 has a one-in-three chance of being even hotter. As temperatures increase and climate change worsens, extreme heat events will occur with more frequency and intensity, having an outsized impact in dense, urban areas. Urban neighborhoods face increased temperatures due to building concentrations and a lack of green space, creating a phenomenon referred to as the urban heat island effect. Neighborhoods with a high number of low-income residents of color experience more intense heat island effects. This is not by chance, but is a result of deliberate, discriminatory housing policies that have impacted people of color, pushing them into vulnerable neighborhoods prone to extreme heat exacerbated by climate change.

While the world watches and calls for swift and immediate action to address climate change, environmental justice proponents warn that not all policies are created equal, and that some may serve to exacerbate existing inequities, including by race and ethnicity. While many homeowners can invest in efficiency upgrades, electric technologies, and renewable energy generation, renters—particularly low-income and BIPOC renters—rarely have the same options. A careful approach to decarbonization must be considered to avoid exacerbating the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, otherwise known as the Housing Credit, is the nation’s number one tool for financing the production and preservation of affordable rental homes. So how can we expand access to this crucial tool for economically and socially disadvantaged and other historically marginalized housing providers?

Zoning reform can make a significant difference in expanding the supply of accessible and affordable housing opportunities available for households of color and other socially and economically disadvantaged people across the country.

More than 300 years of exploitive and racist housing policies fostered many of the socio-economic inequities currently borne by Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC).

The NMTC is a “place-based” tax credit that drives capital to distressed and low-income Census tracts typically overlooked by traditional investment. Advocates say that making the credit a permanent part of the tax code is the most significant way to realize the full potential of the NMTC program.

Air pollution harms vulnerable communities most—smart housing design boosts indoor air quality, health equity, and climate resilience.

Several stories of communities developing their own solutions to environmental and climate-related challenges are profiled in “What’s Possible: Investing NOW for Prosperous, Sustainable Neighborhoods,” a collection of essays published by Enterprise, LISC, and The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration announced a set of actions intended to address racial bias in the home appraisal process. The announcement followed a two-year effort led by the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE), an inaugural task force comprised of 13 federal agencies and offices directed to evaluate the causes, extent, and consequences of appraisal bias, as well as establish recommendations to eliminate racial and ethnic bias from the home valuation process. The task force found that the legacies of past racist housing policies, along with industry practices that reinforce negative perceptions of neighborhoods with high concentrations of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color contributed to the under-valuation of homes in majority-BIPOC neighborhoods and the loss of billions of dollars in wealth for their owners.

Housing trust funds — flexible, government-established sources of public funding dedicated to supporting affordable housing — offer a powerful tool with support across the political spectrum to enhance affordable housing opportunities for those most in need.