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Home Matters Blog

This blog is published in partnership with the
USC Price Bedrosian Center on Governance

Making Homes For All Ages

  How can a small, tired house be remodeled to provide for a family of all ages is a question many people face but few people know...

Meeting the Home Today, Home Tomorrow Design Challenge

  We are all aging, which is a beautiful thing. But more than adding numbers to our age, we are getting older, which means adding...

Why We Need To “Cure” Housing

  As a small child I remember having a fascination with houses. Maybe it was spurred by a curiosity about other people’s homes...

Bringing Up the Next Generation: Keys to Lifelong Health Lie at Home

  Growing up in California, my own early years were not perfect, but by most standards, I had a rather idyllic home life. My...

Open The Door – Real People Will Walk Through

  I have now been in the housing and community field for 30 years with the last 23 acting as the President/CEO of Beyond Housing, a...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

When Your Livelihood Is Too Far Away: Housing as a Platform to Jobs

  A couple years ago, some of my colleagues at USC set out to answer an old question with a new twist. They wanted to know how many...

An Investment Worth Making: Financing the New American Dream

  In her new book How the Other Half Banks, Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia, tells the true story of...

When Bad Loans Happen to Good People: The Horror Story of the “Monster”

  While much of my academic career has been spent studying how families get credit to buy homes, the past few years have made me...

Democracy Is an Act of Inclusion: Why Home Matters in Election Season

  If you list the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—generally considered to be the most...

1968 Memphis Home Will Be Remade Into a Flexible, Sunny Haven

  As a result of the Home Today, Home Tomorrow design competition, a house in Tennessee will be fully retrofitted for a veteran...

The Invisible Cost of College: Students Who Can’t Afford a Secure Home

  I love teaching. I love getting to know my students, challenging them to think in new ways, and engaging them in a conversation...

The LGBT Experience at Home in America

  When people talk about home, usually they have in mind the place where they cook their food, store their belongings, relax and...

The Education Trap: How Our Homes Make or Break Our Children’s Opportunities

  It’s hard to write about education knowing I could have been, but wasn’t, denied all the opportunities that have come my way....

To Those Who Risk Their Lives for Us, We Owe a Better Welcome Home

  They say that twilight is the most dangerous time on the battlefield. Half day, half night, the light plays tricks on your eyes,...

How to Capture on Film All That Home is About…in 60 Seconds or Less

  As a student I got to know a man called Frank. He had lost his home, and his neighborhood, and was living on the streets and...

Urban Design in Our Time of Crisis: A Revolution Waiting to Happen

  We may—or may not—be on the brink of a housing revolution. You may not have noticed yet, but this moment is an opportunity....

Opening Doors: Home Options for Adults with Autism & Other Special Abilities

  April is Autism Awareness Month and a time for reflection on progress made since our son Matt’s diagnosis 23 years ago....

Substandard Housing: The Choice No American Should Have to Make

  I heard a story recently about a man who lived in a crooked apartment. The floor was sloped, so that if you placed a bottle at one...

When Your House Is Not a Home: The Tragedy of Concentrated Poverty

  On the afternoon of August 15, 2015, Jamyla Bolden came home from Koch Elementary School in eastern Missouri to play with her...

Home + Safety: A Police Chief’s Perspective

  Working in the public safety field for close to thirty years, I have come to realize through all my experiences that a home is more...

The Black History of Housing in America: How the Dream Was Deferred

  If you want to understand the black-white wealth gap, it helps to know the story of William J. Levitt. The son of a real estate...

The Flint Lead Poisoning Disaster: Why We Must Invest in Healthy Homes

  About 150 years ago, people figured out that lead pipes could kill them. In 1861, fifty prisoners in King County Jail in Brooklyn...

What If Your Home Today Can Be Your Home Tomorrow? Forever.

  Starting a family or preparing for retirement are large life transformations - ones that often involve the turmoil of changing...

Good Home + Exercise = Good Health

  As a middle-age woman, I decided to go back to school and become a nurse because I wanted to help improve the health of those...

What’s a Community? Safe At Home.

  “What’s a community?” As someone whose day-to-day work is about making neighborhoods safe, great places to live, I was...

A Home for Everyone: The Unfulfilled Promise of Thanksgiving

  On Thursday morning, when I fly from Los Angeles to Utah for Thanksgiving with my family, there will come a moment when I’m...

A Matter of Life or Death: How Better Homes Make Us a Healthier Nation

  Middle-aged white Americans have been dying at an accelerating rate for the last fifteen years. This is surprising to, well, pretty...

The Millennials Are Finally Moving, But Will They Find Home?

  The long-awaited moment is here. The Millennials are on the move. For the first time in almost a decade, America’s young adults...

The Biggest Issue That No Presidential Candidate Is Talking About

   The U.S. presidential race has done an amazing thing: It has made $28 trillion disappear. That’s how much all the homes in the...

The Challenge of a
New Century: Keeping
Housing a Home as We Age

  Our homes watch over us as we age. They see everything from birth to death and in between—a child’s first steps, a beloved...

Katrina 10 Years Later: Building Back Better

  Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. Brad Pitt launched Make It Right over two years later in 2007...

Why Home Matters: Welcome to the Conversation

  How do you talk about home without thinking of the American dream? It was Thomas Jefferson who first solidified the vision of...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

The LGBT Experience at Home in America

  When people talk about home, usually they have in mind the place where they cook their food, store their belongings, relax and...

How to Capture on Film All That Home is About…in 60 Seconds or Less

  As a student I got to know a man called Frank. He had lost his home, and his neighborhood, and was living on the streets and...

Substandard Housing: The Choice No American Should Have to Make

  I heard a story recently about a man who lived in a crooked apartment. The floor was sloped, so that if you placed a bottle at one...

When Your House Is Not a Home: The Tragedy of Concentrated Poverty

  On the afternoon of August 15, 2015, Jamyla Bolden came home from Koch Elementary School in eastern Missouri to play with her...

Home + Safety: A Police Chief’s Perspective

  Working in the public safety field for close to thirty years, I have come to realize through all my experiences that a home is more...

What’s a Community? Safe At Home.

  “What’s a community?” As someone whose day-to-day work is about making neighborhoods safe, great places to live, I was...

Making Homes For All Ages

  How can a small, tired house be remodeled to provide for a family of all ages is a question many people face but few people know...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

When Your Livelihood Is Too Far Away: Housing as a Platform to Jobs

  A couple years ago, some of my colleagues at USC set out to answer an old question with a new twist. They wanted to know how many...

An Investment Worth Making: Financing the New American Dream

  In her new book How the Other Half Banks, Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia, tells the true story of...

When Bad Loans Happen to Good People: The Horror Story of the “Monster”

  While much of my academic career has been spent studying how families get credit to buy homes, the past few years have made me...

1968 Memphis Home Will Be Remade Into a Flexible, Sunny Haven

  As a result of the Home Today, Home Tomorrow design competition, a house in Tennessee will be fully retrofitted for a veteran...

The LGBT Experience at Home in America

  When people talk about home, usually they have in mind the place where they cook their food, store their belongings, relax and...

To Those Who Risk Their Lives for Us, We Owe a Better Welcome Home

  They say that twilight is the most dangerous time on the battlefield. Half day, half night, the light plays tricks on your eyes,...

How to Capture on Film All That Home is About…in 60 Seconds or Less

  As a student I got to know a man called Frank. He had lost his home, and his neighborhood, and was living on the streets and...

Urban Design in Our Time of Crisis: A Revolution Waiting to Happen

  We may—or may not—be on the brink of a housing revolution. You may not have noticed yet, but this moment is an opportunity....

Opening Doors: Home Options for Adults with Autism & Other Special Abilities

  April is Autism Awareness Month and a time for reflection on progress made since our son Matt’s diagnosis 23 years ago....

When Your House Is Not a Home: The Tragedy of Concentrated Poverty

  On the afternoon of August 15, 2015, Jamyla Bolden came home from Koch Elementary School in eastern Missouri to play with her...

The Black History of Housing in America: How the Dream Was Deferred

  If you want to understand the black-white wealth gap, it helps to know the story of William J. Levitt. The son of a real estate...

What If Your Home Today Can Be Your Home Tomorrow? Forever.

  Starting a family or preparing for retirement are large life transformations - ones that often involve the turmoil of changing...

A Matter of Life or Death: How Better Homes Make Us a Healthier Nation

  Middle-aged white Americans have been dying at an accelerating rate for the last fifteen years. This is surprising to, well, pretty...

Making Homes For All Ages

  How can a small, tired house be remodeled to provide for a family of all ages is a question many people face but few people know...

Meeting the Home Today, Home Tomorrow Design Challenge

  We are all aging, which is a beautiful thing. But more than adding numbers to our age, we are getting older, which means adding...

Why We Need To “Cure” Housing

  As a small child I remember having a fascination with houses. Maybe it was spurred by a curiosity about other people’s homes...

Bringing Up the Next Generation: Keys to Lifelong Health Lie at Home

  Growing up in California, my own early years were not perfect, but by most standards, I had a rather idyllic home life. My...

Open The Door – Real People Will Walk Through

  I have now been in the housing and community field for 30 years with the last 23 acting as the President/CEO of Beyond Housing, a...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

When Your Livelihood Is Too Far Away: Housing as a Platform to Jobs

  A couple years ago, some of my colleagues at USC set out to answer an old question with a new twist. They wanted to know how many...

An Investment Worth Making: Financing the New American Dream

  In her new book How the Other Half Banks, Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia, tells the true story of...

When Bad Loans Happen to Good People: The Horror Story of the “Monster”

  While much of my academic career has been spent studying how families get credit to buy homes, the past few years have made me...

Democracy Is an Act of Inclusion: Why Home Matters in Election Season

  If you list the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—generally considered to be the most...

The Education Trap: How Our Homes Make or Break Our Children’s Opportunities

  It’s hard to write about education knowing I could have been, but wasn’t, denied all the opportunities that have come my way....

How to Capture on Film All That Home is About…in 60 Seconds or Less

  As a student I got to know a man called Frank. He had lost his home, and his neighborhood, and was living on the streets and...

Urban Design in Our Time of Crisis: A Revolution Waiting to Happen

  We may—or may not—be on the brink of a housing revolution. You may not have noticed yet, but this moment is an opportunity....

Opening Doors: Home Options for Adults with Autism & Other Special Abilities

  April is Autism Awareness Month and a time for reflection on progress made since our son Matt’s diagnosis 23 years ago....

When Your House Is Not a Home: The Tragedy of Concentrated Poverty

  On the afternoon of August 15, 2015, Jamyla Bolden came home from Koch Elementary School in eastern Missouri to play with her...

Home + Safety: A Police Chief’s Perspective

  Working in the public safety field for close to thirty years, I have come to realize through all my experiences that a home is more...

The Black History of Housing in America: How the Dream Was Deferred

  If you want to understand the black-white wealth gap, it helps to know the story of William J. Levitt. The son of a real estate...

The Flint Lead Poisoning Disaster: Why We Must Invest in Healthy Homes

  About 150 years ago, people figured out that lead pipes could kill them. In 1861, fifty prisoners in King County Jail in Brooklyn...

What If Your Home Today Can Be Your Home Tomorrow? Forever.

  Starting a family or preparing for retirement are large life transformations - ones that often involve the turmoil of changing...

Good Home + Exercise = Good Health

  As a middle-age woman, I decided to go back to school and become a nurse because I wanted to help improve the health of those...

What’s a Community? Safe At Home.

  “What’s a community?” As someone whose day-to-day work is about making neighborhoods safe, great places to live, I was...

A Home for Everyone: The Unfulfilled Promise of Thanksgiving

  On Thursday morning, when I fly from Los Angeles to Utah for Thanksgiving with my family, there will come a moment when I’m...

A Matter of Life or Death: How Better Homes Make Us a Healthier Nation

  Middle-aged white Americans have been dying at an accelerating rate for the last fifteen years. This is surprising to, well, pretty...

The Millennials Are Finally Moving, But Will They Find Home?

  The long-awaited moment is here. The Millennials are on the move. For the first time in almost a decade, America’s young adults...

The Biggest Issue That No Presidential Candidate Is Talking About

   The U.S. presidential race has done an amazing thing: It has made $28 trillion disappear. That’s how much all the homes in the...

The Challenge of a
New Century: Keeping
Housing a Home as We Age

  Our homes watch over us as we age. They see everything from birth to death and in between—a child’s first steps, a beloved...

Katrina 10 Years Later: Building Back Better

  Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. Brad Pitt launched Make It Right over two years later in 2007...

Why Home Matters: Welcome to the Conversation

  How do you talk about home without thinking of the American dream? It was Thomas Jefferson who first solidified the vision of...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

The Invisible Cost of College: Students Who Can’t Afford a Secure Home

  I love teaching. I love getting to know my students, challenging them to think in new ways, and engaging them in a conversation...

The Education Trap: How Our Homes Make or Break Our Children’s Opportunities

  It’s hard to write about education knowing I could have been, but wasn’t, denied all the opportunities that have come my way....

Making Homes For All Ages

  How can a small, tired house be remodeled to provide for a family of all ages is a question many people face but few people know...

Meeting the Home Today, Home Tomorrow Design Challenge

  We are all aging, which is a beautiful thing. But more than adding numbers to our age, we are getting older, which means adding...

Bringing Up the Next Generation: Keys to Lifelong Health Lie at Home

  Growing up in California, my own early years were not perfect, but by most standards, I had a rather idyllic home life. My...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

1968 Memphis Home Will Be Remade Into a Flexible, Sunny Haven

  As a result of the Home Today, Home Tomorrow design competition, a house in Tennessee will be fully retrofitted for a veteran...

How to Capture on Film All That Home is About…in 60 Seconds or Less

  As a student I got to know a man called Frank. He had lost his home, and his neighborhood, and was living on the streets and...

Substandard Housing: The Choice No American Should Have to Make

  I heard a story recently about a man who lived in a crooked apartment. The floor was sloped, so that if you placed a bottle at one...

The Flint Lead Poisoning Disaster: Why We Must Invest in Healthy Homes

  About 150 years ago, people figured out that lead pipes could kill them. In 1861, fifty prisoners in King County Jail in Brooklyn...

What If Your Home Today Can Be Your Home Tomorrow? Forever.

  Starting a family or preparing for retirement are large life transformations - ones that often involve the turmoil of changing...

Good Home + Exercise = Good Health

  As a middle-age woman, I decided to go back to school and become a nurse because I wanted to help improve the health of those...

A Matter of Life or Death: How Better Homes Make Us a Healthier Nation

  Middle-aged white Americans have been dying at an accelerating rate for the last fifteen years. This is surprising to, well, pretty...

The Challenge of a
New Century: Keeping
Housing a Home as We Age

  Our homes watch over us as we age. They see everything from birth to death and in between—a child’s first steps, a beloved...

A Lifetime of Homes: Lessons from a Career in Housing Policy

  I am often asked, after living in various homes for fifty years and studying homes for roughly half that time, whether I think...

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Home Matters is a movement that seeks to re-define Home and create a New American Dream.

Thank You!