Housing & Homelessness

News | June 28, 2022

‘Something has to change:’ These architecture students are challenging Seattle’s housing norms

The City of Seattle expects to have 1 million residents by the year 2044. That’s about one-third more people than Seattle has right now. We’re having trouble housing the people here now. So where are we going to put all the new people? Some University of Washington architecture students are looking at new ways to…

News | August 26, 2019

‘The lack of affordable housing is actually costing us’: Cantwell promotes affordable housing bill in Spokane

Had U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell stood at 1 S. Madelia St. just a few years ago, she would have been in a used car lot. But on Tuesday, she was in the the lobby of an affordable housing complex now home to more than 100 residents. Cantwell was joined by Spokane leaders on Tuesday as…

News | August 14, 2019

‘Vehicle ranching’ in Seattle: Inside the underground market of renting RVs to homeless people

Richard Winn considered himself a decent landlord, particularly in a cutthroat rental market like Seattle’s. Sometimes his tenants did not pay their $75 weekly rent, and weren’t required to sign a lease or put down a deposit. But there were trade-offs. Winn never gave residents keys to their units. Tenants were not to use the…

News | April 4, 2024

‘Work of passion:’ How Catalina Velasquez’s life led her to immigrant rights advocacy

Originally reported in The Washington State Standard by Grace Deng. Ask Catalina Velasquez anything about queer, feminist immigrant rights. She’ll have an answer. Velasquez heads Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, which is the largest immigrant-led coalition in Washington, alongside Brenda Rodriguez Lopez. A refugee from Colombia herself, Velasquez was the first transgender Latina appointed as a…

News | March 10, 2023

“Hacking Inequity” Event Discusses Barriers for Women and BIPOC Developers

Last month, housing finance professionals, community members, and University of Washington faculty, staff, and students met in Founders Hall for “Hacking Inequity in Access to Real Estate Capital: Best Practices and New Options.” This event, hosted by Foster School of Business, Runstad Department of Real Estate, Urban@UW, and ULI Northwest, sought to present strategies of…

News | September 7, 2021

2021 Urban@UW Spark Grants awardees announced

Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the second round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The two projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations.    Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Among Vehicle Residents: A Case Study of the Seattle Public Utilities’ Recreational Vehicle Wastewater…

News | May 2, 2023

2023 PhD Symposium: Place, Space, and Belonging

The College of Built Environments has announced that the 2023 PhD Symposium will be held on May 19.  Titled “Place, Space, and Belonging,” the symposium will feature research from scholars around the world on topics such as phenomenology, environment, transportation, housing, and trauma-informed design. Attendees are invited to attend in person in Gould Court, or…

News | September 20, 2018

5 architectural approaches that are shaping the way we live

Mary Johnston notices the big-city big picture, and the subtler, smaller, neighborhood-level pixels that shape it. But then, she’s an architect — she and her husband, Ray Johnston, founded Johnston Architects in 1991 — and plugged-in visionaries have a way of noticing things. “Architects tend to be canaries in the coal mine,” she says. “We start to…

News | February 7, 2023

582,462 and Counting

Last year, the Biden administration laid out a goal to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by 2025. The problem increasingly animates local politics, with ambitious programs to build affordable housing getting opposition from homeowners who say they want encampments gone but for the solution to be far from their communities. Across the country, homelessness is…

News | March 10, 2018

A Homeless Camp in Our Back Yard? Please, a University Says

For months, 65 homeless people lived in tents they set up in a parking lot behind the Seattle Pacific University bookstore, with a row of portable toilets and layers of clothes to guard against the damp chill of winter. It was a homeless camp like so many that crop up along roads and ramshackle lots…

News | March 19, 2024

A New ‘Holy Grail’ in the Housing Crisis: Statewide Rent Caps

Reported in The New York Times by David W. Chen As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures.   With her husband struggling at times to find work, Ms. Horn has maxed out her credit cards to keep pace with the…

News | August 26, 2021

A new book chronicles the history of homelessness in Seattle

Josephine Ensign is a professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing and the author of a new book called “Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City.” The book digs through layers of Seattle history to reveal the stories of overlooked and long-silenced people who live on the…

News | October 10, 2019

A space-strapped city gets an unusual opportunity: A brand-new neighborhood

As apartment high-rises and office skyscrapers have filled and reshaped Seattle, there’s one long, thin strip of relatively untouched land that stands in sharp contrast to all the development around it. The 25-acre plot of land next to the Queen Anne neighborhood and near the shore of Elliott Bay—surrounded by a golf course, rail yard,…

News | June 26, 2015

Achieving Inclusivity in Visions of a Better Urban Future by Lynne Manzo

Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting

Research Beyond UW | University of Pennsylvania

Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy

The principal aim of Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) is to improve the quality of education, health and human service agencies’ policies and practices through the use of integrated data systems. Quality integrated data systems are designed to help executive leaders in municipal, county, and state government evaluate and establish effective programs for the…

News | November 23, 2020

Addressing homelessness: UW to welcome back Tent City 3 for winter quarter 2021

Homelessness is a crisis in Washington and across the U.S. Last year, an annual count revealed that in King County alone, 11,200 people reported being homeless at the time of the survey. The numbers have only increased during the pandemic. As one part of its response to this population health crisis, the University of Washington will welcome back Tent…

Research Beyond UW | University of Cape Town

African Centre for Cities

The African Centre for Cities (ACC) is an interdisciplinary research and teaching programme focused on quality scholarship regarding the dynamics of unsustainable urbanisation processes in Africa, with an eye on identifying systemic responses. Rapid and poorly governed urbanization in Africa points to a profound developmental and philosophical crisis. Most scholarship focuses on the development challenges…

News | September 1, 2020

After push from Native organizations, King County will add tribal affiliations to its homelessness database

For the first time since government officials began collecting data on the thousands of people living homeless in King County, a new category on people’s tribal affiliations will soon be added to the system. The move comes after a years-long push from Native homeless service providers to collect better information on Native people in the county’s federally mandated homelessness database. In recent years, these providers have demanded…

Scholar

Al Levine

Funding

Amazon Catalyst Grant

Amazon Catalyst’s goal is to help people develop solutions to key problems faced in the world today. Problems can be diverse, from computer security, to immigration, to climate change. Because issues like these are complex, solutions will come from many different fields and many different perspectives. Therefore, the grants are open to all disciplines, including…

News | June 12, 2017

American poverty is moving to the suburbs

In his inaugural address, US president Donald Trump listed out the problems he saw in a declining America. At the top of his list: “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities.” It was not the first time Trump had spoken of urban poverty. “Our inner cities are a disaster,” Trump said in…

Scholar

Amoshaun Toft

Scholar

Amy Hagopian

Scholar

Anaid Yerena

Scholar

Andrea Gevurtz Arai

Scholar

Andrew Saxon

News | September 26, 2022

Annual letter recaps urban efforts across UW, beyond

As we all head into another autumn and academic year under the COVID-19 pandemic, Urban@UW wishes to acknowledge the ongoing impacts of this and so many other acute and chronic drivers of struggle, inequality and injustice. Along with the uncertainty, loss, and weariness, we also acknowledge this community’s perseverance and commitment to co-creating cities that…

Degree Program

Architecture / Architectural Design (BA, CM dual degree, MArch, dual MArch-MLA, MS, Minor)

The Department of Architecture advances the discipline and practice of architecture by: Educating architects who are responsive and responsible to society, culture and the environment. Advancing architectural knowledge through research, scholarship, and critical practice. Using this knowledge to benefit local, regional, national and global communities. We value excellence in research and teaching, the traditions of…

News | August 9, 2024

Are we on the brink of a tax revolt in Washington state?

Reported by Joshua McNichols for KUOW/NPR News Cities all over the region have big property tax levies on the ballot this year. There’s a transportation levy in Seattle, a levy to modernize the fire department in Tacoma, and a levy to pay for public safety and libraries in Everett. Increasingly, elected officials rely on these…

Scholar

Ariel Rokem

Scholar

Arthur Acolin

News | September 5, 2018

Artificial intelligence can estimate an area’s obesity levels by analyzing its buildings

Two researchers from the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation have found a way to estimate a US city’s obesity level without having to look at its inhabitants. The duo trained an artificial intelligence algorithm to find the relationship between a city’s infrastructure and obesity levels using satellite and Street View images…

News | April 3, 2017

As Central District gets whiter, new barriers to health care

Last week while lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were gnashing their teeth over what health insurance in the U.S. should look like, patients and providers in King County were wrestling with some of the same challenges they faced before the Affordable Care Act was in place.   In 2014, students in King County who are black,…

News | February 23, 2023

As Downtown recovers, Seattle reimagines what it could be

Office-to-residential conversion has its share of skeptics in the real estate world. It is expensive, in part because office interiors are so much deeper than apartment interiors, meaning it’s hard to get natural light. It’s also expensive to retrofit HVAC systems and other residential necessities that offices don’t need. Not all office buildings are created…

News | July 6, 2017

As metro areas grow, whites move farther from the city center

In the middle of the 20th century, cities began to change. The popularity of the automobile and the construction of interstate highways fueled the growth of suburbs, while discriminatory housing policies segregated neighborhoods and helped create the phenomenon of “white flight” away from downtowns. Decades later, the average white person still lives farther from the…

News |

As metro areas grow, whites move farther from the city center

In the middle of the 20th century, cities began to change. The popularity of the automobile and the construction of interstate highways fueled the growth of suburbs, while discriminatory housing policies segregated neighborhoods and helped create the phenomenon of “white flight” away from downtowns. Decades later, the average white person still lives farther from the…

News | December 3, 2019

As more people use RVs as homes, should cities find a place for them?

Graham Pruss is familiar with the trials and tribulations of living out of an RV. As part of his research for his anthropology PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle, Pruss bought and lived in an RV for five months. Within the first 12 hours of doing so, he says, police issued him tickets and former…

Research Beyond UW | Columbia University

Asian Megacities Lab

Over the next 25 years, it is projected that China will account for 50% of the world’s new construction. The majority of this construction will occur in existing cities or newly formed urban areas. It is the mission of the Asia Megacities Lab to become actively engaged with this rapid urbanization and spatial production occurring…

News | September 2, 2016

August Sees New Grants, Project Launches, and Original Research and Writing

August was a busy month at the University of Washington and the Seattle region when it comes to urban research, writing, and project launches. Take a look at what’s been happening. Urban@UW will be running a half-day workshop as part of the Eighth International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2016.) Our workshop seeks to bring…

Scholar

Bára Šafářová

News | April 20, 2017

Bellevue, Renton Among Top 100 U.S Cities for Livability

​Watch as King 5 News brings in Branden Born to shed light on the weighting mechanisms employed by a survey recently published on livability.com which ranked Renton and Bellevue among their top 100 cities for livability. Watch the whole clip on iQmediacorp.com

Scholar

Benjamin Danielson

Scholar

Benjamin de Haan

Map | Berlin

Berlin Places I live Map

This map calculates a Life Quality Index for every location in Berlin. What is that? Life Quality Index (LQI) identifies wide scope of threads and opportunities in the social and physical environment of any given urban area. It was created to provide an overall information about neighborhoods in different cities and help their citizens to…

News | October 23, 2017

Best answer to Seattle affordability may win the race for mayor

The rising cost of housing is a dominant issue in Seattle’s mayoral election, but political messaging – on trust, results and leadership – could also move voters in the race between Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon.It’s a race away from a scandal and a race to become Seattle’s first woman mayor in about 90 years,…

News | January 26, 2017

Big data and human services workshop resources

On January 17-18 Urban@UW, UW eScience Institute, the City of Seattle, and the MetroLab Network hosted a workshop on big data and human services. Check out the presentations and videos of our conversations at MetroLab’s workshop materials page.

News | January 9, 2017

Big Data and Human Services: A Brief Annotated Reading List

On January 17-18th 2017, the Metrolab workshop on Big Data and Human Services hosted by City of Seattle, MetroLab Network, and the University of Washington will convene experts from local government and universities to discuss common challenges and propose collaborative, data-driven solutions to human service issues. Urban@UW has compiled a brief reading list to help…

News | June 11, 2024

Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound The Pandemic Alarm?

Reported by Kaiser Health News for  Patch PALO ALTO, CA — Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, there’s another suspect, bird flu — but there’s no way for most…

News | July 25, 2017

Birds versus buildings: Rural structures pose greater relative threat than urban ones

About one billion birds are killed every year when they unwittingly fly into human-made objects such as buildings with reflective windows. Such collisions are the largest unintended human cause of bird deaths worldwide — and they are a serious concern for conservationists. A new paper published in June in the journal Biological Conservation finds that,…

News | May 24, 2017

Black life is draining out of Seattle, census shows

South King County has long been a place where people with modest incomes could find a home. Now more people are coming, driven by high rents in Seattle. And a University of Washington School of Sociology researcher has found that African-Americans are among the most affected by this wave of displacement. Tim Thomas of the…

News | August 3, 2020

Black pastors and activists want Central District land as reparations

In the midst of ongoing protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, Black communities in the Seattle area have begun a push for bigger, more long-term actions toward overcoming the poverty created by decades of racist policies. “We need reparations for our Black and brown communities,” said Pastor Angela Ying of Bethany…

Scholar

Brian Coffey

Funding

Bridge Funding Program

The University of Washington Provost’s Office provides bridge funding to support faculty to span the gap in critical research programs. Applications from faculty should be submitted to the applicant’s department chair, who should prioritize requests before forwarding them to the dean of the college/school. In non-departmentalized colleges/schools, applications should be submitted to the dean or…

News | February 12, 2021

Campaign: TC3 stay at UW

Tent City Collective, a group of UW students, alumni, community members, and people experiencing homelessness, are working with UW faculty and staff to bring Tent City 3 to the university for the second time since 2017. Tent City 3 is a self-governing community designed to shelter and aid people without homes around Seattle. Their mission…

News | April 14, 2020

Can Rainier Beach develop without displacing its residents?

Catch the light rail southbound, and when you erupt from the tunnel after Beacon Hill station, you see a city shifting: multicolored duplexes and mixed-use buildings. Continue, though, and development dissipates. In Rainier Beach, Seattle’s southernmost neighborhood, empty lots and old buildings flank the tracks. “Many of the things we were told would occur as…

News | November 9, 2017

Can Seattle rezone away the racial divide in housing?

For generations, Seattle was segregated through racist neighborhood covenants, deed restrictions, even banking policies designed to keep certain minorities out of largely white enclaves.Yet nearly 50 years after the landmark Fair Housing Act sought to reverse that legacy, the city remains strikingly separated along color lines. A Seattle Times analysis shows that areas dedicated to…

News | August 7, 2019

Can tiny houses help solve affordability crisis? A student who’s building one thinks so

Olivia Tyrnauer adjusts the ladder and carefully begins to climb, balancing on the steps as she carries a large window up to an empty frame. Positioned precariously on one of the top steps, she loops a screw gun out of her belt and pulls a screw from one of the pockets of her tan cargo…

Scholar

Candice Rai

Scholar

Carly Roberts

Center & Lab

Cascadia Urban Analytics Collaborative

Over 80% of the planet is affected by increased urbanization – a clarion call for evidence-based innovation to improve the resiliency, health,and well-being of cities and their inhabitants. To lead a focused response, the University of Washington (through a partnership between the UW eScience Institute and Urban@UW) and the University of British Columbia (through a…

Research Beyond UW | Technical University of Berlin

Center for Metropolitan Studies

The city is our research field. Since 2004 the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CMS) at the Technische Universität Berlin has brought together both young and experienced researchers to study the historical developments and current problems of the metropolis in its international graduate research program, the masters program in historical urban studies, and adjunct research projects.…

News | May 1, 2019

Central District, other Seattle legacy communities are at risk — and we all need to help save them

In a new documentary about gentrification in the Central District, “On the Brink,” an advocate of Seattle’s historically African American neighborhood talks about recent construction projects in the area digging the soul out of that community. … The CD became a nearly 80% black neighborhood in the late 1960s and early ’70s because African Americans,…

News | September 23, 2022

Central WA Home Prices Spike Amid Influx of Seattle-Area Transplants

When the pandemic limited travel and forced many professional workers to work remotely, many city-dwellers sought retreat in the mountains, trails and waterways of Central Washington. Chelan and Kittitas counties were a short car ride away. In the same places Seattleites found recreation and retreat, demand for second homes — and even permanent single residences…

Research Beyond UW | University of York

Centre for Housing Policy

The Centre for Housing Policy (CHP) is one of Europe's leading centres for interdisciplinary housing and social policy research, with interests centring on housing and social justice, housing and later life and the operation of housing markets. CHP has a twenty-five year record of academically excellent and policy-relevant research. We were ranked joint first in…

Research Beyond UW | University of Toronto

Centre for Urban & Community Studies

The Centre for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS) was established in 1964 to promote and disseminate multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on urban issues. The Centre's activities contributed to scholarship on questions relating to the social, economic and physical well-being of people who live and work in urban areas large and small, in Canada and…

Research Beyond UW | University of Nairobi

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations (CURI), formerly Urban Innovations Program (UIP), is a think tank based at the University of Nairobi's Department of Urban and Regional Planning. The Centre seeks to create a forum for exploring innovative methodologies for enabling planners and professionals in the built environment to be more responsive and effective in…

Research Beyond UW | University of York

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations

The Centre for Urban Research seeks to be a critical observatory, tracking important changes and developments in urban and regional economies, societies and environments in order to identify and examine the issues likely to become key challenges in the near future. A program of frequent events provide forums for diverse communities, policy-makers and academic colleagues…

Research Beyond UW | University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies (CUBES)

The Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) is a platform for urban research, learning and civic engagement located in the School of Architecture and Planning. CUBES’s research focuses on material built-environment issues affecting the poor in cities and towns in South Africa. CUBES leads a variety of research programmes that consider how urban…

News | August 24, 2018

Certified healthy buildings? Bellevue and UW are working on it

Considering that most people spend one-third of their day at work, UW Civil and Environmental Engineering researchers are advocating for healthier buildings. And they aren’t wasting any time. The first government building in Puget Sound, Bellevue City Hall, recently gained Fitwel Certification thanks to their help. “Since the built environment affects human health, the certification symbolizes the city’s commitment…

Research Beyond UW | University of Chicago

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago has, since its inception in 1985 as a research and policy center, focused on a mission of improving the well-being of children and youth, families, and their communities. We do this through policy research—by developing and testing new ideas, generating and analyzing information, and examining policies, programs, and…

Scholar

Charles H. Lea III

Scholar

Charles W Roeder

Research Beyond UW | Lesley University

Child Homelessness Initiative

The mission of the CHI is to prepare Lesley University graduates---next-generation teachers, policy advocates, therapists and child care providers--with a trauma-informed asset model that enables practices and policies consistent with maximizing infant and toddler health, happiness and well-being, securing their protection from injury and insult, and advancing their educational opportunities and citizenship.

Scholar

Christine Stevens

Scholar

Cinnamon Hillyard

News | May 5, 2020

Cities and the SARS CoV2 coronavirus in the Global South: Breaking points in an interconnected system

Since COVID-19 first erupted in China in December and began spreading across the world, the pandemic’s early outbreaks have “burned hottest in the richer, globalized quarters of the world linked by busy commercial air routes—Europe and the United States.” (National Geographic, 2020a [website]) Now, four months into the pandemic, compounding factors of urban density and…

News | October 15, 2020

Cities dropping out of King County sales tax could strip more than $18M from homeless housing plan

A $400 million proposal to house 2,000 people who have been chronically homeless in King County through a new sales tax is losing millions of potential dollars as suburban cities adopt their own version of the tax instead. So far, Issaquah, Renton, Kent, Snoqualmie and Covington have voted to adopt their own .01% sales tax, a mechanism authorized…

Research Beyond UW | York University

City Institute at York University (CITY)

The City Institute at York University (CITY) brings together over 60 of the university’s urban scholars and scores of graduate students from fields as diverse as planning, geography, environmental studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, education, law, transportation and the humanities. This interdisciplinary institute facilitates critical and collaborative research, providing new knowledge and innovative approaches to…

News | March 23, 2018

City of Bellevue selected as 2018-2019 UW Livable City Year partner

The University of Washington Livable City Year program has selected the City of Bellevue to be the community partner for the 2018-2019 academic year. The year-long partnership connects city staff with students and faculty who will collaborate on projects to advance the Bellevue City Council Vision Priorities, specifically around livability and sustainability. In the upcoming…

News | December 29, 2022

City of Tacoma and UW Tacoma want to start community conversations on homelessness next year

Starting in 2023, the City of Tacoma and UW Tacoma will host community conversations on homelessness. The council approved $20,000 on Dec. 20 from its contingency fund to sponsor the conversations. The conversations will be focused on immediate actions to address homelessness and coming up with solutions to housing and supportive services. John Burkhardt, communications…

Funding

Civic Innovation Challenge

The Civic Innovation Challenge, funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, supports partnerships between communities and universities that address mobility and resilience priorities. Teams will compete for awards of up to $1 million to support ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects that have the potential for scalable, sustainable,…

News | November 20, 2019

Climate Migration and Global Cities

Between 2009 and 2018, 71 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced. This includes 41 million people who have been displaced within their own country, including the majority of climate migrants (World Bank Group, 2018 [PDF]); 26 million refugees, those forced to flee because of violence or persecution; and 4 million asylum-seekers, those who are waiting for…

News | August 4, 2022

College of Built Environments students help historically Black churches survive gentrification

Rev. George Davenport Jr. had a vision of using real estate to sustain his church community in its historically Black Central District neighborhood. But while the streets around the church gentrified, he struggled through the complex landscape of zoning laws, building codes and speculative funding options. Then he stumbled upon the Nehemiah Initiative and the…

News | September 8, 2017

College of Built Environments’ David de la Cruz partners with communities for environmental justice

David de la Cruz has a question about power. “When we think about toxic sites and where they’re placed in relation to where people live, who’s left out of making those decisions?” “Often,” he answers, “it’s the people who live there. It’s low-income communities, working-class communities and communities of color who don’t have a say….

Research Beyond UW | Columbia University

Community Impact at Columbia University

Community Impact serves individuals in need in the communities of Upper Manhattan while providing meaningful volunteering and leadership opportunities for students at Columbia University and Barnard College. Community Impact oversees the operation of 27 programs that provide a variety of services for residents in the surrounding Harlem, Morningside Heights, and Washington Heights communities. Columbia and…

Degree Program

Community, Environment & Planning (BA)

Community, Environment, and Planning is a self-directed, diverse undergraduate major comprised of students, faculty, and staff engaged in holistic growth and a collaborative process of experiential and interdisciplinary learning. In our major, we develop skills, techniques, and knowledge necessary to be active leaders and conscientious planners in our communities and environments. Our values are presented…

News | April 28, 2020

Construction causes major pollution. Here’s how we can build better.

Buildings of the future will be grown on-site, says Wil Srubar, an assistant professor of architectural engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder who also runs the Living Materials Laboratory. They’ll be made from hemp, or algae or specially engineered wood — or bacteria that can photosynthesize, like the cyanobacteria mortar he and his research…

Degree Program

Construction Management (BS, Arch dual degree, Minor, MS, Cert, PCE)

The department’s mission is: To prepare individuals for careers in the construction and related industries by providing high quality education, to conduct research that will benefit the construction industry, and to provide service to the community. This includes educating students in developing a sustainable built environment and applying innovative construction techniques based on cutting edge…

News | March 23, 2020

Continued Support for the Homeless from The Doorway Project

Urban@UW is a proud partner in The Doorway Project. Below we share their quarterly update: Like everyone else, we at the Doorway Project are practicing flexibility to quickly-changing systems and environments as a result of the covid-19/coronavirus global pandemic. Because of these changes, we have prioritized the health and safety of our Community Advisory Board…

News | March 12, 2020

Coronavirus is a Serious Threat to the Seattle Homeless Population

At a nonprofit providing health care and housing to the homeless population in the city, employees have begun a sprint to sanitize their facilities. Because the organization, the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), is located in one of the U.S.’s first hotbeds of novel coronavirus infection, workers are bracing themselves for a wave of medical…

News | May 7, 2020

Coronavirus pushed Seattle to treat homelessness differently. Will those changes last?

Lola Anderson-Najera finally has a door that locks. After years of weaving in and out homelessness, sleeping “elbow-to-elbow” in shelters and sometimes outside, she’s found a tiny, temporary home. It’s small, but it has a chair to read in, an end table to hold her things, and fresh sheets. Above all, she said, there’s a new feeling of…

News | April 3, 2020

Coronavirus: Homeless families lose key support as schools close

In a typical year, homeless shelters experience the biggest surge in demand not during the cold winter months, but rather during the summer. In the summer, schools close and parents lose the usual daily eight hours of childcare and meals. With the additional burden of sleeping on the streets, parents seek out shelter more often, research…

News | July 11, 2019

Could court fines and fees be keeping people homeless?

A new University of Washington School of Public Health study sustains a long-held argument that court-imposed fees and fines may keep the most vulnerable people ensnared in a vicious cycle of poverty and incarceration. The researchers found that, among a group of adults experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area, people with outstanding legal debt spent…

News | May 19, 2021

Could Seattle-area homebuyers be getting some relief? New report shows rise in new listings

Seattle-area homebuyers could be getting a bit of a reprieve. During April, the area saw a significant increase in new listings compared to the same time last year, according to the most recent report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service. There were also “reports of moderating prices” as more homes were added to the market, the report said….

News | December 22, 2022

Covenant project unearths the threads of historical housing discrimination in Washington

It is not news that there were racial covenants built into the foundations of Spokane’s neighborhood developments during the middle decades of the past century. But a new state-funded research project is in the process of identifying every such covenant in Eastern Washington — and the tally is significant. The man who initially opened the…

News | October 28, 2020

COVID-19 accelerating trend of out-of-area buyers in Spokane, housing experts say

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating a growing trend of out-of-area buyers and remote workers moving to Spokane in search of a better quality of life and affordable housing, real estate experts said at the Association of Washington Business Housing Forum Virtual Series earlier this week. Part of the housing demand is coming from retirees, who…

News | September 24, 2020

COVID-19 testing in King County homeless shelters shows need to create safer conditions in crowded settings

Border detention facilities, prisons and refugee camps have something in common with communal homeless shelters, University of Washington School of Medicine researchers say. They’re home to “closed, crowded conditions where people have to live in small spaces and share a lot of common facilities,” said Dr. Helen Y. Chu, associate professor at the UW School…

News | December 13, 2019

Creating mental health friendly cities for youth

What would it take to make Seattle a mental health friendly city for young people? What innovations and actions might promote adolescent mental health in Seattle, as a model for other cities? The Population Health Initiative recently partnered with the University of Washington’s Global Mental Health program and Urban@UW to host an in-depth conversation with a multidisciplinary group of…

News | November 26, 2024

Creating multi-sector teams to build cities where everyone thrives.

Research-to-Action Teams 2024-25 In April of 2024 two teams were selected for participation in the second cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory. For 18 months Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicated time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These…

Scholar

Crystal C. Hall

News | December 3, 2019

Dads in prison can bring poverty, instability for families on the outside

Studies of the societal effects of prison often focus on the imprisoned: their physical and mental health, job prospects after release, their likelihood of returning to jail. A new study from the University of Washington looks instead at families of men who are, or were recently, incarcerated — specifically, at where these families live, how…

Scholar

David Blum

Scholar

Dawn Lehman

News | December 31, 2016

December Recap – TC3, Urban Environmental Justice, Tech, and other Highlights

December concludes a complicated year. The past month has seen a variety of changes, new research, and reflections on life in Seattle, the tech world, urban environmental justice, and our campus. Urban@UW and Climate Impacts Group collaborated on the Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change symposium. Urban@UW published a reflection on the…

News | October 27, 2017

Developing ‘breakaway’ tsunami resistant buildings

The best designs can also be the most surprising. A promising new concept for tsunami resistant buildings features breakaway walls and floors on lower levels that, when removed by forceful waves, strengthen the structure and better protect occupants seeking safety on higher floors. Thanks to a $1 million National Science Foundation Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing…

Scholar

Diana Pearce

News | October 4, 2018

Disaster response needed to bring homeless people inside, says King County health board

The King County Board of Health is urging local governments to use emergency homeless shelters in anticipation of the quickly approaching cold weather. The board of health this week unanimously approved board member Bill Daniell’s proposal to call homelessness a public health disaster and advise local governments to do whatever is necessary to get people inside. The board’s…

News | July 13, 2017

Does commercial zoning increase neighborhood crime?

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump told The New York Times that America’s urban centers are some of the “most dangerous,” crime-filled places in the world. Even though experts were quick to point out that violent crime has actually declined in all but a handful of America’s largest cities and urban…

News | July 2, 2020

Don’t be fooled by Seattle’s police-free zone

Seattle’s police-free “autonomous zone” is coming to an end. After two largely peaceful weeks, shootings over the last several days near the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, CHOP for short, left a 19-year-old man dead and three others wounded. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on June 22 that the city would retake the abandoned police precinct at the heart of…

News | December 5, 2019

Don’t blame tech bros for the housing crisis

Can Big Tech solve the housing crisis? That’s the hope behind recent announcements by Apple, Facebook and Google, which together total $4.5 billion in grants and loans to remedy the affordable-housing crunch in California and the Bay Area. Microsoft last year pledged $500 million to relieve Seattle’s similarly stressed market. While Amazon’s opposition torpedoed Seattle’s attempt in 2018 to raise revenue for homelessness services,…

News | December 16, 2019

Doorway Project Winter Update: Building at the Speed of Trust

The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, has been busy! Check out their activities and plans for the future in their latest blog post:   With the end of the year and the end of the decade approaching in the next few weeks, this moment feels like a perfect time to…

News | September 10, 2021

Doorway Project: 2020-2021 Year End Report

The Doorway Project is an initiative co-led by the University of Washington and YouthCare, an agency offering individualized services to young people experiencing homelessness in Seattle/King County. The Doorway Project works to address youth and young adult homelessness in the University District through centering youth wellbeing and agency in the development of emancipatory and creative…

News | April 8, 2024

Earthquake showed Taiwan was well prepared for a big one — more so than parts of U.S.

Originally reported by Evan Bush  for NBC News. The powerful earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday shook an island that was well prepared for a seismic catastrophe — likely more so than some regions of the U.S., several experts said. Nine people have been reported dead, though Taiwanese officials said the death toll could rise in…

Scholar

Elena A. Erosheva

Scholar

Emily Keller

Funding

Enterprise Community – Housing Tech

In every corner of the nation, families are struggling to find an affordable place to live. We know this challenge is solvable. But only if we bring entrepreneurial market forces to bear to complement the policy and traditional market approaches that are effective but limited in their breadth due to resource constraints and timing. We…

Scholar

Erin Blakeney

News | June 17, 2015

eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good Projects Announced

eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good Projects Announced Bringing together data scientists to work on focused, collaborative projects designed to impact public policy. This Summer teams will be looking at: Assessing Community Well-Being Through Open Data and Social Media – providing neighborhood communities with a better understanding of the factors that impact their well-being….

Map

Eviction Lab

We're unpacking America's eviction crisis. The Eviction Lab at Princeton University has built the first nationwide database of evictions. Find out how many evictions happen in your community. Create custom maps, charts, and reports. Share facts with your neighbors and elected officials.

News | February 27, 2019

Evictions, rent spikes contribute to Washington’s homelessness crisis, study finds

With rent spikes and the decline of affordable housing, a team of University of Washington researchers are finding that evictions are contributing to the rise in homelessness across Washington state. Tim Thomas is the Principal Investigator of the study, and post-doctoral fellow at the UW eScience Institute. Now they’ve created a “living document” that shows eviction rates…

News | October 29, 2019

Facebook commits $1 billion to ease Bay Area housing crisis

Facebook Inc. is following other tech titans like Microsoft Corp. and Google, pledging to use its deep pockets to ease the affordable housing shortage in West Coast cities. The social media giant said Tuesday that it would commit $1 billion over the next decade to address the crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area, building as many as…

News | July 31, 2018

FEMA-style tents as homeless shelters? Maybe, say some King County officials

Three health officials on the King County Board of Health are urging the panel to declare homelessness a “public health disaster” and advise local jurisdictions to respond accordingly — including potentially deploying large scale FEMA-style tents as emergency shelter before winter. Two and a half years after both Seattle and King County declared a state of…

News | February 24, 2022

Fight over homeless hotel shelters arrives in Kirkland

Homeless hotel shelters continue to be difficult sells for those living in cities outside of Seattle, with Kirkland residents now expressing concerns over the potential purchase of a vacant La Quinta Inn. Snohomish County Councilmember pushes back against hotels for homeless residents King County is reportedly considering the La Quinta Inn — located near SR 520 on…

News | December 4, 2020

Final Report: Impact of Hotels as Non-Congregate Emergency Shelters

A King County initiative that moved people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms earlier this year helped slow the transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV2, according to the final report from a study of the intervention. The study is co-authored by Gregg Colburn and Rachel Fyall, faculty co-leads of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, and the…

News | March 16, 2017

First UW Livable City Year project reports delivered to the City of Auburn

Teams of University of Washington students have been working throughout this academic year on livability and sustainability projects in the City of Auburn. The yearlong Livable City Year partnership has given students a chance to work on real-world challenges identified by Auburn, while providing Auburn with tens of thousands of hours of study and student…

News | May 21, 2021

Five months and $100,000 later, Seattle City Council asks: Where are the street sinks?

Last November, the Seattle City Council earmarked $100,000 intended to quickly set up dozens of new hand-washing facilities around the city — a resource to meet the desperate needs of more than 3,700 unsheltered people in Seattle after the pandemic closed access to running water at businesses and other public spaces. Five months later, as shelters…

News | June 18, 2018

Food insecurity is a growing obstacle for college students

Expanding access to higher education is a core part of the mission at the University of Washington Tacoma, which had its commencement Monday. Many of the campus’ students commute from nearby communities, 58 percent have parents without college degrees, and 73 percent receive financial aid. “We have a lot of first-generation students,” said Christine Stevens, a professor who…

Funding

Ford Foundation

We believe in the inherent dignity of all people. Yet around the world, billions of people are excluded from full participation in the political, economic, and cultural systems that shape their lives. We view this fundamental inequality as the defining challenge of our time, one that limits the potential of all people, everywhere. Addressing inequality…

News | March 15, 2021

From crisis to community: Homeownership access with Assistant Professor Arthur Acolin

Arthur Acolin, an Urban@UW Affiliate sat down with CBE to talk about his work. College is a time of exploration and discovery for all students. It is a time that often shapes how we view the world. Going through this transition during a moment of turbulence in the world can shape that experience significantly, which…

Map

Furushwa

In response to thousands of evictions by the Kenyan government Amnesty International built this resource to allow residents at risk of eviction, or those who’ve already been made homeless, to easily report it. To collect multi media evidence showing the human impact of illegal evictions and to send instant up-to-date-information alerting residents when an eviction…

Scholar

Galen Minah

News | July 28, 2020

Gentrification and changing foodscapes in Seattle

Seattle is the third most quickly gentrifying city in the US, after Washington, DC and Portland, OR (The Seattle Times [web]). Gentrification is often the outcome of decades of segregation, redlining, and urban renewal policies that exploit the large gap between existing and potential property values, which in turn encourages an influx of wealthier residents….

News | May 20, 2024

Global life expectancy is projected to increase by 5 years by 2050

Reported by Rodielon Putol for Earth A recent study from the prestigious Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2021 reveals an encouraging trend: global life expectancy is expected to rise by nearly five years by 2050, despite various global challenges. According to the findings published in The Lancet, life expectancy for males is projected to…

Degree Program

Graduate Certificate in Housing Studies

Quality, affordable, and well-connected housing is an essential component of strong and healthy communities. Housing markets are constantly evolving and there is an increasing collaboration among public, private and nonprofit actors in addressing various housing issues. The Graduate Certificate in Housing Studies (GCHS) offers graduate students an opportunity to learn the fundamental concepts and tools…

Funding

Graham Foundation

Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts makes project-based grants to individuals and organizations and produces public programs to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. Architecture and related spatial practices engage a wide range…

Scholar

Gregg Colburn

News | March 7, 2023

Groundbreaking Study Shows Suburban Tenants are Facing More Evictions across the US

The number of families evicted from their homes in suburbs across the country has been on the rise for years, according to a report from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. Researchers compiled eviction judgment records from 74 U.S. metropolitan areas and found that as the number of evictions in city centers held steady from 2000 to 2016, the…

News | June 11, 2024

Here’s why an Arizona medical examiner is working to track heat-related deaths

Written by Alejandra Borunda for NPR News Greg Hess deals with death day in, day out. Hess is the medical examiner for Pima County, Ariz., a region along the United States-Mexico border. His office handles some 3,000 deaths each year — quiet deaths, overdoses, gruesome deaths, tragic ones. From April through October every year, Hess…

News | February 12, 2016

Heterogeneity and American Ghettos with Dr. Mario Luis Small – 2/25

February 25th / 6:00-7:30pm / CMU 120 Dr. Mario Luis Small Grafstein Family Professor, Harvard University By the end of the 20th century, the dominant theories of urban poverty argued that U.S. ghettos had become isolated areas devoid of everyday institutions and disconnected from mainstream society. Dr. Small examines whether the conventional models have underestimated…

News | February 1, 2024

History uncovered: UW research finds thousands of past racial restrictions in Kitsap

Reported in The Kitsap Sun By Peiyu Lin It’s not a secret that Kitsap County possesses a history of segregation, where some areas of the peninsula were only allowed to sell or rent to white people in the early and mid-20th century. But a specific geographic distribution of the over 2,300 properties that carry racial…

News | October 19, 2021

Home after fire: A new housing model aims to give kids stability

When the Almeda Fire hit southern Oregon on Labor Day weekend just over a year ago, Christy Brooks was on her way home from her daughters’ school after picking up books and a computer in preparation for the coming year. The air was smoky and smelled burnt, but Brooks doesn’t remember feeling overly concerned. She…

News | May 29, 2019

Home construction continues to rise in north Snohomish County

The sounds of hammering, sawing and heavy equipment are echoing across the area these days. It’s in stark contrast to five years ago when few new homes were being built. “Back in 2014, we were one-at-a-timing it to eke our way through,” said Anthony Holbeck of Holbeck Construction & Design on Camano. “Now, it’s a…

News | December 9, 2021

Home, not-so-sweet home

Imagine buying your dream home — and then learning you are prohibited from owning it. A surprising number of residential property deeds in Washington state contain clauses excluding certain groups from ownership. Those clauses are no longer enforceable thanks to a 1968 anti-discrimination law, but the exclusionary language — a reminder of sanctioned racism in…

Research Beyond UW | University of Denver

Homeless Advocacy Policy Project

The Homeless Advocacy Policy Project (HAPP) at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law is a student-driven project focused on researching the laws criminalizing homelessness and advocating for the rights of homeless individuals.

News | October 26, 2017

Homeless artists showcase work at UW

One way to humanize the homeless is through art. “Telling our stories: art and home(lessness)” is a show Oct. 11-Dec. 15 featuring the work of six artists living in a low-barrier supportive housing project. They are part of an artists’ collective developed out of collaboration with University of Washington researchers, the Downtown Emergency Service Center…

News | September 28, 2021

Homeless in Silicon Valley’s shadow get help, but ‘sustainable’ change is elusive

Andrea Urton, who grew up homeless in Los Angeles, has seen how little corporate interests  tend to care about helping the impoverished. So it was with some surprise when she received a phone call from an Apple representative. “I have never had an Apple or a Google or a Facebook reach out to me personally…

Research Beyond UW | Seattle University

Homeless Rights Advocacy Project

The Homeless Rights Advocacy Project (HRAP) engages Seattle University School of Law students in effective legal and policy research, analysis, and advocacy work to advance the rights of homeless adults, youth, and children.

News | June 6, 2019

Homelessness drops 8% in Seattle but more live in tents

The number of homeless in Seattle dropped nearly 8% over the last two years reflecting an across the board drop in nearly all categories. But there was an increase in the number of people living unsheltered in tents and encampments and that’s where Seattle’s Navigation Team focuses on. Mayor Durkan announced on Friday an expansion…

News | October 27, 2017

Homelessness is Seattle’s public health crisis

In this Crosscut editorial, UW professors Ben Danielson in the Department of Pediatrics and Bill Daniell in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences discuss homelessness as a public health crisis: “In 2015, Seattle and King County each declared a homelessness State of Emergency. Both have made commendable efforts since then to intensify outreach,…

News | December 7, 2022

Homelessness Research Initiative convenes homelessness scholars from across the UW

Last Tuesday, faculty, staff, and students from across the University of Washington met in the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health for a convening of the Homelessness Research Initiative. Led by faculty co-chairs Rachel Fyall, associate professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, and Gregg Colburn, assistant professor in the College of…

News | February 7, 2019

Homeowners keep building walls around Puget Sound. Biologists are taking out more

Puget Sound has started getting healthier, at least by one measure: A little less of its shoreline is buried under walls of concrete and rock. Biologists have long pointed to seawalls, bulkheads and other protective structures known as “shoreline armoring” as a major environmental problem for Puget Sound. More than 660 miles, or about 29…

News | February 18, 2020

Homes are selling in Tacoma at fastest rate in nation, Redfin says in new report

Last May, Redfin elevated Tacoma on the nation’s real estate map with a report saying the city was the nation’s hottest market.  That distinction was just given again. On Thursday, the real estate company’s blog reported Tacoma was the fastest-selling metro market nationwide in January. Tacoma also ranks high as a competitive market, with 34.2…

News | July 8, 2022

Housing boom around University Village: Will it be a real Seattle neighborhood?

Most of Seattle’s growing urban neighborhoods surround light-rail stations, but at least one is sprouting around an upscale, open-air shopping center. There are more than 2,300 new apartments recently completed, currently under construction or planned in the blocks that encircle University Village, a sprawling collection of stores, restaurants, plazas and parking lots located northeast of…

News | February 6, 2020

How a Strong Regional Economy is Effecting the Snohomish Housing Market

Economic growth doesn’t come without some burden. “We are suffering from our own successes,” said economist and UW lecturer Matthew Gardner. “We have a robust economy, and that means growing pains.” The solid economy equates to more jobs — and more people — moving to the region, putting continued pressure on infrastructure and housing markets, he said….

News | July 7, 2022

How many homeless people are in King County? Depends who you ask

Since the data-driven Marc Dones was hired to lead the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, one of their main priorities has been to get an accurate count of the homeless population. Now, Dones and the Authority have two different counts: 13,368 and 40,800. Both are larger than the previous estimate of the homeless population conducted…

News | January 16, 2021

How much will homelessness rise? Grim study shows possible ‘impact of doing nothing,’ researchers say

A recession following the coronavirus pandemic could cause twice as much homelessness nationwide as the Great Recession did more than a decade ago, says a grim study released Tuesday by Economic Roundtable, an L.A. research group. Using detailed data on unemployment and homelessness from L.A. County social services, authors of the study project that people at the…

News | August 30, 2018

How racism kept black Tacomans from buying houses for decades

Honorably discharged after serving in the Korean War, the young man looked to settle down in Tacoma with his wife. If only they could convince someone to show them a home. If they got to a house first, the real estate agent would leave upon seeing them. They learned to park down the street and…

News | May 23, 2018

How Seattle’s appetite for construction is creating a growing waste problem

The sun has barely burned the fog off Lake Washington as Noel Stout, standing near the water’s edge, peers at a heavy wooden trellis suspended 20 feet above a concrete backyard patio. He’s rigged a system of ropes and pulleys to the cedar latticework, which just yesterday supported a deck with a sweeping view across…

News | June 11, 2020

How Seattle’s unemployed survived the Great Depression

When the stock market crashed in fall of 1929, the road from joblessness to homelessness was short. Meager local relief programs and private charity weren’t up to the challenge of mass unemployment. As the Depression deepened and President Herbert Hoover resolutely opposed federal involvement in relief efforts, “Hoovervilles” sprang up around the country. Seattle’s largest shanty…

News | March 15, 2018

How social networks help perpetuate the ‘cycle of segregation’

Think about the last time you looked for a new apartment or house. Maybe you asked your friends or colleagues about where they lived. You thought about your route to work, or that neighborhood you always drive through on your way to your kid’s soccer practice. Many of these places were familiar to you, whether…

News | April 10, 2018

How Texas is ‘building back better’ from Hurricane Harvey

For most Americans, the one-two punch of last fall’s hurricanes is ancient history. But hard-hit communities in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean are still rebuilding. Nicole Errett, lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, recently traveled with public health students from the University of Washington to southeast Texas, where the impacts of…

News | July 29, 2024

How Tiny Homes Could Help Solve America’s Homelessness Crisis

Reported by Giulia Carbonaro for Newsweek Shelter villages of tiny homes have popped up across the U.S. in recent years, as the small structures have started to be seen by many advocates as a promising solution to solve homelessness. Perhaps unsurprisingly at a time when mortgage rates are still hovering around the 7-percent mark and…

News | April 12, 2024

How Washington’s local governments have moved to allow for denser housing

Originally reported by Laurel Demkovich in the Washington State Standard. Washington lawmakers in recent years have passed laws to require local governments to allow for more housing density with duplexes, triplexes or attached dwelling units. But before lawmakers required these changes, they looked at ways to incentivize local governments to do this on their own….

News | September 29, 2022

How Will Downtowns across America Change in the Next Decade?

There is nothing quite like the hustle and bustle of a city. No matter where you are, you know when you’ve made it downtown. Since downtowns have changed so much in the past, what will they look like in the next decade? Well, in order to predict the future, we must go back to the…

Funding

HUD CDBG Community Development Grants

The CDBG program works to ensure decent affordable housing, to provide services to the most vulnerable in our communities, and to create jobs through the expansion and retention of businesses. CDBG is an important tool for helping local governments tackle serious challenges facing their communities. The CDBG program has made a difference in the lives…

News | July 5, 2022

Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat

Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer’s triple digit temperatures arrive. The stifling tent city has ballooned amid pandemic-era…

Funding

IBM Center for the Business of Government – Connecting Research to Practice

The aim of the IBM Center for The Business of Government is to tap into the best minds in academe and the nonprofit sector who can use rigorous public management research and analytic techniques to help public sector executives and managers improve the effectiveness of government. We are looking for very practical findings and actionable…

News | June 19, 2018

If you want to get to know Seattle, walk through it

Walking is ordinary. It is so ordinary, most of us do it without thinking: You put one foot in front of the other to get to the bus, to walk from your car to the office, to pick up something from the store. It requires only shoes — and, because we live in Seattle, some…

News | October 17, 2019

Immigrants often revive struggling cities through housing, population growth

President Trump has turned repeatedly throughout his tenure and his re-election campaign to two targets: immigrants whom he has described as “invading” the country, and American cities he has called out of control. But to the extent that each presents real policy challenges — how to integrate foreigners, what to do about struggling places —…

News | February 5, 2018

In orlando, america’s theme park capital, low income black residents can’t breathe the air

The struggle for environmental justice in low-income and Black communities continues. This is most certainly the case in Orlando, Florida. In the heart of one of the premier tourist destinations in the United States, the theme park capital of America, the residents of a historically Black community are having trouble breathing due to air pollution…

News | October 17, 2017

In Seattle, cost of meeting basic needs up $30,000 in a decade

A Seattle family of four must bring in $75,000 annually to pay for basic housing, food, transportation and health and child care – an increase of 62 percent since 2006, based on a new report from the University of Washington. The city’s escalating cost of living may not be a surprise. But across the state,…

News | September 9, 2021

In the early 1990s, heat waves battered Philadelphia’s most vulnerable communities. The lessons learned are helping today

The water trickled down quickly, enough to coat the sun-bleached concrete basin in a city park with a layer of wetness. A toddler danced, smiling as water from the park’s sprinklers rained down on her, keeping her cool. It was a blistering midsummer day in July, the kind that as recently as 30 years ago…

News | July 11, 2019

Informal housing, poverty, and legacies of apartheid in South Africa

“Ten percent of all South Africans — the majority white — owns more than 90 percent of national wealth… Some 80 percent of the population — overwhelmingly black — owns nothing at all.” — New York Times On April 27, 1994, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) won the first multiracial democratic election…

Research Beyond UW | University of California, Berkeley

Institute of Urban and Regional Development

Through collaborative, interdisciplinary research and practice, Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) supports students, faculty, and visiting scholars to critically investigate and help improve processes and outcomes that shape urban equity around the world. "The future of IURD will be to position itself as a global leader in research and policy that aims to…

Degree Program

Interdisciplinary Urban Design & Planning (PhD)

This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions. Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. The…

News | May 13, 2024

Is Seattle a walkable city? Pedestrian death rates show otherwise

Written by Jadenne Radoc Cabahug for Crosscut. Washington was the first state to commit to zero traffic fatalities. But 24 years later, deaths are at an all-time high and officials are reevaluating. Twenty-four years after Washington became the first state to commit to decreasing pedestrian traffic deaths to zero, the numbers continue to move in…

News | June 7, 2019

It’s going to get harder to evict people in WA. Will that reduce homelessness?

As the number of homeless residents soars in King County and across the state, housing and homelessness advocates have turned their attention to eviction reform as a piece of the solution. One prominent study, from the Seattle Women’s Commission, found that the vast majority of people evicted end up on the street, in shelters or…

News | August 9, 2022

It’s not just tuition and fees: College students are facing increasingly high rent prices, too

When she transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, JoLynn Kelly split a bunk bed in a tiny loft apartment – and the $2,800 a month it cost to rent. “I had to get a loan just for that,” said Kelly, now a senior who plans to become a math teacher. After racking up $16,800…

News | August 30, 2022

J-PAL North America Launches Two Partnership Opportunities to Research Social Programs

J-PAL North America, a research center in the MIT Department of Economics, has opened two Evaluation Incubators: the Housing Stability Evaluation Incubator and State and Local Evaluation Incubator. J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubators equip partners to use randomized evaluations — the most scientifically rigorous method used to study program impact — in order to generate…

Scholar

Jacob L. Vigdor

Scholar

James Young

Scholar

Janine Jones

News | July 26, 2016

Jeff Shulman and the Seattle Growth Podcast: An Office Hours Visit

Jeff Shulman moved to Seattle a decade ago to begin his career at the University of Washington. In that short time, he’s watched Seattle’s dramatic and ongoing growth transform the city. This former South Lake Union resident has put together a thirteen-episode, in-depth look at how Seattle’s changes have affected real people. With nearly 100…

Scholar

Jen Davison

Scholar

Jennifer Romich

Scholar

Jerry V. Finrow

Scholar

Jessi Quizar

Scholar

Jim Theofelis

Scholar

Joe Mienko

Scholar

Joe P. Mahoney

News | November 26, 2024

Join Urban@UW in creating innovative solutions for city dwellers, today and into the future.

Support Urban@UW Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders to develop cross-disciplinary…

Scholar

Josephine Ensign

Scholar

Katie Wilson

Scholar

Kimberly Ambrose

Map | Berlin

King County iMap

iMap is an application that allows you to view King County spatial information (GIS data and images) in an interactive map display. You can customize your map display to show just the information you want to see at the best scale for your chosen purpose. iMap is your window to a wealth of geographic information…

News | October 29, 2020

King County wants to buy motels for emergency, affordable housing

On a chilly Monday afternoon, case manager Richard Gibson walked through the courtyard at Martin Court in the southwest corner of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. The weather in the days before had taken a cold turn, and the colorful children’s playground he strode past sat vacant. Lining either side of the courtyard and parking lot were…

News | May 31, 2019

King County’s condo prices continue to fall as market gets new inventory

Though home prices in the region are not climbing as dramatically as they once were, that doesn’t mean that they’re falling. According to the latest Northwest Multiple Listing Service report, home prices for completed sales in April (the last month for which they have data) rose 2.4% across the 23-county system. Eight counties reported double-digit gains, as the hot market…

Scholar

Kyle Crowder

News | August 14, 2018

Kyle Crowder examines renter/landlord perspective on seattle rental ordinances

In a recent interview with KOMO Radio, CSDE Affiliate and Professor of Sociology Kyle Crowder explains the results of a recent study of Seattle’s rental housing market. In that research, Crowder finds that neither renters nor landlords strongly support the city’s rental ordinances, noting: “Renters were often skeptical that the ordinances would have much effectiveness because the general perception is that landlords…

News | January 23, 2020

Land banking in the heart of Tacoma

There is a city block in the heart of Tacoma some people believe is not being put to its best use, stifling economic growth and blunting vitality. Four buildings and three parking lots now occupy 11 parcels along Tacoma Avenue, not far from the City-County Building. Six of the parcels have been tied up since 2005,…

News | July 5, 2018

Lattes and a shot of hope: North Bend coffee house offers safe place for teens in need

Suicide is the 8th leading cause of death overall in our state. It’s a horrific reality that touches all ages – including teens, but there is a unique place where teens are finding help with not only suicide prevention, but any struggle. “I can never figure it out on my own,” said 16-year-old Aidan Sullivan….

Scholar

Laxminarsimha Daram Reddy

News | August 16, 2021

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy honors UW College of Built Environments faculty, Nehemiah Studio for curriculum on mitigating gentrification

The Nehemiah Studio, a UW class on mitigating gentrification in Seattle’s Central District designed by Rachel Berney, Donald King and Al Levine with support from College of Built Environments Dean Renée Cheng, has been honored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The course supports joint efforts by the college and the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle to train graduate students to help mitigate displacement in…

Scholar

Lisa Kelly

News | October 2, 2018

Livable City Year and Tacoma finalize partnership

Throughout the 2017-2018 academic year, 349 University of Washington students and 26 UW faculty members worked with staff and community members from the City of Tacoma on projects to advance livability and sustainability in the city. The year-long partnership between Tacoma and UW Livable City Year (LCY) provided the city with university resources to tackle…

News | December 13, 2016

Livable City Year releases RFP, invites cities to partner for 2017-8 academic year

The University of Washington’s Livable City Year initiative is now accepting proposals from cities, counties, special districts and regional partnerships to partner with during the 2017-2018 academic year. UW Livable City Year (UW LCY) connects University of Washington faculty and students with a municipal partner for a full academic year to work on projects fostering…

News | August 30, 2024

Living in tree-filled neighborhoods may reduce risk of heart disease, study shows

Written by Kaitlin Sullivan and Anne Thompson for NBC News Living in a tree-filled neighborhood may be as beneficial to the heart as regular exercise, new research shows. Researchers at the University of Louisville designed a clinical trial that followed hundreds of people living in six low- to middle-income neighborhoods in South Louisville, Kentucky. They…

News | October 1, 2024

Loneliness in Washington tops national average

Reported by Christine Clarridge and Alex Fitzpatrick for Axios.  More than 43% of Washingtonians reported feeling lonely at least sometimes, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Why it matters: Loneliness isn’t just a feeling; it’s associated with serious mental and physical health impacts, including elevated likelihood of developing diabetes, cardiac risk,…

Scholar

Lynne Manzo

Scholar

Mabel Ezeonwu

Funding

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and…

News | March 1, 2018

Many homeless people take better care of their pets than themselves; this clinic helps them

Homeless people with pets are usually criticized and sometimes turned away from shelters. But that’s starting to change. His name is Bud the Amazing Wonder Dog, but the huge German shepherd-rottweiler mix was not feeling amazing or wonderful during his clinic visit, as he whimpered and tried to steady himself on an examination table too…

News | January 28, 2020

Mapping Eviction in Western Washington

Evictions due to lack of affordable housing and rising rent costs contribute to the homelessness crisis. A new interactive map by graduate student Alex Ramiller with the UW Department of Geography builds on the study released in 2018 that measured and analyzed the issue of evictions in western Washington using court records, census data and housing market trends. Between…

Map | Seattle

Mapping Seattle’s Noise Complaints

Trulia used CartoDB and its spatial-temporal visualization tool to map police data on noise complaints from Seattle going back to 2010. Not surprisingly the U-District, Downtown and Capital Hill are the noise complaint winners…or losers depending on how you look at it.

News | January 9, 2020

Mapping the segregation of Minneapolis

Before it was torn apart by freeway construction in the middle of the 20th century, the Near North neighborhood in Minneapolis was home to the city’s largest concentration of African American families. That wasn’t by accident: As far back as the early 1900s, racially restrictive covenants on property deeds prevented African Americans and other minorities…

Scholar

Maria Busch

Scholar

Marieka M. Klawitter

Scholar

Mark Ellis

Scholar

Mary Larimer

Research Beyond UW | New York University

McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research

The McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University Silver School of Social Work is committed to creating new knowledge about the root causes of poverty, developing evidence-based interventions to address its consequences, and rapidly translating research findings into action through policy and practice.

Scholar

Meg Drouhard

Scholar

Michelle Garner

Center & Lab

Mixed Metro

Our intent is to create a classification system that will allow readers to easily comprehend (i.e., “see”) a broad range of neighborhoods on the basis of racial composition with an explicit eye towards the notion of diversity. The classification system emerged from detailed explorations of the impact of many configurations of census tract racial composition…

Research Beyond UW | University of Portland

Moreau Center

Inspired by the vision of Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C., founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, rooted in Catholic social teaching, and guided by the mission of the University, Moreau Center programs center on direct service. Service is one of the key components in a Catholic education. Direct service involves directly connecting with people and…

Map

Mukuru on the Move

This map identifies the various community health assets that the residents of the Mukuru informal settlement in Nairobi identified in a series of workshops from 2008-2010

Scholar

Nancy Beadie

Scholar

Nancy Simcox

Scholar

Nancy Sugg

Research Beyond UW | University of Albany

National Center for Excellence in Homeless Services

Launched in 2013, the National Center for Excellence in Homeless Services, located at the UAlbany School of Social Welfare, partners with social work programs, providers, and policymakers to strengthen services that transform the lives of all homeless children and adults. We emphasize: increasing homelessness content within our social work curriculum, expanding field placements in homeless…

News | August 20, 2024

Need anti-withdrawal meds? In King County, call this 24/7 hotline

Reported by Eilis O’Neil for KUOW and NPR News People addicted to opioids in King County can call a new hotline and get a prescription right away for a drug that can help. Buprenorphine reduces symptoms of withdrawal and can help people stay off fentanyl and other opioids. Buprenorphine “does cut overdose risk by 50%,…

News | March 15, 2024

Neighborhood Poverty May Impact Women’s Ovarian Reserves

Reported by Lori Solomon at Health Day News FRIDAY, March 15, 2024 — Living in a neighborhood with greater poverty in adulthood is tied to lower ovarian reserve, according to a study published online March 5 in Menopause. Anwesha Pan, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues aimed to examine the association between…

News | March 10, 2020

New Bill that May Pave the Way for Seattle Seismic Upgrades

Public officials for decades have promised to deal with the old brick buildings in Seattle that could crumble with deadly consequences when a major earthquake hits — and have produced nothing but paper plans. Now some advocates hope a new attempt could at last lead to action. A state bill that could help building owners finance…

News | June 5, 2019

New documentary examines the impact of gentrification in Seattle

If you’ve been in our area for any length of time, you can probably recognize the changes occurring not only in downtown Seattle but across Western Washington. Many feel that gentrification of neighborhoods is stifling cultural communities and their history. On the Brink, a new documentary produced by University of Washington’s Foster School of Business…

News | May 18, 2023

New Fee, Loans Aim to Right ‘Historic Wrong’ of Racist Covenants in Washington State

Members of communities once prohibited from buying homes under racist homeowner agreements, will soon get state homebuying assistance. The law signed last week by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee establishes a new $100 processing fee for homebuyers. The funds raised will help some first-time homebuyers cover down payments and closing costs. Tens of thousands of racially…

News | October 15, 2019

New Phase, Next Steps: Doorway 2.0 Fall Updates

The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, has been busy! Check out their activities and plans for the future in their latest blog post:   Welcome to the Doorway Project blog! As a part of the new phase of the project, which we are calling Doorway Project 2.0, we…

News | May 2, 2024

New York cities plagued by blackouts due to climate change, study finds

Written by Saul Elbein for The Hill. Climate change is pushing some New York City neighborhoods into dozens of nearly daylong blackouts per year, a new study has found. Large swaths of the state’s principal towns and cities faced repeated, protracted and dangerous weather-driven power outages between 2017 and 2020, according to findings published Wednesday in…

News | September 6, 2023

New York Is Full. And It’s the Housing Market’s Fault

Since last spring, roughly 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City. This is a city of immigrants, welcoming to immigrants, built by immigrants. People who were born abroad make up a third of New York’s population and own more than half of its businesses. Yet the city has struggled to accommodate this wave…

News | February 12, 2016

New! Urban Map Gallery

We’ve created a new urban map gallery to explore how other people and organizations are studying and visualizing data. The gallery features seven cities facing different social, economic, and geographic issues. This curation is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather provide insight and inspiration. Maps included track everything from sound to subway…

Scholar

Nicole Errett

News | March 29, 2024

Office-to-residential conversion is a trendy idea for downtown resurgence — but has big challenges

Originally published in Geekwire Written by Chuck Wolfe, longtime affiliate associate professor in College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. Office-to-residential conversions are frequent fodder in discussions of the post-pandemic city, downtown regeneration, and hopes to contain rising housing costs. Remote work is here to stay, especially in hybrid form in the tech-centric…

News | October 8, 2019

One in nine Seattle residents lives below the poverty line

Washington was one of only 14 states in the country where poverty rates fell from 2017 to 2018. According to new Census data released this month, the poverty rate in Seattle is 11 percent, down from 12.5 percent in 2017, but is considered statistically unchanged. Still, about one in nine residents live in poverty. “The…

Map

Opportunity Mapping

These maps provided by the Puget Sound Regional Council are a study of the region’s geography of opportunity, based on 2010 census data. “Opportunity” is a situation or condition that places individuals in a position to be more likely to succeed or excel. Opportunity maps illustrate where opportunity rich communities exist, assess who has access…

News | November 21, 2022

Over 40,000 households have racist restrictions, UW researchers estimate

State funding approved last year provided $250,000 for researchers at Eastern Washington University and the University of Washington to look for racist or restrictive covenants. The language has not been enforceable since the 1960s, but lead researcher UW Professor James Gregory said doing the work is worthwhile. ”We owe it to our fellow citizens not…

News | October 16, 2015

Panel on Innovation Districts Seeks To Explore How To Foster New Ideas Through Urban Planning

What have we in Seattle learned about Innovation Districts, as we start to create them in places like Pioneer Square and the U District? Knowing that we are growing, what kind of Innovation District do we want? And frankly, what do Innovation Districts have to do with making Seattle a great place to live and…

Degree Program

PCE Certificate in Commercial Real Estate

Commercial real estate is the raw material of a region’s economy. The Seattle market is experiencing huge growth, which means both increased opportunity and heightened competition. Staying current and getting an insider’s perspective on the industry can give you the edge you need to succeed. In this three-course program, we’ll explore commercial real estate as…

Scholar

Pedro Arduino

Scholar

Peter Rabinowitz

News | October 17, 2019

Pop-up galleries and data: Visualizing the lives of homeless people and their animals

Sparked by a grant from the UW Population Health Initiative, the UW’s Center for One Health Research created a series of pop-up galleries featuring autobiographical photographs made by people experiencing homelessness with their animal companions. The first gallery was Oct. 4 in UW’s Red Square. Other pop-up gallery events took place in Occidental Square in Seattle’s Pioneer Square district; in Cal…

Center & Lab

Population Health Initiative

The University of Washington aspires to be the world’s leading university in population health. On May 3, 2016, President Ana Mari Cauce launched a groundbreaking Population Health Initiative by inviting the University community and partners to join in developing a 25-year vision to advance the health of people around the world by leveraging capabilities and…

News | August 24, 2020

Population Health Initiative announces award of 14 COVID-19 population health equity research grants

The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $265,000 in COVID-19 population health equity research grants to 14 different teams of UW faculty researchers and community leaders. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college, departmental, and external funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $378,000. These population health equity…

News | May 5, 2020

Population Health Initiative announces award of 21 COVID-19 rapid response grants

The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $350,000 in COVID-19 rapid response grants to 21 different faculty-led teams. These teams are composed of individuals representing 10 different schools and colleges. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college and departmental funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $820,000. “A…

News | February 19, 2021

Preliminary Report: Homeshare Study Policy Recommendations

Housing instability is a national crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Washington state has some of the highest levels of homelessness in the nation. In both rural and urban parts of the state, too few people can afford to rent or own a home on the wages they earn. The 2019-2021 Washington state biennial…

News | September 9, 2019

Project aims to boost care for opioid use among homeless

On August 21, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the University of Washington’s Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute (ADAI) announced the Meds-First Initiative that expands an innovative approach to treating opioid-use disorder for high-acuity populations to four locations in Washington. The treatment sites are located across the state in North Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Walla Walla. “Medication…

Research Beyond UW | Columbia University

Project for the Homeless (PFH)

Project for the Homeless (PFH) is a student organization that has staffed two small homeless shelters in Manhattan, the men’s shelter at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and the women’s shelter at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, for over 30 years. New York State law requires that a non-homeless volunteer stay overnight at the…

News | September 17, 2020

Project Highlight: Seattle Street Sink

For many living unsheltered, access to a place to wash up is hard to come by. During the pandemic, it is more important than ever to have accessible hygiene stations. The Real Change Advocacy Department partnered with University of Washington College of Built Environments faculty to design and install environmentally friendly “street sinks”. On May…

Research Beyond UW | Seattle University

Project on Family Homelessness

The goals of the Project on Family Homelessness are to increase public awareness and understanding of family homelessness and its causes and solutions, and to engage the public to end family homelessness.

News | June 22, 2020

Protestors want Seattle de-gentrified – This is how it could happen

For more than a week, protesters against police brutality and racial injustice have occupied a six-block stretch of a Seattle neighborhood and turned it into a festive hub for their demonstrations. They named it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, since renamed the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), after police withdrew from a police…

News | September 21, 2022

Q&A: Exploring How the Design of the Built Environment Affects Our Health and Well-Being

How does the design of the built environment – such as houses, schools, workplaces, streets, parks, transportation systems, and urban form – affect our health and well-being? To explore these issues, editors Nisha D. Botchwey, Andrew Dannenberg, and Howard Frumkin, recently published the second edition of “Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Well-being, Equity,…

Scholar

Rachel Fyall

Scholar

Rachel Vaughn

Degree Program

Real Estate (BS, MS, Minor, Cert, PCE)

Our mission is: To be one the world’s leading academic centers in real estate, through the promotion of excellence in research and educational programs in an intellectually stimulating, creative and innovative environment and that engages with and empowers real estate leaders and the community to transform our built environment To achieve this we aim to:…

Scholar

Rebecca J. Walter

Scholar

Rebecca U. Thorpe

News | October 19, 2022

Recently completed Spark Grants foster research on mobile home wastewater management, and estimating unhoused populations

Over the past year, two teams of researchers from the University of Washington tackled a host of urban challenges in our region with the support of Urban@UW’s Spark Grants. In September 2021 grants of up to $20,000 were awarded to amplify collaborative research-to-practice with a focus on today’s urban issues. The two UW teams of…

News | August 31, 2021

Red-lining, race, and wealth continue to form borders between Seattle voters

There’s a lot we can glean from Seattle’s voting habits in each election, from how the city has skewed more and more progressive in the leaders it’s elected in recent years, to how conservative interests still remain present despite that fact. During the August mayoral primary, though, the candidates voters chose painted an even broader…

News | December 20, 2016

Reflections on Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change

On November 7th and 8th Urban@UW, in collaboration with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group (CIG), hosted a symposium to begin transdisciplinary conversation on the multifaceted dynamics and consequences of Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change (UEJ). Below are some reflections from this event, and a sample of the resources we’ll…

News | September 16, 2024

Register Today for Urban@UW’s presentation at Climate Week NYC

Urban@UW is heading to the big apple for Climate Week NYC, the largest international conference of business leaders, political change makers, scientists, and civil society representatives working for climate action. Rachel Berney, Faculty Director, and Kate Landis, Program Manager, will present “Call Me, Maybe? University-Community Partnerships for a Greener Tomorrow” on Monday, 9/23, from 5-7PM….

News | December 23, 2020

Reimagining how we house the homeless beyond the shelter model

Originally written by Daniel Malone for The Seattle Times.   Forty-one years ago, the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) opened a large disaster-style homeless shelter in the former ballrooms of the Morrison Hotel in downtown Seattle. Every single night since, the Morrison shelter provided refuge to approximately 250 of Seattle’s most vulnerable people. That is…

News | June 17, 2024

Rekindling Our Relationship with Wildfire

Written for the Climate One podcast, hosted by Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious. Summer is just around the corner, and in addition to travel and vacation, that also means peak wildfire season. Recently we’ve seen some of the most destructive wildfires in recorded history. The images on the news of orange skies and opaque haze…

Map | Berlin

Rents in Berlin

This interactive map helps users identify which neighborhoods they can afford. A slider allows you to select a monthly net income for your household and by selecting the number of rooms required (bedrooms +1), the map will display rental data for each of the areas marked on the map. The map is color-coded to show…

Research Beyond UW | New York University

Research, Education, and Advocacy to Combat Homelessness (REACH)

Research, Education & Advocacy to Combat Homelessness (REACH) is the law school’s primary student organization dedicated to directly serving the local homeless community and raising the profile of poverty law issues within the law school. REACH operates 2 weekly clinics in soup kitchens near NYU, where law students provide advice and referral on a wide…

Scholar

Rick Mohler

News | August 20, 2020

Rick Mohler receives Architect magazine 2020 R+D award for housing access prototype ‘ADUniverse’

Rick Mohler, UW associate professor of architecture, has won a 2020 R+D Award from Architect magazine for a project designed with Seattle city planner Nick Welch to give local homeowners the information they need to plan and build accessory dwelling units on their property. The two led a team at the UW Data Science for Social Good Program in creating a prototype…

Funding

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneering Ideas and a Culture of Health

The goal of the Pioneering Ideas Brief Proposal funding opportunity is to explore; to look into the future and put health first as we design for changes in how we live, learn, work and play; to wade into uncharted territory in order to better understand what new trends, opportunities and breakthrough ideas can enable everyone…

Scholar

Ron Krabill

Scholar

Ronald J. Kasprisin

Center & Lab

Runstad Affiliate Fellows Program

The Affiliate Fellows Program brings together thought leaders from industry, faculty from the College of Built Environments, and students on the Master of Science in Real Estate for an 8-month program to examine real estate issues in the built environment. The goals of the Fellows program are to foster interaction between students and the academic…

News | February 6, 2019

Salad, soda and socioeconomic status: Mapping a social determinant of health in Seattle

Seattle residents who live in waterfront neighborhoods tend to have healthier diets compared to those who live along Interstate-5 and Aurora Avenue, according to new research on social disparities from the University of Washington School of Public Health. The study used local data to model food consumption patterns by city block. Weekly servings of salad and soda…

News | October 9, 2018

Save the Date for the next Doorway Project Pop-Up

Doorway Project Pop-Up cafe is coming to the HUB South Ballroom at the UW Seattle Campus, 12-4pm, Thursday, October 18th. Learn more about addressing youth homelessness. Stop by and get connected to resources for housing, education, food, and more. Everyone is invited to this event! Food, drinks, and art are provided through the pay-it-forward cafe…

News | August 26, 2022

Seattle Approaches to Homelessness Highlighted in NYT Guest Essay

Urban@UW occasionally shares opinion pieces that touch on research related to urban topics. Here, we share a guest essay in the New York Times, titled, “Something Better Than a Tent for the Homeless”: The needs of homeowners and businesses and those of people who are unsheltered often conflict. Community leaders, faced with increasing crime and…

News | November 5, 2019

Seattle area has undergone record growth. Now voters may reshape its politics.

The Seattle region has more of almost everything than it did just six years ago, when voters chose to elect City Council members by districts. The area has added 135,000 homes, but has seen its population swell by 400,000. Homelessness has spiked by a third. Amazon’s workforce here has exploded from 13,000 to nearly 55,000….

News | July 29, 2021

Seattle Black faith leaders urge Mayor Durkan not to sign amended density bonus bill

Update: Council Bill 120081 was signed into law on by Mayor Durkan on July 9, 2021. Critics are still hoping that the amended law can be repealed. Critics are demanding a return to the 80% AMI threshold for affordable housing developed on land owned by religious institutions. It was a long-awaited day, one that was supposed to mark…

Center & Lab

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project represents a unique collaboration involving community groups, UW faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and their efforts to map, archive and disseminate historic information on racial segregation and civil rights activism within Seattle.

Funding

Seattle Foundation

Few regions in the world can match Seattle’s current growth and prosperity. But accompanying our good fortune are great challenges, including the widening disparities between rich and poor. Such inequities weaken the vibrancy of our community. Philanthropy can—and must—step in. Using our philanthropic expertise, deep roots in the community and network of partners, Seattle Foundation…

News | July 16, 2020

Seattle groups present proposal to defund police department, invest in community

On July 8, Seattle and King County groups proposed several ways to allocate money from defunding the Seattle Police Department, all of which involve reinvesting in community-based programs. The plan comes as thousands of people have been protesting for weeks, marching in the streets in Seattle and across the country fighting against police brutality and systemic…

News | September 4, 2018

Seattle Growth Podcast 5.3: Homeless in Seattle

The fifth season of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues the wide-ranging conversation about the city’s growing homelessness crisis. “Each episode of this season brings voices from a variety of perspectives,” says podcast host Jeff Shulman Associate Professor of Marketing in the Foster school of Business. “Together, the episodes will help listeners understand homelessness from multiple angles, become better informed…

News | August 28, 2018

Seattle Growth Podcast 5.4: Homelessness and City Hall

The fifth season of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues the wide-ranging conversation about the city’s growing homelessness crisis. Episode 4 takes you behind the scenes at Seattle City Hall as the City Council weighed a controversial “head tax” on companies to raise more money to address the crisis. City Council member Teresa Mosqueda shares her opinion on the failed campaign and…

News | January 9, 2024

Seattle now has highest minimum wage of any major city in the United States

As of Jan. 1, Seattle hiked its minimum wage to $19.97 an hour for workers at larger companies like Starbucks. That’s the highest minimum wage of any major city in the U.S. Former labor leader David Rolf, who drove the original push for a higher minimum wage law in Seattle and SeaTac around a decade…

News | July 10, 2024

Seattle Nurses Take Heart Care to the Streets

Written by Christine Clarridge for Axios. Two Harborview nurses are leaving the hospital to make “house calls” at tents, bus stops and cars to bring life-saving heart care to people where they are. Why it matters: The Community Heart Failure Program not only stabilizes patients’ cardiac health but also reduces hospital admissions, lengths of stay…

News | June 30, 2020

Seattle OKs transfer of old UW laundry near Mount Baker light rail station to build affordable housing

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously on June 22 to acquire a former UW Medical Center laundry next to the Mount Baker light rail station to develop affordable housing. The transfer comes at no cost to the city, and the project will count toward the 450 units of affordable housing the university agreed to build when the council…

News | May 7, 2024

Seattle-area housing market picks up, but buyers feel the squeeze

Written by Heidi Grover for The Seattle Times The Seattle area’s spring housing market continued to heat up in April, with more activity and higher home prices across the region, particularly in King County. The number of new listings and home sales climbed throughout the Puget Sound region in April, a typical seasonal uptick. But…

News | May 10, 2019

Seattle-area universities and colleges declare Affordable Housing Week, May 13-17

They join 25 cities and King County in recognizing the importance of safe, healthy, affordable housing. The presidents of four Seattle-area universities and colleges have joined forces to declare May 13-17, 2019 as Affordable Housing Week on their campuses. Dr. John Mosby, president of Highline College; Dr. Daniel J. Martin, president of Seattle Pacific University;…

Map | Seattle

Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development GIS

​This interactive GIS map published by Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development makes essential GIS layers easily accessible. A few of the base layers include: building outlines, contours, parcels, pavement edges, and tree canopy cover. Zoning and environmentally critical areas are also highlighted, including layers for areas that are: flood prone, susceptible liquefaction, wetlands, steep…

News | July 23, 2020

Seattle’s tarnished dream

In his 2017 State of the City address, then-mayor Ed Murray declared that “Seattle will shine a light and offer a different vision.” He promised a city where all four-year-olds attended preschool, where all high school graduates had access to free community college, and where strict labor standards guaranteed the lowliest worker a reasonable standard…

News | November 29, 2022

Seattle’s cooling real estate market widens budget shortfall

City officials had to rework the budget this month after new forecasts showed Seattle will likely bring in tens of millions of dollars less than previously expected over the next two years, including a significant drop in real estate-related tax revenue. As inflation persists, interest rates remain high and many people find themselves locked out…

News | January 17, 2023

Seattle’s cost of living is more complicated than you think

How much money does a family of four need to live in Seattle without financial assistance? The cheeky answer: about $2,000 more than they have at the moment. The real answer: crucially dependent, especially for those who make the least, on who you ask. Statistical sticklers might point to the Department of Health and Human…

News | June 11, 2019

Seattle’s forgotten street community: UW anthropologist talks about the unique circumstances of vehicle residency

From tiny houses to encampment sweeps, from proposed business taxes to small armies of volunteers, Seattle’s homeless crisis has sparked a series of possible solutions, along with controversy. But often missing from conversations about “homelessness,” says the University of Washington’s Graham Pruss, is attention to people who live in their vehicles. More than 11,000 people are…

News | July 12, 2022

Seattle’s Homelessness Chief Worries Inflation Will Erode Progress

The head of Seattle’s new agency responding to homelessness — in a city with one of the largest unhoused populations in the US — is concerned more people are about to land on the street because of inflation and rising prices for necessities like gas. With the pandemic making the challenges of homelessness more acute and more visible, Margaret…

News | October 24, 2019

Seattle’s minimum wage is going up again in 2020. But is it enough to afford to live in the city?

The city’s Office of Labor Standards announced this week the new minimum wages which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2020, as required by the Minimum Wage Ordinance. For large employers with 501 employees or more, the minimum wage is going up 39 cents to $16.39. For small employers with 500 employees or fewer, minimum wage is…

News | April 26, 2024

Seattle’s troubled past and present suggest a new approach to mental health

Written by Will James, Sydney Brownstone, and Esme Jimenez as part of the series “Lost Patients” for KUOW, an NPR Station. Edward Moore, a 32-year-old sailor, was discovered, near freezing and living in a tattered tent on the shore near current day Seattle in 1854. At the time, Washington was still a territory and Seattle…

News | August 14, 2019

See how a Seattle artist is telling the painful story of redlining in his city

Warren Pope is hellbent on walloping the corneas of any Seattleite who believes this city is absolved from a racist past. With “Warren Pope: Blood Lines, Time Lines, Red Lines,” an exhibition running through Sept. 8 at the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM), the 72-year-old West Seattle artist says he yearns to expose how the…

Scholar

Seema Clifasefi

Map | Seattle

Shaping Seattle: Buildings

This interactive map from the Seattle Department of Planning and Development shows building projects throughout Seattle. Images, design proposals and projected timelines are provided for most of the sites.

News | December 15, 2017

Skid Road: The intersection of health and homelessness

After years of caring for the homeless in the streets and dilapidated motels of Richmond, Virginia, nurse Josephine Ensign became homeless herself. Many of her patients were prostitutes—some as young as 15—and her conscience no longer allowed her to adhere to her clinic’s policies. Though she was Christian, she was fired for referring many of…

News | July 19, 2018

Sound Transit rail stations could help solve our housing crisis

All of Sound Transit’s LINK light-rail stations offer opportunities to create vibrant, walkable mixed-use communities with significant amounts of new housing and reduced dependence on automobiles. We need a bold, regional approach to housing affordability, says Rick Mohler, Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, and  Al Levine, Associate Faculty at the Department of Urban Design…

News | January 8, 2021

Spanaway tops list of toughest places in the U.S. to buy a home

When Eric Seiler started looking to buy a house near Spanaway at the height of this year’s coronavirus lockdowns, he thought he might find a buyers’ market. Instead, Seiler and his fiancée started on a home search that involved making at least 15 offers on homes, only to be beat out by other buyers. “There…

News | July 16, 2024

SPARK Grant Recipients Win Big with a Social Justice Jacket

Reported by Kate Landis for Urban@UW What if a denim jacket could tell the stories of people impacted by housing inequality across the country? Resistive Threads, a project that was awarded a Urban@UW SPARK grant in 2023, was recently awarded a Honorable Mention at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference,…

News | October 25, 2022

Sparking Climate Connections – UW Lightning Talks on Climate Change

Addressing our climate crisis can’t be done alone; this all-hands-on-deck moment requires as many voices, disciplines and perspectives as possible to forge connections that will inspire collective action. Urban@UW and the EarthLab Advisory Board of Deans invite you to participate in an exciting two-part event bringing together the rich variety of climate change related research…

Scholar

Stephanie Farquhar

Scholar

Stephen Page

Scholar

Steve Tanimoto

Scholar

Steven Bourassa

News | February 16, 2024

Student Housing Has a New Mantra: Bigger Is Better

Written by Kevin Williams for The New York Times Off-campus complexes are getting larger, with some being home to more than 1,500 students, and being built on prime parcels of land as close to campus as possible. When the Standard, an off-campus student housing complex, opened in the fall in Bloomington, Ind., welcoming its first…

News | August 20, 2018

Student volunteers help expand UW’s outreach to homeless youth

It started with a Sunday afternoon café outside a community center last December — the University of Washington’s new initiative to reach homeless youth around the U District. In the eight months since, the UW’s effort, known as The Doorway Project, has offered a café in the neighborhood each quarter, while students have helped add services — from…

News | April 17, 2018

Students research historic South, East Tacoma for Livable City project

The City of Tacoma’s Historic Preservation Office is partnering with the University of Washington on a Livable City Year project to identify historic resources in South and East Tacoma. For this project, graduate and undergraduate students are researching the histories of two neighborhoods: McKinley Hill in East Tacoma, and the Edison Neighborhood along South Tacoma…

News | September 12, 2018

Summer Design/Build Studio 2018

Food and the ability to prepare it are fundamental components of life. Places of food preparation–whether a home kitchen or a fire pit–serve not only their most explicit functions but also act as cultural gathering spaces for families and communities. Food preparation poses particularly unique challenges in Seattle’s homeless communities for individuals, families and larger…

Scholar

Susan E. Collins

Scholar

Suzanne Davies Withers

News | August 14, 2019

Tech companies step up to fund affordable housing, but experts say it’s not enough to curb shortages

Microsoft pledged $500 million for affordable housing in January. Five months later, Google said it would invest $1 billion to help the Bay Area housing crisis. Amazon and Salesforce also announced contributions of their own this year. Major tech companies are stepping up to help mitigate affordable housing shortages, caused in part by the influx of high-income labor they have imported to the…

News | December 21, 2020

Tent City 3 moves to UW campus during coronavirus pandemic

On December 19, up to 70 residents of Tent City 3 moved their belongings from its current location at Trinity United Methodist Church in Seattle’s Crown Hill neighborhood to a parking lot on the UW campus. In 2017, one of Seattle’s oldest self-governed homeless camps moved to a parking lot in the southwest corner of…

News | April 10, 2021

Tents in Seattle increased by more than 50% after COVID pandemic began, survey says

Oleg Shpungin usually avoids sleeping in tents. They’re creepy, he says, when he can hear someone approaching but can’t see if they’re about to rob him — and he’s been robbed enough. “A tent is a very dangerous life,” Shpungin said. But on Monday night, he was cold and weak, and his friend had an open tent…

News | August 31, 2020

Terms in Seattle-area rental ads reinforce neighborhood segregation, study says

A new University of Washington study of thousands of local rental ads finds a pattern of “racialized language” that can perpetuate neighborhood segregation, using specific terms to describe apartments in different areas of town. Terms like “convenient” and “safe and secure” are more common in neighborhoods with a greater proportion of people of color, while…

News | October 21, 2020

That sink in the alley is supposed to be there

A sink is nestled in the University District alley between 15th Avenue Northeast and The Ave. It’s bolted to a trough of plants. It appeared in May. Another sink just like it is up The Ave on 47th Avenue Northeast. One was also placed at the University Heights community center along 50th Avenue Northeast. The…

Research Beyond UW | University College of London

The Bartlett Development Planning Unit

The Development Planning Unit conducts world-leading research and postgraduate teaching that helps to build the capacity of national governments, local authorities, NGOs, aid agencies and businesses working towards socially just and sustainable development in the global south. We are part of The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment.

News | March 9, 2023

The Battle Is On to Increase Housing Supply

This may be the year of aggressive efforts to increase the housing supply in Washington and Seattle. A total of 13 bills are moving through the Legislature with bipartisan support. They would speed permitting, make it easier to build “mother-in-law” units adjacent to existing houses, and allow lots of more than 1,500 square feet to…

Research Beyond UW | Case Western Reserve University

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development (the Poverty Center) works to inform public policy and program planning through data and analysis to address urban poverty, its causes, and its impact on communities and their residents. Since our founding in 1988, our mission has broadened to understand and address poverty by delving into its…

News | December 16, 2019

The Central District has lost over a dozen of its Black churches. The rest may still be saved

There’s little doubt that The Nehemiah Initiative faces an immense challenge combating the displacement of African Americans from central Seattle. When you drive through the Central District today, you see gentrification in its stark reality. New market-rate buildings line the intersections of 23rd Avenue and East Union Street, as well as 23rd and South Jackson…

News | February 27, 2020

The Debate Over Single Family Housing

Nearly a century into the story of single-family zoning, feelings and ideas around it are starting to shift. The City of Minneapolis and the State of Oregon both recently passed laws that loosen single-family regulations. California has proposed similar measures: some have failed (such as one encouraging denser development near transit), others have succeeded (such…

News | May 22, 2021

The Doorway Project & U-District Community Partners Community Resource Fair

The Doorway Project is a University of Washington and YouthCare-led initiative focusing on addressing youth homelessness in the University District through continuous community-engaged collaboration with U-District service providers and community members. They are currently in Phase 1 of a four-year plan, developed through the lens of the project’s legislative intent. The primary aim of the…

News | October 27, 2020

The Doorway Project October Update

Urban@UW is a proud partner in The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under the Homelessness Research Initiative. Below we share their quarterly update: Last month, The Doorway Project, in collaboration with University District Youth Center, hosted a community dialogue (Real Talk Thursday) on the topic of ‘voter apathy.’ That conversation feels even more relevant…

News | April 23, 2019

The Doorway Project: Spring Pop-Up Cafe

Come join The Doorway Project for lunch, coffee and community at their final Pop-Up Cafe and Town Hall event at the UW School of Social Work. They will be hosting a no-cost vet clinic for folks experiencing homelessness or housing instability and their pets, sponsored by the UW Center for One Health Research. Come add…

News | February 6, 2018

The Doorway project’s second pop-up cafe

Save The Date: The Doorway Project’s second pop-up cafe will be open on Sunday February 25, from 2:00pm-4:00pm at the University Heights Center, 5031 University Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105. Everyone is welcome to attend this free, family-friendly event to listen to live music, enjoy warm beverages and food. No one will be turned away…

News | February 22, 2021

The downsides of being a tech hub: Housing disruption and inequality

With the technology sector’s astronomical growth over the past two decades, there has been no shortage of cities vying to be the next Silicon Valley. But while there are many benefits to being a tech hub – from increased wealth to inflows of talent – there are downsides, too, including polarised inequality and increased pressure on…

News | March 3, 2020

The Effects of Seattle Housing Crisis

Aaron, who lives with his wife Silje and their two children in a parking lot outside of Seattle, begins his day in darkness, making a two-hour commute by scooter and bus to his job at the post office.  “You do what you need to get through a given day. You get rest when you can,”…

News | July 26, 2021

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income tenants’ housing security in Washington state

Originally written by Matthew Fowle, Ph.D Candidate and Rachel Fyall, Associate Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic recession have had a substantial negative impact on low-income tenants’ housing security. A record number of households have been unable to pay their rent on-time. To stem the threat of…

News | January 30, 2020

The Middle-Class Housing Crisis in Seattle

Kara Peters works at Seattle’s Central Library. She’s a third-generation Washingtonian who grew up in West Seattle. “Grandma, she did Mary Kay. She had four daughters who all went to West Seattle High School,” Peters said. But unlike her parents and grandparents, Peters can’t afford a house in Seattle, even though she makes a decent income. In…

News | December 20, 2022

The Obvious Answer to Homelessness

In their book, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, the University of Washington professor Gregg Colburn and the data scientist Clayton Page Aldern demonstrate that “the homelessness crisis in coastal cities cannot be explained by disproportionate levels of drug use, mental illness, or poverty.” Rather, the most relevant factors in the homelessness crisis are rent prices…

News | August 30, 2024

The pros and cons of spraying pesticides to keep disease-carrying mosquito populations down

Written by Julia Jacobo for ABC News Researchers are trying to find ways to quell growing mosquito populations that spread disease without putting recovering populations of important pollinators like bees and butterflies at risk. Pesticides are an important management tool for mosquito control as well as for other pests that impact agriculture, Laura Melissa Guzman, assistant…

News | July 15, 2024

The Quinault Nation and the Rising Pacific

Written by Hallie Golden for the Associated Press TAHOLAH, Wash. (AP) — Standing water lies beneath the home Sonny Curley shares with his parents and three children on the Quinault reservation a few steps from the Pacific Ocean in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The back deck is rotting, and black mold speckles the walls inside, leaving…

News | August 5, 2022

The rise of high-tech real estate investing platforms and their effect on housing affordability

Real estate tech startups are making it easier for people to invest and manage property. But critics argue that these software companies and their business models are gobbling up the limited amount of available housing in the process, driving up costs and pushing out first-time buyers. The demand from investors interested in purchasing real estate…

Research Beyond UW | Univeristy of California - Berkeley

The Suitcase Clinic

The Suitcase Clinic is a humanitarian student organization and volunteer community offering free health and social services to underserved populations since 1989. Structured around the principles of public health, social welfare, community activism and empathy, the Suitcase Clinic currently operates three weekly multi-service drop-in centers in the city Berkeley: the General Clinic, the Women’s Clinic…

News | February 10, 2023

There are 4,000 racist housing covenants in Pierce County. You can find them on a map

Professor of history James Gregory knows the subject well. For roughly two decades, he’s been unearthing the ugly, racist underpinnings of racial disparities in wealth and homeownership seen to this day across Puget Sound. For Gregory, it started in 2005, when he first began to dig into discriminatory housing covenants in Seattle and later King…

News | October 29, 2024

This Atlanta neighborhood hired a case manager to address rising homelessness − and it’s improving health and safety for everyone

Reported by Ishita Chordia, Ph.D. Candidate in Information Science, University of Washington Homelessness has surged across the United States in recent years, rising 19% from 2016 though 2023. The main cause is a severe shortage of affordable housing. Rising homelessness has renewed debates about use of public space and how encampments affect public safety. The…

News | January 9, 2020

This is what Seattle’s new neighborhood could look like

Architecture and planning students love to wrestle with big ideas. And while their end-of-the-quarter presentations sometimes include out-of-the-box ideas, they usually don’t have the attention of public officials. But this time was different. Students with the University of Washington Built Environments Studio, taught by Rick Mohler (Architecture) and David Blum (Urban Design and Planning) in…

News | October 12, 2020

This South King County church created a drive-thru food bank in response to the pandemic

The Tukwila Food Pantry has been a lifeline for many South King County residents who have lost their jobs during the pandemic. Like many local food banks, it saw a surge in demand. It went from serving 50 households a day, pre-Covid, to 500. The pantry is at Riverton Park Methodist Church. It started out…

Scholar

Thomas Diehm

Scholar

Thomas R Andrews

Scholar

Tim Overland

Scholar

Tim Thomas

News | June 5, 2017

To reach Auburn’s island of homelessness, cross this log

That feeling – that investment in services and subsidized housing leads to more homelessness – is a myth, said Lia Musumeci. She’s a University of Washington student who’s working with Auburn on homelessness issues. The project is part of a larger initiative, Livable City Year, a UW program partnering with Auburn to help it as…

News | March 19, 2024

To report or not report ‘suspicious people’ near campus

Originally reported in The Daily by Shira Sur It took three encounters with a person threatening bypassers near the West Campus dorms for first-year student Hannah Whitemarsh to call 911. Whitemarsh’s call to UWPD, which was made in mid-October of 2023, was transferred to the Seattle Police Department (SPD). After she was asked whether the…

Map

Toilets in Mumbai

Students and faculty from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Graduate School of Design (GSD) came together to address a common issue in slum dwelling—the scarcity and poor conditions of public toilets in urban slums in Mumbai—and to discuss sustainable solutions from design and public health.

Scholar

Tracey Seslen

News | February 16, 2024

Transit workers fight drugs on buses and trains

Written by Joseph Gallivan for Axios Oregon Transit companies are pushing to make it a Class A misdemeanor to use drugs on buses and trains in Oregon. TriMet, the Oregon Transit Association, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 testified yesterday to support amending Senate Bill 1553. The amendment would add the use of illicit drugs…

News | March 1, 2018

Tri-campus survey aims to identify student struggles with housing, food costs

In a region as expensive as the Puget Sound, making ends meet affects college students, too. Rent, utilities and food can run into the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month – and for students without the means, it’s a daunting and sometimes compromising challenge. Urban@UW is trying to learn more about the situations…

News | July 9, 2020

Trouble paying medical bills can lead to longer episodes of homelessness, new study shows

Even before the pandemic left COVID-19 patients with staggering hospital bills, many people, especially those who are uninsured, were often overwhelmed with medical bills. And medical debt and housing instability often go hand in hand. In a new University of Washington study of people experiencing homelessness in King County, unpaid medical bills were their primary…

News | October 7, 2020

Turning hotels into emergency shelter as part of COVID-19 response limited spread of coronavirus, improved health and stability

A King County initiative that moved people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms earlier this year helped slow the transmission of coronavirus, according to early findings from a study of the intervention. The study, part of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, is co-authored by Rachel Fyall and Gregg Colburn, HRI faculty co-leads. Their research is…

Scholar

Tyler H. McCormick

Research Beyond UW | University of Chicago

UChicago Urban Labs

The University of Chicago's Urban Labs comprises 5 units: Crime Lab, Education Lab, Energy & Environment Lab, Health Lab, and Poverty Lab. Working in partnership with policy makers and practitioners worldwide, Urban Labs help evaluate and implement the most effective urban policies and solutions around the world, bringing improvements to people's lives in real time.…

Research Beyond UW | University College London

UCL Urban Laboratory

The UCL Urban Laboratory, established in 2005, is a university wide initiative that brings together the best urban teaching and research at UCL. Our activities build on the full spectrum of work across the arts and sciences, ranging from civil engineering to film studies, from urban history to the latest developments in architectural design. At…

News | June 30, 2022

Understanding the role of historical residential segregation on pediatric injury and violence

Approximately 265 pediatric deaths occurred as a result of injury or violence in Washington state in 2020. A team of researchers from the University of Washington and hospitals around the state are collaborating on a new Population Health Initiative-funded pilot project, “Residential Segregation and Pediatric Injury and Violence in Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma,” to better…

News | March 13, 2024

University of Washington study finds cities must prioritize youth mental health

Excerpted from KOIN/Channel Six in Portland Written by Michaela Bourgeois Researchers at the University of Washington conducted an international survey that found cities need to focus on youth mental health as younger generations flock to urban areas. Starting in April 2020, researchers worked with the nonprofit citiesRISE to survey over 500 people in 53 countries…

Degree Program

Urban Design and Planning (Minor, Cert, MUP, dual MLA-MUP, PhD)

Our core mission is to develop a community of inquiry, learning, and practice that helps urban regions to become more livable, just, economically effective, and environmentally sound through a democratic process of urban design and planning.

Research Beyond UW | Columbia University

Urban Design Lab

The Urban Design Lab (UDL) of the Earth Institute and GSAPP works to find innovative solutions to the sustainable development issues confronting cities. The UDL conducts multidisciplinary applied design research in collaboration with community-based organizations and other public and private interests. The UDL's team works closely with outside experts in architecture, ecology, economics, environmental science,…

News | May 26, 2023

Urban Scholar Highlight: Dana Nickson

This is the third in a series of interviews from Urban@UW highlighting the research of urban scholars at the University of Washington. Urban@UW spoke to Dana Nickson, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Washington Seattle. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.   What do you do at…

News | March 28, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Josephine Ensign

Josephine Ensign is a Professor in University of Washington’s School of Nursing and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, Affiliate Faculty in UW’s Certificate Program in Public Scholarship, and coordinator of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative’s Doorway Project—which is hosting a popup cafe in honor of Earth Day on April 22!…

News | January 31, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Rachel Fyall

Rachel Fyall is an Assistant Professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Faculty Chair of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative. We sat down with her last quarter to discuss her work. What you do at the UW and what led you to your current research interests? The main thing I study…

News | August 28, 2017

Urban Scholar Highlight: Scott Allard

Scott W. Allard is a Professor of Public Affairs at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Allard is also on the executive committee of the West Coast Poverty Center and Urban@UW, and an affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. We sat down with him to discuss his work at…

Degree Program

Urban Studies (Cert, BA, MA, MS)

The Urban Studies Program offers a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies with formal options in Global Urbanism and Community Development & Planning. The degree starts with an introduction into the discipline of urban studies with course topics on exploring cities, world development, and urban studies “in practice”. The formal options deliver focused theory and…

News | May 24, 2021

Urban@UW Announces Another Round of Funding Through Research Spark Grants

Urban@UW is excited to be able to provide another cycle of funding for small-scale, new or emergent projects in urban systems. Our Urban@UW Research Spark Grants RFP is intended to catalyze new ideas, connections, and next steps for UW faculty and research staff undertaking cross-disciplinary and community-engaged urban scholarship. The application window opens June 14,…

News | February 19, 2020

Urban@UW announces Research Spark Grants

UPDATE: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on academic and research activities, Urban@UW has made the difficult decision to postpone our Spark Grants program. In addition to recognizing the varied strains and hardship our community is experiencing, we want to ensure that new collaborations launch in a context that promotes meeting and…

News | March 1, 2022

Urban@UW anti-displacement workshop generates connections, ideas, and opportunities for further partnership.

On January 25th and 26th, Urban@UW hosted a virtual workshop that brought together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community partners to elevate key perspectives and facilitate cross-boundary discussions and action around the capacity for people to stay in place and stay in the community in the face of displacement.  The workshop built on discussions initiated by…

News | October 20, 2017

Urban@UW compiles Faculty Highlights Report for research, teaching and engagement on homelessness

As part of its recently launched Homelessess Research Initiative, Urban@UW has collaborated with faculty and staff across all three UW campuses to compile a broad-ranging selection of powerful and robust projects addressing homelessness from a research lens. Check out the Faculty Highlights Report to learn more about these efforts and the people behind them.

News | February 11, 2022

Urban@UW hosts Anti-Displacement and Belonging Workshop

On January 25th and 26th, Urban@UW hosted a virtual workshop that brought together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community partners to elevate key perspectives and facilitate cross-boundary discussions and action around the capacity for people to stay in place and stay in the community in the face of displacement.  Led by Urban@UW Faculty Director Rachel Berney,…

News | November 26, 2024

Urban@UW is working toward a future where cities are hubs of innovation, inclusivity, & sustainability.

Research-to-Action Teams 2023-2024 In April of 2023 the teams selected for the inaugural cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) were announced. These groups combine the research capabilities of University of Washington scholars with frontline leaders embedded in their communities and government officials who can codify change.  The Research-to-Action Collaboratory provides the teams with…

News | September 5, 2024

Urban@UW Presenting at New York Climate Week

Urban@UW Director Rachel Berney and Program Manager Kate Landis will present on the Research-to Action Collaboratory later this month at New York Climate Week, as part of the New York Climate Exchange.  “We are thrilled to be one of the very few university centers invited to participate in New York Climate Week. This well- publicized…

News | November 26, 2024

Urban@UW unites research, community insight, and policy to drive innovation for resilient and equitable cities.

Inclusive Data-Driven Innovation for the Future of Cities Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. In partnership with the College…

News |

Urban@UW’s Research to Action Collaboratory provides funding, facilitation, & tools to empower cross-disciplinary teams to solve urban problems

About the RAC The Research to Action Collaboratory serves as a catalyst for research teams, building their transformational collaborative capacity to address today’s most pressing urban challenges. The RAC combines financial support, thought partnership, and skill-building to increase the capacity of scholars, community stakeholders, and the UW for impactful, collaborative research. Today’s most pressing problems—from…

News | December 17, 2019

UW Aging with Pride study helps inform plans for Seattle’s first LGBTQ-affirming, affordable senior housing

The City of Seattle Office of Housing on Dec. 9 announced funds to develop Seattle’s first affordable senior housing development designed to be an affirming environment for LGBTQ seniors and the greater LGBTQ community. The project is led by Capitol Hill Housing, a nonprofit developer, along with GenPRIDE, the first LGBTQ-affirming senior center in Seattle/King…

News | October 27, 2022

UW and SHA tap Bellwether Housing to build mixed-income development in U District

The University of Washington and the Seattle Housing Authority announced that Bellwether Housing has been selected to develop a mixed-income high-rise of about 240 units in the University District, pending approval by the UW Board of Regents. Once completed, the 16-story project will provide a child care space and much-needed housing for faculty and staff,…

News | October 27, 2015

UW initiative aims to tackle city, region’s most pressing urban issues

When Thaisa Way put a call out last spring to see if University of Washington faculty members working on urban issues wanted to join forces, she wasn’t sure what the response would be. “There were a lot of people who said, ‘You’re not going to get anyone to show up,‘” said Way, a UW associate…

News | December 6, 2022

UW Livable City Year program and Pacific County EDC launch new partnership

Every year, students at the University of Washington work with one or more local governments to help create solutions to challenging problems. This year, they’ll study Pacific County. Launching an exciting new partnership, the Livable City Year program and the Pacific County Economic Development Council (PCEDC) will connect UW courses with projects identified by PCEDC…

News | September 14, 2015

UW Partners with Seattle for Smart Cities Initiative

UW Today is reporting that, as part of a new White House Smart Cities Initiative called The MetroLab Network, the University of Washington has partnered with the City of Seattle in joining “a new national network of university-city partnerships that will work on ‘smart city’ solutions.” “Great universities can’t succeed without great cities,” said UW…

News | June 3, 2022

UW Ph.D. students hold symposium on the role of technology in urban environments into the future

Originally written by Mingming Cai, Ana Costa, Kristin Potterton & Salman Rashdi.  On May 20th, students in University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning and Ph.D. Program in the Built Environment hosted the virtual 2022 annual research symposium. Based on the theme, Pathways toward the future: Assessing the digital dimensions of…

News | March 29, 2022

UW professor’s new book presents opportunity to ‘rethink housing’

Not all U.S. major cities are grappling with homelessness at the scale of say, Seattle or San Francisco. And it’s not because some cities have more people in poverty, or more people in crisis. Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington, believes housing market conditions — specifically, high housing and…

News | September 27, 2017

UW researchers analyze effects of minimum wage on seattle food prices

Affiliates UW Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Services Jennifer Otten (lead author), UW Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance Jake Vigdor, and Evans School’s Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Public policy and Governance and Adjunct Professor of Economics Mark Long…

News | May 13, 2019

UW students face food, housing insecurity, survey shows

Preliminary data from a survey of food and housing insecurity at the University of Washington’s three campuses shows that an estimated 190 students may lack a stable place to live, and about one-quarter of students have worried recently about having enough to eat. Results of the online survey, conducted by UW faculty in 2018, are…

News | December 16, 2022

UW welcomes Tent City 3 for winter quarter

The University of Washington will welcome back Tent City 3 — an organized tent-city community — to its Seattle campus for 90 days during winter quarter 2023. Move-in is scheduled to begin Dec. 17, 2022. The UW previously hosted Tent City 3 in winter 2017 and winter 2021 in parking lot W35, situated between John M….

News | May 2, 2019

UW, WSU community partnership: Improving the health of homeless youth and their pets

Rivals in the sports arena, the state’s two largest public universities have teamed up off the field to improve the health of young adults experiencing homelessness – and their pets. The University of Washington and Washington State University are working with New Horizons Ministries and Neighborcare Health to provide health care and veterinary care to…

News | March 15, 2024

UW’s College of Built Environments Professor Faces an Electrifying Challenge

Reported by Jen Moss for the University of Washington’ College of Built Environments King County Metro (Metro), which serves a daily average of over 250,000 riders across more than 203 square miles of the county, has an emissions challenge. Their zero-carbon emissions target, set by the King County Council, must be met by 2035. This…

News | November 29, 2017

UW’s Doorway Project kicks off services for homeless youth

The University District community includes as much as one-third of King County’s homeless youth over any given year. It’s a neighborhood where a food bank and youth shelter are available, and where young people on the streets can blend in.   Now the University of Washington, in a partnership among Urban@UW, faculty, students and community…

Scholar

Val Kalei Kanuha

News | September 6, 2022

Vancouver Considers 2 New ‘Safe Stay’ Sites for Homeless People After Initial Successes

Less than a year after its launch, Vancouver officials are expressing optimism about the city’s newest approach to helping unhoused people, and hope to see more of it in the future. A report card released Monday shows Vancouver’s first “Safe Stay Community,” which provides shed-like housing units and around-the-clock case managers, housed 14 of its…

News | May 10, 2018

Vikram Prakash’s ‘ArchitectureTalk’ podcast explores topics ‘at the edge of the known’

Vikram Prakash says his weekly “ArchitectureTalk” podcast got its start, as many things do, from a student’s idea. Prakash is a professor of architecture in the University of Washington College of Built Environments. An architect himself, he is also an author, a theorist and an architectural historian. He said he has always felt “energized” by discussions in…

Map | Mumbai Nairobi New York São Paulo Seattle

Visualizing Cities – An Open Platform

Visualization as a tool for analysis, exploration and communication has become a driving force in the task of unravelling the complex urban fabrics that form our cities. This platform tries to bring together urban visualization projects from around the globe.

News | March 28, 2023

WA’s Homeless Population Is Increasing, New HUD Report Shows

Washington’s homeless population is on the rise, according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and it’s largely driven by Seattle and King County. The number of Washingtonians who are unsheltered, in vehicles or in temporary shelter grew by 10% from 2020 to 2022, increasing by 2,288 people. Slightly…

Center & Lab

Washington Center for Real Estate Research

The Washington Center for Real Estate Research (WCRER) was initially established by the Board of Regents at Washington State University to provide a bridge between academic study and research on real estate topics and the professional real estate industries. It served that mission at WSU until merging with the Runstad Center at the beginning of…

News | October 15, 2020

Washington Center for Real Estate Research develops new Housing Market Data Toolkit

During the 2019 legislative session, affordable housing and housing supply issues became a primary issue of concern. Inward population migration, economic growth and shortage of new housing supply had led to rapidly rising house prices and rents for the past few years. In that context, local governments were required to develop Housing Action Plans to…

News | February 8, 2021

Washington lawmakers look for ways to exit the eviction moratorium — and prevent the fallout

Nearly a year after Gov. Jay Inslee stopped evictions for failure to pay during the pandemic, lawmakers now find themselves attempting to unwind an experiment of their own making. Both Republicans and Democrats are looking for a way to end the eviction moratorium while staving off what some predict could be a “tsunami” of evictions…

News | January 20, 2023

Washington legislature debates whether to cap rent increases

In an attempt to curb what they describe as runaway housing prices statewide, Democrats in Washington’s legislature are debating whether to limit annual rent increases to no more than 7% for most residential buildings. Two proposals introduced Tuesday at the state Capitol both aim to cap rent increases so that landlords in Washington couldn’t raise…

News | April 20, 2022

Washington maker of shed-sized homeless shelters has thrived since the pandemic

Ty Charnicky gripped a broom and smiled as he swept the floor. It wasn’t dirty. He swept it often. “When I was in the car, I did this to the car too. I cleaned it out at least once a week. I did my laundry once a week,” Charnicky said, before straightening some of his…

News | May 20, 2024

Washington overdose deaths continued to rise in 2023 while national trends declined, but there’s hope

Reported by Kate Walters for KUOW/NPR Overdose deaths in Washington state continued to rise throughout 2023, bucking the national trend. According to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, reported overdose deaths across the U.S. fell by roughly 5% in 2023, compared to 2022. In contrast, Washington state saw…

News | May 9, 2023

Washington Seeks to Repair Harm Caused by Racially Restrictive Real Estate Covenants

Washington state is setting aside money to help people who were hurt by racially restrictive real estate covenants — documents that were used to enforce segregation in the early- to mid-20th century. On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure into law Monday that will create a downpayment assistance program for people affected by the…

News | April 9, 2020

Watch videos of UW students’ ideas for public toilets, road safety and job matches in India

A UW study abroad program empowers students from all disciplines to apply their skills to real-life problems — such as food insecurity, water scarcity, and a lack of adequate housing and education. At the end of the program the students create videos to share their projects. Participants in the Grand Challenges Impact Lab, directed by UW…

News | December 18, 2015

Weekly Recap 12/12-12/18

A few of the highlights in Urban news for the past week: 195 nations reached a landmark accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html UW announces new Master of Science in Data Science…

News | December 6, 2016

Welcoming the residents of Tent City 3

Winter is approaching, and with it the need for shelter for our neighbors who find themselves without permanent housing only grows. Earlier this year, at the request of the Tent City Collective – a group of students, alumni and Tent City 3 residents – our University engaged in a public process to assess whether we…

News | May 12, 2022

West Coast Poverty Center to host summit on housing equity

With support from sponsors including Urban@UW, the West Coast Poverty Center will host its annual summit on June 1st. This year the topics will revolve around housing equity. The legacies of redlining and other federal policy choices of land and wealth extraction continue to manifest in racial wealth gaps, unequal access to housing, discrimination in…

News | December 17, 2019

What happens when black Americans leave their segregated hometowns

Where someone grows up is profoundly important for their life chances. It influences things like the schools they attend, the jobs, parks and community resources they have access to and the peers they interact with. Because of this comprehensive influence, one might conclude that where you grow up affects your ability to move up the…

News | December 3, 2020

What happens when the eviction moratorium expires?

More than 171,000 Washington households are behind on rent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In normal times, every one of them could be issued a notice to vacate today, and face eviction in court in a matter of weeks. That’s not happening right now because Gov. Jay Inslee enacted a moratorium…

News | December 7, 2018

What if Alaska’s earthquake happened here?

Last Friday, a 7.0 earthquake rattled Anchorage, Alaska. Amazingly, no one died — and revamped building codes enacted in the wake of the state’s deadly 1964 Good Friday quake meant the city was more prepared than most. Outside of a few structure fires, damage was kept to a minimum. But striking images of tectonic apocalypse…

News | December 24, 2020

What is a Community Land Trust? And could one help with Tacoma’s homelessness crisis?

When Tacoma Housing Now took over vacant Gault Middle School in November to shelter unhoused people, the action came with a list of demands. The most prominent of them insisted on making Gault, which has sat vacant for a decade, part of a Community Land Trust, also called a CLT. In Tacoma, CLTs aren’t a new idea….

News | December 6, 2021

What it’s going to take for Tacoma to become an ‘anti-racist city’

Urban@UW colleague Rubén Casas shares his perspective on the city of Tacoma’s goal of becoming an ‘anti-racist city’ in his Crosscut article. — Mayor Victoria Woodards wants to make Tacoma “an anti-racist city.” The question is, can she do it? And if so, how should it look in practice? This was a central theme of her…

News | March 3, 2020

What New Upzoning Will Mean for the U District

The U District has changed a lot in the last couple of decades. But it is about to change even more dramatically. In 2021, a Sound Transit light rail station will open in the heart of the U District at N.E. 43rd Street and Brooklyn Avenue N.E. Light rail will transform the U District into…

News | June 22, 2017

What the bond between homeless people and their pets demonstrates about compassion

A video camera captures an interview with a man named Spirit, who relaxes in an outdoor plaza on a sunny afternoon. Of his nearby service dogs, Kyya and Miniaga, he says, “They mean everything to me, and I mean everything to them.”In another video, three sweater-clad dogs scamper around a Los Angeles park, while their…

News | September 20, 2022

What Would It Take to Bring Seattle Home Prices Down to Earth?

However you slice it, Seattle homebuying is wildly expensive. The median sale price for all homes is $840,000, according to Redfin. If you look only at stand-alone single-family homes, the median is $975,000. The median condo is selling for over $500,000. Supply and demand isn’t the only factor in Seattle’s housing costs — 50-year-old bungalows…

News | August 24, 2016

What’s next for Seattle’s homeless?

Their future depends on answering hard questions about what type of community we want this to be. This is the final piece in a three-part series about the region’s homelessness crisis. Read parts 1 and 2 here and here. It has been over nine months since Seattle Mayor Ed Murray declared a “state of civil…

News | July 12, 2023

Where Do County’s Homeless Come From?

After five years of Project Homeless, the Seattle Times asked readers to share their pressing, unanswered questions about homelessness. Although there are historical examples of a homeless migration narrative–think of families moving in mass during the Dust Bowl or of men “riding the rails” during the Great Depression–today, there’s a lot of data that shows…

News | September 16, 2019

Where there’s wildfire, there’s smoke. Protecting ‘clean-air refugees.’

Summer in Seattle offers a luminous respite from the rest of the year. The clouds depart and carry away the rains as the sky shades cobalt blue and the sun casts golden light from Puget Sound to Mount Rainier. The city feels liberated. Or so residents recall of an earlier time. In the past decade,…

News | August 19, 2017

Why Architects should care about public health

Andrew Dannenberg, an Affiliate Professor at the School of Public Health and the College of Built Environments, writes about the importance of architects recognizing human health: while architects have long recognized the importance of human health —including physical, mental, and social well-being — as part of their mission, implementation sometimes reflects a spirit of compliance…

News | October 22, 2020

Why are cities (still) so expensive?

It isn’t just supply and demand. We look at the complicated history and skewed incentives that make “affordable housing” more punch line than reality in cities from New York and San Francisco to Flint, Michigan. New York City’s problems are not unique to New York. Thousands of cities in the U.S. are looking at big budget shortfalls; 1.5…

News | May 3, 2022

Why are condos in Seattle so rare and expensive?

The average home in Seattle costs over a million dollars. And now, rising interest rates have made mortgages more expensive. Homebuyers just can’t seem to get a break. Condominiums used to be a gateway to homeownership. Even if you didn’t have a big nest egg, you could get your foot in the door and own…

News | June 25, 2024

Why social media rarely leads to constructive political action

Written by Stefan Milne for UW News. While social media platforms are rife with problems — from harassment to misinformation — many argue that the platforms also nurture political movements, such as the Arab Spring and #MeToo. But in her new book “Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,” Katherine Cross, a University…

News | June 21, 2024

Why the First Heat Wave of the Summer Can Be the Most Dangerous

Written by Scott Dance for the Washington Post. In an average June, just a few days reach 90 degrees in Detroit. But by the time the year’s first blast of summer breaks in the Motor City this weekend, nearly a week of intense heat will have passed. And some of the most dangerous heat waves…

News | September 22, 2020

Wildfire smoke disproportionally harms poorer communities, remedies necessary to address health inequity

With most of the Northwest blanketed by wildfire smoke, public officials and health experts suggest staying inside as much as possible to reduce exposure to the significant health risks of wildfire smoke. However, inequity in our communities means not every home provides great protection and many workers in disadvantaged populations can’t afford to stay home, says Anjum Hajat,…

News | August 2, 2024

Wildfire Smoke Exposure Linked With Higher Dementia Risk

Reported by Dennis Thompson for HealthDay THURSDAY, Aug. 1, 2024 (HealthDay News) — The wildfires thats are increasing with climate change could harm the future brain health of humanity, a new study suggests. Wildfire smoke appears to increase people’s risk of a dementia diagnosis even more than other types of air pollution, researchers reported this…

News | June 4, 2020

Will the Spokane housing market weather the storm? Homebuying during the pandemic remains competitive and continues to favor the seller

Beth and Larry Belcher found the perfect home in Spokane, but it wasn’t easy. The couple was aware of Spokane’s housing market dynamics: low inventory, rising prices and high demand. But they didn’t expect to overcome an additional hurdle of searching for a home during a pandemic. “Looking for homes during COVID-19 was a little…

Funding

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Hewlett Foundation makes grants in five core program areas: education, environment, global development and population, performing arts, and philanthropy. In addition, the Foundation makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the Bay Area. The Foundation’s grants are awarded solely for charitable purposes.

News | February 1, 2017

Working with community to tackle homelessness

Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end…

Events

Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience

News | April 28, 2023

Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience

Urban@UW is excited to invite you to attend Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience, a workshop organized by Urban@UW, the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Put on as part of the NSF-funded MOHERE: Mobility, Health, and Resilience: Building Capacities and Expanding Impact, this workshop will focus…

Research Beyond UW | Humboldt State University

Y.E.S. – Youth Educational Services

Homelessness Network is a program designed to offer assistance to homeless families in Humboldt County. The focus of attention is centered on the children to offer additional stimulus and educational exposure that may serve to peak their interests and nurture creativity and a love of learning.

News | June 20, 2018

You asked about the crisis of homelessness in Seattle. Here are some answers

There’s a lot of money in Seattle these days. Companies like Amazon and Starbucks are based here, and construction has been booming. But our city has one of the biggest homelessness problems in the country. Our listeners are wondering about that disconnect. And they’ve been asking us questions about the issue. To try to answer…

News | May 25, 2017

Your neighborhood may be driving you to drink: study

A new study shows that living in poor, “disorganized” neighborhoods matters more when looking at how much alcohol a person drinks than their proximity to bars or stores that sell booze. The link between poverty and alcoholism is established. But the new research out of the University of Washington throws quality of life into the…

Scholar

Zack W. Almquist

News | April 14, 2020

Zillow and Redfin’s guesswork has changed how we see prices

In 2016, Spencer Rascoff sold one of his homes, a Madison Park three-story, for $1.05 million. Days later, Seattle-based Zillow estimated the value of that house at $1.75 million. Here’s the real estate rub: Rascoff was Zillow’s CEO. If an extreme example of an errant “zestimate,” the PR debacle points to a curiosity. Zillow and Redfin…