NNIP Welcomes the Institute of Housing Studies as its Chicago Partner

The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership is pleased to announce the acceptance of the Institute of Housing Studies (IHS) at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois as the newest Partner organization.

IHS’s mission is to provide reliable, impartial, and timely research and data about the state of affordable housing and neighborhood economic health. They leverage their expertise in housing conditions and markets to help stakeholders understand connections across issues, such as health and transportation. IHS accomplishes their mission through data collection, applied research, and community engagement. The team is broadly trusted as an honest broker of information by government agencies, philanthropy, nonprofits, and resident groups.

The project “Mapping Displacement Pressure in Chicago Neighborhoods” illustrates how IHS helps people across sectors better understand neighborhood dynamics. Staff developed an indicator to identify neighborhoods at risk of rapid price appreciation, lost housing affordability, and potential displacement. Using local and national data sources on housing conditions and demographic characteristics, they identified three categories of displacement risk for neighborhoods. Community groups are using this framework to inform the creation of proactive and inclusive strategies to support stability in the affordable housing stock and limit potential displacement of current residents. (insert link https://displacement-risk.housingstudies.org/). IHS is now exploring the implications of displacement risk for equitable transit-oriented development, park development, and school enrollment.

IHS also provides analytic support for jurisdictions beyond the city of Chicago. In the Regional Housing Solutions project, IHS conducted a housing market segmentation analysis of the seven-county region surrounding Chicago, IL, in collaboration with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, and the Metropolitan Planning Council. Collaborating with DePaul’s Department of Predictive Analytics, IHS identified eight distinct market clusters based on resident housing market characteristics that affect housing demand. and offers a data-driven framework that facilitates regional discussions on housing challenges and opportunities. Planners can now see the diversity of conditions within communities and towns so that they can be responsive and targeted in their approaches and connect to similar communities that they may not have previously considered peers.

For more examples of the Institute’s efforts in democratizing data, visit their NNIP Profile. One of the roles of the NNIP network is to promote the development of local data intermediaries in new cities. Learn more about becoming an NNIP partner.