Preconference Workshops: Thursday, March 11

The Future of Fair Housing

Time: 1 – 3 PM
Presenter: Christy Rogers, The Kirwan Institute
Room: House, Hyatt on Capital Square

This workshop reviews the findings from Kirwan’s 2009 initiative, “The Future of Fair Credit and Fair Housing in the Wake of the Subprime Lending and Foreclosure Crisis.”

In October of 2008, a month after the failure of Lehman Brothers, Kirwan held a national convening to comprehensively understand the roots of the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis, to better arm advocates and policymakers with effective, strategic responses. Our 2009 follow-on initiative, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, encompassed conversations with twenty-five diverse advisory board members, the commission of fourteen in-depth analyses by leading academics and practitioners, and an in-person look at the fair housing and fair credit landscape across the country. We commissioned assessments of the future of the GSE’s (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the Administration’s TARP and NSP programs, the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the Community Reinvestment Act, and sustainable advocacy applied to fair credit and fair banking, among others. We facilitated convenings in Seattle, Washington (with the Northwest Justice Project), Austin, Texas (with Green Doors), Detroit, Michigan (with the Michigan Roundtable), and New Orleans, Louisiana (with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Advocacy Center), in which communities evaluated their own challenges and potential solutions to fair credit and fair housing. Kirwan also co-hosted a policy and advocacy strategy session in Washington, DC with the Poverty Race and Research Action Council, the Center for Responsible Lending, the National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Corporation, and the National Fair Housing Alliance; and co-hosted a policy and advocacy session with PolicyLink in Oakland, California. This workshop reviews the findings from this initiative, including recommendations and next steps.

Mapping Opportunity for Advocacy and Social Justice

Time: 1 – 3 PM
Presenter: Samir Gambhir, Matthew Martin The Kirwan Institute
Room: Senate, Hyatt on Capital Square

This workshop focuses on using spatial analysis and/or mapping to support advocacy and social justice initiatives. This introductory workshop provides an introduction and overview of the community of opportunity model and an in-depth exploration of its application for social justice, reviewing strategies and model policy solutions. The workshop explores the benefits of utilizing mapping and GIS in advocacy and decision making, also exploring best practices for implementing spatial analysis into advocacy or planning. The workshop focuses on utilizing mapping for both communications and strategic analysis.

Understanding Change: An Introduction to System Dynamics for Racial Justice

Time: 1-4pm
Presenters: Peter Hovmand, Eric Steins, and Timothy Hower
Room: State C, Hyatt on Capital Square

Systems approaches are increasingly being recognized as important tools for tackling significant organizational and community issues in many areas including education, health, economic development, public health, and nonprofit management. There is also growing interest in extending and applying these tools to advancing social justice and racial justice in particular. Systems approaches have the potential to offer new ways of understanding and challenging conventional ways of thinking about persistent problems such as the continued presence of racial disparities, but only if we can collectively grasp the deeper implications of switching to a systems approach and learn practical skills for seeing and communicating about systems.

This workshop aims to meet that need by providing participants at all levels with the opportunity to engage in systems-modeling skill-building exercises grounded in specific issues of racial justice and social justice. The workshop draws on System Dynamics as a specific method and way of thinking about systems that places the emphasis on identifying and understanding feedback mechanisms and system states to provide insight into how structure influences behavior.

The workshop will draw on the presenter’s experience in developing and applying System Dynamics in diverse communities both domestically and internationally. Presenters will share examples of how organizations are using System Dynamics as a participatory method to change how they are working with communities. Participants will get hands-on opportunities to learn the basic language of System Dynamics, how to frame questions from a System Dynamics perspective, and how to work more effectively with groups and communities using tools from System Dynamics.

This workshop will be accessible to anyone that wishes to attend, and build on earlier discussions and desires that emerged out of a Kirwan-hosted meeting last October, 2009 on systems thinking and racial justice.