Blog





HOME of VA’s 2025 legislative priorities
January 3, 2025
As Virginia’s General Assembly prepares for its next session, we’re working to make sure fair housing has a seat at the table. In our daily work to ensure equal access to housing for all, again and again we find a familiar obstacle. Well-funded housing industry lobbyists dominate policymaking, and the results tilt law toward property […]

Can We Learn and Live Together?
October 3, 2024
New report finds enduring segregation shutting out families from opportunity Tonight I’ll join colleagues from across Virginia to discuss a powerful new report HOME of VA helped to create. The study, “Can We Live and Learn Together 2.0,” updates a similar one from 2017. Seven years later, we’re revealing new data on housing and school […]

Evictors without a cause
September 6, 2024
In Richmond, a statewide solution could address the local eviction epidemic. Every week at the John Marshall Courthouse in downtown Richmond, the story is the same: case after case of eviction filings come before a judge, and families’ lives are turned upside down. There are many reasons for this. In Virginia eviction cases, 71% of […]

Speak your mind on HenricoNext
August 1, 2024
Henrico County is working on its next comprehensive plan – and if you’re a Henrico resident, they want your input. (Even if you’re not a Henrico resident, read on to learn why this matters for you, too!) Virginia’s towns, cities, and counties must write comprehensive plans and update them every five years. These plans are […]

More protections, more work to do: new housing laws go into effect
July 1, 2024
Following this year’s General Assembly session, a slew of new bills become law today – including several that HOME of VA helped to pass. Today we’re also celebrating new laws pushed by allies in the fight to make housing fair. Here are a few highlights related to landlord-tenant relations: HB73: Did you know that even […]

Residential Segregation in the Richmond Metro Area
October 24, 2022
Residential segregation is not the result of African-American self-segregation, in fact, data indicates that Black home-seekers would prefer to live in diverse neighborhoods but barriers prevent them from doing so. Residential segregation developed through explicit racially discriminatory public policies and private practices. These include explicit city ordinances requiring segregation, the legal permissibility of discrimination, government […]

Preserving the American Dream of Homeownership
January 29, 2021
By TJ Tann, Policy & Research Intern. Homeownership is a cornerstone of building and maintaining wealth in America, a hallmark of the American Dream. However, few realize that for many white Americans following World War II the American Dream was manufactured by granting families loans backed by the federal government. As a result, these families […]

How Our Programming Informs Policy
January 19, 2021
By Mariah Willaims As Virginia legislators convened to kickoff for the 2021 General Assembly Session, I was reminded of the past, and the role policy has played in both advancing and hindering access to opportunity throughout this country’s history. I was reminded that while we have made great strides in the housing industry to combat […]

Black Lives, Policing, and How the Illusion of Proximity Perpetuates Injustice
June 9, 2020
By Mariah Williams. This week’s post is a little long, but certainly not as long as the 400 years black people have suffered injustice in America or the time we’ve endured anti-blackness globally. Nothing amounts to the centuries of oppression that black people have experienced, but it’s important to recollect the events that have led […]

Intersectionality, Housing, and COVID-19: Responding to Code Switch’s “What Does Hood Feminism Mean for a Pandemic”?
May 19, 2020
By Mariah Williams. “Survival is the primary focus, especially for feminists in the hood and rural areas, and for low-income families. Right now, the focus has to be on surviving, on thriving and being able to take care of each other.” -Mikki Kendall Recently, I listened to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, […]

Remembering the Past is Crucial to Rebuilding After this Crisis
April 28, 2020
By Mariah Williams. “If black people receive inferior care from hospitals and doctors, are black people to blame? If black people are less likely to be insured, are black people to blame? If hospitals in majority-black counties are overloaded with coronavirus patients, are black people to blame?” – Ibrahim X Kendi As we work to […]

Preventing Housing Displacement Amidst a Health Crisis
April 16, 2020
By Mariah Williams. “I didn’t relocate,” she reminded me. “I was displaced.” This is what Stacy said after I asked her what it was like relocating from New Orleans. I had not immediately made the distinction. The former suggested that there was a choice. The latter, however, suggested no such choice. She was put […]