$500,000 Awarded to Create Website Portal for Housing; $350,000 Awarded for Rental Housing Conference

For more information, contact: Trisha Riggs at 202-624-7086

WASHINGTON (January 29, 2014) – The Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global research and education institute dedicated to responsible land use and creating thriving communities, has been awarded two grants totaling $850,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support the ULI Terwilliger Housing Center’s research and education efforts related to housing.

One grant totaling $500,000 was awarded to support the creation of a new Housing Matters research portal, a stand-alone website that will be integrated into the family of websites at uli.org. The portal, an extension of MacArthur Foundation’s ongoing “How Housing Matters” research initiative, will launch later this year. It is intended to be a highly interactive site offering up-to-date, easily searchable research on a broad range of housing topics with particular attention on connecting housing to other issues, including education, health and economic opportunity.

The design will serve as a user gateway, integrating policy papers, research and analysis, topical news articles, social media posts, infographics and data, question-and-answer forums, webcasts and webinars. The portal is being designed to reach a diverse audience of decision-makers, including the public, urban planners and designers, industry practitioners, MacArthur grantees, policy makers at all levels of government, economic, healthcare and education professionals, thought leaders, the media, housing researchers and for- and non-profit developers.

Lynn Ross, executive director of the Terwilliger Center, said the Housing Matters portal will greatly enhance ULI’s efforts to emphasize the key role of housing as a cornerstone of healthy, prosperous communities. “At ULI, we believe that housing is a central component of thriving communities,” she said. “The MacArthur Foundation’s support will vastly strengthen our information and knowledge sharing initiatives related to housing, and will help us increase the scale and scope of our housing activities. We are delighted to have been chosen by the foundation to advance knowledge of housing issues.”

ULI also has received a grant totaling $350,000 to support a national conference on rental housing, to be held in Washington, D.C. in 2015, which will focus on state and local housing issues, as well as leadership in the field of rental housing development and preservation. This event, which will be hosted by the Terwilliger Center, will be part of the activities concluding a 10-year, $150-million investment by the MacArthur Foundation in a national initiative, “Window of Opportunity: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing.”

The conference will provide a platform for meaningful dialogue among partners at the local, state, regional and federal levels on the increased importance of rental housing development, preservation and affordability. In addition the program will be designed to help strengthening the linkage between affordable rental housing and other key public policy issues, including energy conservation and resilience, housing finance, and transportation/transit-oriented development.

“ULI’s combined strengths in convening, knowledge sharing and content aggregation, combined with the institute’s work highlighting housing as a fundamental component of thriving communities, make our organization particularly well-suited to host this conference,” Ross said. “We are very excited about the potential of such a significant, topical event to ‘move the needle’ on rental housing issues, and we are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for its generous support.”

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About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute (uli.org) is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has nearly 30,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.

About the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The 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 society. More information is at www.macfound.org.