Medium: Prof. Byrne’s Study Featured in Fight for Rent Control
Soaring rent prices and low wages have exacerbated homelessness, a situation that grows more dire by the day. A study covering this situation by BUSSW Prof. Thomas Byrne, Zillow’s Chris Glynn, and University of Pennsylvania Prof. Dennis P. Culhane is featured in a Medium article by Housing is a Human Right, a subsidiary of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation focused on housing. The article highlights how rent control may be the solution, as it ensures that people can afford to live in homes.
Excerpt from, “Corporate Landlords’ Excessive Rents Fuel Homelessness. Rent Control Will Save Lives,” by Housing is a Human Right, originally published on Medium:
Politicians and Big Real Estate executives don’t like to tie homelessness to skyrocketing rents, but a study by Zillow Principal Economist Chris Glynn, Thomas Byrne of Boston University School of Social Work, and Dennis P. Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania shows that elected officials can no longer turn a blind eye to that devastating connection. The academic paper, titled “Inflection Points in Community-Level Homeless Rates,” was published last summer in The Annals of Applied Statistics.
According to a brief written by Glynn, his team found that communities ‘where people spend more than 32 percent of their income on rent can expect a more rapid increase in homelessness… The research also estimates that the scale of homelessness nationwide has been undercounted by roughly 115,000 people, or 20 percent.’”
Learn more about Prof. Byrne’s Research