Permanent Affordability: A National Conversation

Over the course of two days in October 2009, the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development (ANHD) brought together key stakeholders from the affordable housing community, including local and national housing agencies, policy experts, not-for-profit developers, and advocates. The purpose of this forum was to engage in a discussion of challenges and opportunities related to ensuring permanent affordability in subsidized housing. Generously sponsored by Capital One and hosted by the Ford Foundation, this forum continued the important conversation initiated by ANHD's groundbreaking 2008 report, "Roadmap to Permanent Affordability: Analysis, Observations and The Future of Subsidized Housing in New York City."Representatives from Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. joined those from New York City to share experiences and best practices from the field. These cities were invited for two reasons. First, all have implemented some form of permanent or long-term affordability policy, which has proven effective while not impeding development. Second, the housing markets and development landscapes in these cities are quite comparable to New York's. Through this learning across varying geographies and levels of government, ANHD hopes to achieve greater national consensus on the issue and encourage workable policy solutions for New York City. The purpose of this report is to capture key points of discussion and actionable solutions from this convening and identify possible next steps in support of permanently affordable housing

The State of Practice for Security Unit Testing: Towards Data Driven Strategies to Shift Security into Developer\u27s Automated Testing Workflows

The pressing need to “shift security left” in the software development lifecycle has motivated efforts to adapt the iterative and continuous process models used in practice today. Security unit testing is praised by practitioners and recommended by expert groups, usually in the context of DevSecOps and achieving “continuous security”. In addition to vulnerability testing and standards adherence, this technique can help developers verify that security controls are implemented correctly, i.e. functional security testing. Further, the means by which security unit testing can be integrated into developer workflows is unique from other standalone tools as it is an adaptation of practices and infrastructure developers are already familiar with. Yet, software engineering researchers have so far failed to include this technique in their empirical studies on secure development and little is known about the state of practice for security unit testing. This dissertation is motivated by the disconnect between promotion of security unit testing and the lack of empirical evidence on how it is and can be applied. The goal of this work was to address the disconnect towards identifying actionable strategies to promote wider adoption and mitigate observed challenges. Three mixed-method empirical studies were conducted wherein practitioner-authored unit test code, Q&A posts, and grey literature were analyzed through three lenses: Practices (what they do), Perspectives and Guidelines (what and how they think it should be done), and Pain Points (what challenges they face) to incorporate both technical and human factors of this phenomena. Accordingly, this work contributes novel and important insights into how developers write functional unit tests for at least nine security controls, including a taxonomy of 53 authentication unit test cases derived from real code and a detailed analysis of seven unique pain points that developers seek help with from peers on Q&A sites. Recommendations given herein for conducting and adopting security unit testing, including mitigating challenges and addressing gaps between available and needed support, are grounded in the guidelines and perspectives on the benefits, limitations, use cases, and integration strategies shared in grey literature authored by practitioners

Bridging Sectors: Partnerships Between Nonprofits and Private Developers

In recent years, partnerships between nonprofits and private developers to develop affordable housing have become a topic of increasing interest. Through a review of current literature and interviews with housing thought leaders, nonprofits, private developers, affordable housing capital sources and others, this paper seeks to explore multifamily rental housing development partnerships. More specifically, research identifies attributes critical to these partnerships, and the economic, social and political drivers to both partnerships and the subsequent negotiated partnerships terms.This paper concludes that there is a broad range of negotiated partnership terms between nonprofits and private developers. However, across all these relationships, both nonprofits and private developers prioritize two partnership terms: development fee profits, and degree of involvement and oversight. Further, research reveals while there are many different drivers shaping the decision to partner and subsequent partnership conditions, there are two key determinants: development experience and knowledge, and financial factors. Finally, while not all partnerships are beneficial, under the appropriate conditions, partnerships have the potential to not only build nonprofit capacity but also address some of our nation's affordable housing challenges

Providing the Missing Link: A Model for a Neighborhood-Focused Employment Program

Outlines a strategy for bridging the gap between low-income neighborhoods and regional workforce development programs. Describes nine implementation steps of a model for increasing career opportunities, and evaluates the feasibility of the program

Conservation Through Limited Development: An Approach for Land Conservancies

The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County is interested in determining the approach that it may take if it decides to pursue conservation and limited development as a strategy to preserve land. In using conservation and limited development, the Conservancy may put into practice its core values by employing this intensely-collaborative conservation tool and informing itself about development, conservation, collaboration and financing, in order to meet multiple community needs. Information about the limited development process was collected from books, news articles and personal communications with professionals to determine its components. Each chapter of this report analyzes one component, putting authors’ strategies into conversation, critiquing these and then offering conservancies several different approaches to accomplish each component. This report concludes that the most important decision that a conservancy must make when pursuing conservation and limited development, is determining the level of involvement appropriate for its conservation mission, resources, expertise, and role in realizing project goals. The final portion of the report provides two case studies that draw upon telephone interviews with professionals, and analyze the contrasting levels of involvement that each project’s conservancy assumed. Since this report was requested by the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, it addresses some concerns and realities particular to the county; however, most recommendations are generally applicable to other land conservancies

An Investigation into quality assurance of the Open Source Software Development model

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe Open Source Software Development (OSSD) model has launched products in rapid succession and with high quality, without following traditional quality practices of accepted software development models (Raymond 1999). Some OSSD projects challenge established quality assurance approaches, claiming to be successful through partial contrary techniques of standard software development. However, empirical studies of quality assurance practices for Open Source Software (OSS) are rare (Glass 2001). Therefore, further research is required to evaluate the quality assurance processes and methods within the OSSD model. The aim of this research is to improve the understanding of quality assurance practices under the OSSD model. The OSSD model is characterised by a collaborative, distributed development approach with public communication, free participation, free entry to the project for newcomers and unlimited access to the source code. The research examines applied quality assurance practices from a process view rather than from a product view. The research follows ideographic and nomothetic methodologies and adopts an antipositivist epistemological approach. An empirical research of applied quality assurance practices in OSS projects is conducted through the literature research. The survey research method is used to gain empirical evidence about applied practices. The findings are used to validate the theoretical knowledge and to obtain further expertise about practical approaches. The findings contribute to the development of a quality assurance framework for standard OSSD approaches. The result is an appropriate quality model with metrics that the requirements of the OSSD support. An ideographic approach with case studies is used to extend the body of knowledge and to assess the feasibility and applicability of the quality assurance framework. In conclusion, the study provides further understanding of the applied quality assurance processes under the OSSD model and shows how a quality assurance framework can support the development processes with guidelines and measurements

The importance of liability for the redevelopment of brownfields : the developers view

The thousands of former industrial properties lying vacant in New Jersey are an economic challenge for all areas of government. If these properties are, or are perceived to be, contaminated then they are labeled Brownfields. An important question is whether the threat of liability for contamination by prior owners is a current cause behind the failure of developers to acquire and redevelop Brownfields in the State of New Jersey. The goal of this work was to discover if there is a link between liability and the developer\u27s decision making process. How important is the liability factor? Fifty-seven variables were examined in a survey that was sent to developers. The responses were ranked to discover the most critical concerns for the developers overall and by categories. Analysis revealed that the presence of an end user was the most critical factor, along with other factors related to profit. Long term liability exposure was also a concern, one of many on the critical concern list. The thesis concludes with recommendations for policy initiatives to assist with the redevelopment of Brownfields in New Jersey. The recommendations include the use of community development plans to attract end users, and the use of government programs to improve developer profit. These latter include reduce delay, preparing infrastructure and developing voluntary cleanup programs. The promotion of a Brownfields law to provide guidance is also suggested

Employment Retention Essentials

Employment retention is one of the critical challenges facing the workforce field today. For any organization that seeks to improve retention services, "Employment Retention Essentials" is an invaluable resource. User-friendly and filled with practical ideas, this guide offers concrete tools for keeping people working, including tips on how to involve employers, build relationships and stay in contact with participants

Indigenous assessment developers on elements of the disjuncture-response dialectic: A critical comparative case study

The disjuncture-response dialectic proposes that the assessment development practices of Indigenous assessment developers exist within a broader environment where attention to broader themes such as settler colonialism (Wolfe, 2006) and Indigenous sovereignty is incorporated. To understand this dialectic, this study sought insight from Indigenous assessment developers about the issues they face when developing culturally specific assessments for use within their environments and settings.This study used a critical (Giroux, 1979; Horkheimer, 2018; McKenzie, 2012) comparative case study approach (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) with a convenience sample of three Indigenous assessment developers representing a cross-section of culturally specific assessment development projects across North America and Hawaiʻi. The data for this study were drawn from interviews with Indigenous assessment developers with whom the researcher has collaborated toward the development of culturally specific assessments. The study design incorporated a horizontal, transversal, and a pair of dialectical vertical axes to establish the framing of the interviews. The study findings indicate that Indigenous assessment developers situate measurement disjuncture and culturally specific assessment within larger oppositional structures that include settler colonialism, intellectual elimination, intellectual amplification, and Indigenous sovereignty. The establishment of the disjuncture-response dialectic as a theoretical framework has implications for both research and practice and lead to a generalized disjuncture-response dialectic as a wider theoretical framework that encompasses broader oppositional structures that exist in other fields and disciplines