Building a Housing Justice Framework

Having a safe, affordable, and quality place to call home is fundamental to individual, family, and community life. Across the US, however, people and communities experience high rates of housing insecurity, a reality fueled by historical and ongoing discriminatory practices and racist housing policies. To remedy these and other inequities, a growing number of advocates, organizers, policymakers, and researchers are calling for a structural overhaul of the country's housing system. They aim to dismantle the factors that contribute to housing instability, so that everyone—regardless of their race, income, gender identity, disability, and/or sexuality—can live in a safe, affordable home.This report explores the concept of "housing justice" as a framework for confronting and repairing housing inequality and community harm on a structural level. We unpack key principles and precedents of the housing justice framework, arriving at an initial working definition of housing justice: "Increasing access to safe, affordable housing and promoting wealth-building by confronting historical and ongoing harms and disparities caused by structural racism." Altogether, this framework aims to strengthen our toolkit for addressing housing injustice, a social problem that impacts all systems and that is rooted in historical and current structural racism

Master Leasing in Los Angeles: Opportunities and Limitations

On any given night in 2020, nearly 50,000 people endured unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County. In response to stagnating progress on placing people in housing, local and statewide agencies have been experimenting with various distinct strategies commonly referred to as "master leasing." In practice, these master leasing strategies vary dramatically in terms of legal responsibilities, opportunities, limitations, and implementation costs. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation engaged the Urban Institute to explore the feasibility and potential infrastructure of a master leasing strategy in Los Angeles. This report categorizes different master leasing strategies, discusses their associated opportunities and limitations, examines potential infrastructure models, and provides a financial framework for understanding costs

Inhabiting Change: Roles for Philanthropy and Reducing and Redressing Housing Segregation

Racial segregation in housing is a root cause of inequalities in health, safety, education, employment, wealth and income that have long concerned US grantmakers. This brief provides the historical and policy context to inform funding for nonprofit organizations working to redress and reduce housing segregation. We outline several ways for funders to support work in this overlooked field

Reporting of Drug Trial Funding Sources and Author Financial Conflicts of Interest in Cochrane and non-Cochrane Meta-analyses: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: A previous study found that 2 of 29 (6.9%) meta-analyses published in high-impact journals in 2009 reported included drug trials’ funding sources, and none reported trial authors’ financial conflicts of interest (FCOIs) or industry employment. It is not known if reporting has improved since 2009. Our objectives were to (1) investigate the extent to which pharmaceutical industry funding and author-industry FCOIs and employment from included drug trials are reported in meta-analyses published in high-impact journals; and (2) compare current reporting with results from 2009. Methods: We searched PubMed (January 2017 – October 2018) for systematic reviews with meta-analyses including ≥ 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patented drugs. We included 3 meta-analyses published January 2017-October 2018 from each of 4 high-impact general medicine journals, high-impact journals from 5 specialty areas, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, as in the previous study. Results: Among 29 meta-analyses reviewed, 13 of 29 (44.8%) reported the funding source of included trials compared to 2 of 29 (6.9%) in 2009, a difference of 37.9% (95% confidence interval, 15.7% to 56.3%); this included 7 of 11 (63.6%) from general medicine journals, 3 of 15 (20.0%) from specialty medicine journals, and 3 of 3 (100%) Cochrane reviews. Only 2 of 29 meta-analyses (6.9%) reported trial author FCOIs, and none reported trial author-industry employment. Protocol Publication: (https://osf.io/8xt5p/) Limitations: We examined only a relatively small number of meta-analyses from selected high-impact journals and compared results to a similarly small sample from an earlier time period. Conclusions: Reporting of drug trial sponsorship and author FCOIs in meta-analyses published in high-impact journals has increased since 2009 but is still suboptimal. Standards on reporting of trial funding described in the forthcoming revised PRISMA statement should be adapted and enforced by journals to improve reporting

'Now She's Just an Ordinary Baby': The Birth of IVF in the British Press.

The birth of Louise Brown, the first baby born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in England in 1978 attracted worldwide media attention. This article examines how the contemporary British news media framed this momentous event. Drawing on the example of the Daily Mail's coverage, it focuses on the way in which the British press depicted Louise's parents' emotions, marital relationship and social class in a context of political and economic crisis and resurgent social conservatism. The British press framed the Browns as ordinary and respectable, noting their work ethic, family orientation and moral values. The article argues that the human-interest angle that the press used to represent this story created a dominant narrative in which IVF was simply a means of helping married heterosexual couples have babies and that this established a frame for subsequent depictions of IVF, as well as contributing to its rapid normalisation

The Role of BRAF Mutation and p53 Inactivation during Transformation of a Subpopulation of Primary Human Melanocytes

Melanocytic nevi frequently harbor oncogenic BRAF mutations, but only a minority progress to melanoma. In human melanocytes, persistent BRAFV600E expression triggers oncogene-induced senescence, which implies that bypass of oncogene-induced senescence is necessary for malignant transformation of melanocytes. We show that a subpopulation of primary human melanocytes with persistent expression of BRAFV600E do not enter oncogene-induced senescence, but instead survive despite heightened MAPK activity. Disruption of the p53 pathway using short-hairpin RNA initiated rapid growth of these V600E+ melanocytes in vitro. The resultant V600E+/p53sh melanocytes grew anchorage-independently in soft agar, formed pigmented lesions reminiscent of in situ melanoma in artificial skin reconstructs, and were weakly tumorigenic in vivo. Array comparative genomic hybridization analysis demonstrated that the transformed melanocytes acquired a substantial deletion in chromosome 13, which encodes the Rb1 tumor suppressor gene. Gene expression profiling study of nevi and melanomas showed that p53 target genes were differentially expressed in melanomas compared with nevi, suggesting a dysfunctional p53 pathway in melanoma in vivo. In summary, these data demonstrate that a subpopulation of melanocytes possesses the ability to survive BRAFV600E-induced senescence, and suggest that p53 inactivation may promote malignant transformation of these cells