Engagement Through the What Works Collaborative

Engagement Through the What Works Collaborative

Erika Poethig, Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research Since the late 1960s when we were two offices, Research and Technology and Policy Analysis and Evaluation, we have framed and contributed to the knowledge base of this country’s complex web of housing and urban development challenges. There are so many gems in PD&R’s new digital archives of past evaluations, demonstrations and reports posted online that I’m struck by the sheer volume of significant research supported over the decades. For instance, we recently uploaded a series of reports on the 1970s Federal Experimental Housing Allowance Program that laid the foundation for one of the most important housing subsidy programs in our nation’s history, the Housing Choice Voucher program.

Throughout the years, our staff has worked closely with some of the country’s best housing scholars, with support from key stakeholders, to produce this volume of research and analysis. PD&R’s continual engagement has undoubtedly helped shape the direction of research investments the field has undertaken over the past forty years. However, when I joined HUD at the beginning of this Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development, the National Academy of Sciencies had recently published its report to Congress assessing PD&R’s research capacity. A specific quote from that report has motivated much of our outreach work in PD&R over the past three years:

“PD&R’s engagement with the broader housing and urban policy and research communities falls disappointingly short. The funded research agenda is developed with limited input from outside the department." ¹

Together, leadership and PD&R’s talented staff have initiated new and innovative ways for PD&R to engage with researchers and practitioners across the nation to create a circular feedback loop—a loop through which the field influences PD&R’s research investments and PD&R shapes other research in the field supported by philanthropy and others. Former Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic touched upon this when he wrote about our revamped process for creating PD&R’s long-term research agenda in a recent Assistant Secretary’s Message. Similarly another effort that helped jumpstart our Research Road Map is the What Works Collaborative (WWC).

Between the Bush and Obama Administrations, major philanthropic institutions developed and funded the WWC, a partnership of research institutions that conducted timely research to inform the development of evidence-based policy decisions during this transition period. In its first phase, the Collaborative asked PD&R staff to help identify HUD’s immediate policy research needs, and produced a number of articles in support of major policy initiatives. These articles span a breadth of topics such as housing finance, sustainability, distressed suburbs, and housing mobility, just to name a few.

In its second phase, PD&R leadership and analysts provided input to the Collaborative as it developed long-term, field-building research agendas in five major topical areas: Housing as a Platform for Overcoming Social and Economic Distress, Housing Markets, Housing Finance, Successful Neighborhoods, and the Intersection of Place and the Economy. The first products of this phase were five framing papers used to inform day-long discussions with practitioners and researchers from across the country. The work of the Collaborative culminated when the partners expanded upon the framing papers to create research agendas that summarize our collective knowledge within these domains of study as well as the gaps where new investments, federal or private, may have the biggest impact. To maintain the momentum of these agendas, the funders supported nine incubator projects that serve as stepping stones to larger demonstrations that fit within the broad research agendas and have influenced our own thinking in PD&R.

For more information, I invite you to read the executive summary of these agendas and to dive deeper into the issues here.

In closing, I’d like to note that in the same report to Congress on PD&R’s research capacity, the National Research Council commented how it “envisions PD&R as… shaping the focus of the national research community in the social, engineering, and environmental sciences on both housing and urban development.” I couldn’t agree more with this vision. In fact, more than ever, I believe this vision is actually coming into focus. We hope that you agree.