Author: Peter Tatian

The Latest Research on Women Homeowners in Our Region

Posted on by Peter Tatian

For Sale SignHomeownership is a topic much in the news these days, but not always for good reasons. Increasing the homeownership rate has been a goal of U.S. housing policy since after World War II.  Homeowners have been seen as contributing to stable communities, and buying homes that appreciate in value has been one of the ways that many Americans have accumulated wealth and ensured themselves of a secure retirement.  The Women’s Foundation has included promoting sustainable homeownership as one of the tools for helping women-headed families achieve economic success.

The national homeownership rate remained stuck at a little over 60 percent for decades, until the housing boom that started in the late 1990s.  New homebuyers flooded the market and lenders competed with each other to make more and bigger mortgages.  Unfortunately, as we now know, much of this lending was ill-advised and unsustainable.  Risky subprime loans were promoted to borrowers who could not afford rising monthly payments.  The over-inflated housing bubble eventually burst, dragging down the rest of the economy with it.  In the aftermath, a rising tide of mortgage foreclosures has eroded the homeownership and wealth gains of the decade, leaving many families and communities vulnerable.

Where does this leave women homeowners in our region today?  At the 6th annual Stepping Stones Research Briefing, being held on Friday, May 20th at the Urban Institute, I will present the latest data on women homeowners in the Washington region and what changes we have seen in this group over the past decade.  What kinds of women are homeowners, and how do their characteristics compare with homebuyers overall?  Did women homeowners gain or lose ground during the recent housing boom and bust?

My co-panelists will examine other aspects of the national and regional housing situation, including who is being affected by foreclosures and the adequacy of local funding for affordable rental housing.  We hope that many of you will be able to join us for this timely and important discussion.

Registration for the research briefing has ended.  If you did not get an opportunity to register, please join us on Twitter.  We’re @thewomensfndtn and will be using the hashtag #SSRB starting at 9am on Friday, May 20th.

Peter Tatian is a senior research associate at The Urban Institute.

2008 Stepping Stones Research Briefing: Calling all presenters!

Posted on by Peter Tatian

We are seeking presenters for the 2008 Stepping Stones Research Briefing to be held the morning of Friday, May 16, 2008 at The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

Washington Area Women’s Foundation and The Urban Institute will co-sponsor the 3rd annual Stepping Stones Research Briefing, highlighting research on issues relevant to low-income, women-headed families. We are looking for researchers who would like to present their research and findings at this year’s research briefing.

Stepping Stones is Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s multi-year initiative focused on increasing economic security and financial independence for low-income, women-headed families in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Stepping Stones Research Briefing provides an opportunity for The Women’s Foundation and its partners to learn about the latest research that can inform their work supporting this population.

The first two research briefings each drew audiences of over 100 people, including representatives from community-based organizations, funders, government agencies, and research institutions.  Information on the 2007 briefing is available here.

Individuals interested in participating in this year’s research briefing should submit an abstract of their research and findings (no more than 1,000 words) to Peter Tatian at The Urban Institute (ptatian@ui.urban.org), by 5:00 pm, Friday, March 7, 2008.

Abstracts should make clear how the research is relevant to issues facing low-income, women-headed families and those who are working to assist these women.

Submissions will be accepted in the following topic areas: financial education and wealth creation; workforce development and business ownership; child care and early education; and, health and safety.

Final selection of presenters will be made by March 21, 2008.

Copies of all presentations, as well as audio recordings of the entire event, will be posted on The Urban Institute and The Women’s Foundation’s Web sites. Presentations from last year’s research briefing can be found here.

Questions about the research briefing should be addressed to Peter Tatian (ptatian@ui.urban.org) at The Urban Institute or Carolee Summers-Sparks at The Women’s Foundation.

Please share this announcement with anyone who may be interested.

For more information on the background of the Stepping Stones Research Briefing, click here.

Peter Tatian is a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities.  Peter plays a crucial role in the development and success of the Stepping Stones Research Briefing.

Research Briefing Recap: How a research briefing was born…

Posted on by Peter Tatian

On May 11, The Urban Institute and Washington Area Women’s Foundation hosted the second annual Stepping Stones Research Briefing, an event bringing together researchers, supporters of The Women’s Foundation, Grantee Partners, and members of the community to discuss some of the latest research on issues facing women-headed families in the Washington region.

The idea of holding a research briefing grew out of a challenge from The Women’s Foundation to encourage and promote public policy research with a “gender lens.”

Since the very beginning, The Women’s Foundation has been committed to basing its strategies and grantmaking on solid information. Starting with The Portrait Project: A Portrait of Women and Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, and continuing with its commitment to informed grantmaking and results-based evaluation, The Women’s Foundation has sought out and used high quality data and research to inform its actions.

And so, the Stepping Stones Research Briefing was born! 

The first two briefings have been a great opportunity to showcase some of the outstanding research being done on issues of importance to women in the region.  But, doing research with a gender perspective means more than just comparing women with men.  As The Urban Institute’s Margery Turner put it in her welcoming remarks, "We did not want to simple-mindedly run everything separately on the basis of gender, but rather to think about the ways in which taking a gender perspective might generate new insights coming out of research and new ideas on the implications of research for policy and practice."

Over the next few weeks, some of the researchers who participated in the research briefing will be writing their own blog entries, sharing with you additional insights from their work.

Their presentations touched on three policy areas:

  • Financial education and wealth creation – Megan Gallagher and Oramenta F. Newsome discussed the opportunities and challenges for increasing wealth in women-headed families through homeownership.
  • Child care and early education – Jesse Bailey, Elaine Weiss, and Gina Adams presented both local and national perspectives on strategies to increase access to quality child care, a vital support for single women with children in the workforce.
  • Microenterprise development – Nancy M. Pindus, Telaekah Brooks, and Roxana Moayedi described the barriers to women trying to start their own businesses, including perspectives from local women entrepreneurs, and some of the assistance that is available to help them succeed in the business world.

Like you, I will be looking forward to hearing more about the exciting research that was presented at the research briefing. 

But, for those of you who can’t wait, you can listen to the entire set of presentations through a series of audio files available on the Urban Institute Web site.

Peter Tatian is a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities.  (The views expressed here are his own and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.)  Peter plays a crucial role in the development and success of the Stepping Stones Research Briefing. 

For an additional perspective on the Stepping Stones Research Briefing, check out Lisa Claudy Fleischman’s post, "Learning Through a Gender Lens."