WASHINGTON (September 23, 2024) – The U.S. general election is 43 days away and housing affordability has quickly become a key issue among voters this election season. Many aspiring homebuyers are pushing the presidential candidates to do something about rising home prices and high mortgage interest rates. Renters are also feeling the pinch, where rent has skyrocketed in recent years. It’s a key issue among young voters in particular.
Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to offer insight, analysis and commentary. If you would like to speak with an expert, please contact GW Media Relations at [email protected].
Vanessa Perry, interim dean of the GW School of Business, is a professor of marketing, strategic management and public policy at GW and non-resident Fellow of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her research is focused on consumers in housing and financial markets, marketplace discrimination, and public policy interventions and she has studied closely the homeownership gap in the U.S. Perry previously worked for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Emily Benfer, associate professor of clinical law and director of the Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic at GW, is a nationally recognized expert for advocacy and clinic practice in health justice, housing policy, environmental law and access to justice. Benfer specializes in housing; including environmental conditions such as lead and mold, eviction and social determinants of health. Benfer is also a visiting research collaborator with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University where she conducts legal mapping and policy surveillance of the U.S. eviction and housing policy and the federal, state and local level.
Hilary Silver is a professor of sociology, international affairs, and public policy/public administration at the George Washington University. Silver has served as a consultant to major international organizations, including the World Bank, United Nations, IADB, and International Labor Organization, on issues of social exclusion and inclusion, and to the US Government and the State of Rhode Island on racial disparities. Silver’s expertise and research focuses on social/anti-poverty policies in the US and around the world, migrant integration and inequality in Europe, social exclusion, homelessness, and poverty.
Tara Sinclair is the director of the GW Center for Economic Research, which focuses on economic forecasting. Her research models, explains, and forecasts macroeconomic fluctuations and trends. She also evaluates forecasts, particularly with respect to their role in policy and decision-making. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in macroeconomics and econometrics. In 2022-2024 she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomics in the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury. Tara can discuss rent inflation and why home prices continue to outpace paychecks.
Bethany Hamilton is the director for the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. She can discuss the high cost of housing, homelessness and evictions and the connection to public health.
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