The Princeton Public Library has recruited authorities on the subject from the tri-state area and beyond to discuss the right to stable shelter in its hybrid “Housing Justice Forum” on Saturday, December 10, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
By providing context on the past as well as how that information can possibly affect the future, these two panels are scheduled at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively, with a noon lunch included for in-person attendees. Afterwards, there will be an “action fair” for networking.
Registration for the free event is required, closes on December 5, and is available online at the Princeton Public Library website, princetonlibrary.org. Attendees can choose whether to participate in person at PPL’s Community Room or remotely through Zoom.
“How Did We Get Here?” illuminates the housing crisis through experts from Princeton University, as well as New York University, with the latter institution including panelist Jacob William Faber, an associate professor of sociology and public service, as well as moderator Thomas J. Sugrue, a professor of social and cultural analysis and history.
Sugrue, who has books published with Princeton University Press (2010’s “Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race,” 1996’s “The Origins of the Urban Housing Crisis,” also reprinted in a new edition Princeton Classic in 2014), is also the director of the NYU Cities Collaborative, which connects “faculty, students, activists, policymakers, and the public to foster dialogue and support research” on urban issues.
From the Princeton area, Ellora Derenoncourt is not only an assistant professor of economics, but the founding director of the Program for Research on Inequality (PRI), which, according to the Princeton Economics website, was formed to “elevate and facilitate the study of inequality across the field of economics.”
Douglas S. Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, is also the current president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Massey’s research has spanned books such as his most recent from the Princeton University Press in 2013, “Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb,” described as “a close look at the aftereffects of the Mount Laurel affordable housing decision” and co-authored with Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey.
The 1 p.m. panel, “What Can We Do?” calls attention to “various contemporary solutions being explored and the interplaying factors among them — especially in the Princeton area.” This includes Sara Bronin, a recent addition to the faculty at Cornell University. The professor was nominated in June by President Biden to be the chair of the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an appointment awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Other figures include Jean Pierre Brutus, “a senior counsel in the Economic Justice Program” for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, a Newark-based organization. He is joined by longtime executive director of New Jersey Future, Peter Kasabach.
The moderator, Matt Mleczko, applies his research in housing inequality and policy to work at Princeton University as “a doctoral candidate in population studies and social policy, and a prize fellow in the social sciences.” As a member of the Princeton Affordable Housing Committee, Mleczko is also a graduate student researcher with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, which “creates data, interactive tools, and research to help neighbors and policymakers understand the eviction crisis.”
Then, at 2 p.m., the Saturday event concludes with the action fair, which the Princeton Public Library website explains as supplying an ample amount of time for attendees to make connections, also giving them “access to a resource guide listing local organizations and initiatives” for better understanding.
