In Dialogue with Prof. Brian McCabe
Editor’s note: Editorial changes have been made to this interview for brevity and continuity. This interview took place on December 7, 2022.
Brian McCabe is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, as well as the Faculty Director for Research and Scholarship at the Center for Social Justice at Georgetown University. He is currently on leave from Georgetown and has been appointed as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Recently he has also been elected to the position of ANC Commissioner for his neighborhood in the District of Columbia. This interview explores his transition from an academic to a policy position, as well as his outlook on issues relating to housing.
Paul Medvetsky is a junior in the School of Foreign Service and research assistant in the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative.
Paul Medvetsky: We know you are currently on leave because of your new position in HUD; we’d like to know how that transition is going, and some of the new work that you’re encountering in your position.
Brian McCabe: I help to lead the policy development office at HUD, and this work includes much of the research that we do internally at HUD as well as the research that we contract out for other organizations to do. I work on a number of projects, but broadly we are interested in work that expands the priorities of the administration, such as creating opportunities for Black households to expand home ownership and to address the home ownership gap between Black and White households, creating easier access to housing choice voucher programs by thinking about the ways in which landlords are involved in the program as well as what sort of barriers tenants face when searching for housing, working to increase the supply of housing with the expectation that increased housing supply will help to cool prices and lower rents, and make it easier for people to enter the housing market. We also work on a task force on appraisal bias, when homes are for sale.
As it relates to my position at Georgetown, as a researcher much of what you do is focus on one topic, and you tend to become an expert in a smaller field. Before I left, I was doing work on the Housing Choice Voucher Program and how it relates to public housing authorities, and became very knowledgeable about that. One of the biggest differences between academia and working at HUD is that I now work on a lot of different issues at once. So, whereas in academic research you tend to focus on one issue, now I’m called to draw upon my experience to speak on various topics.
PM: How is your new position inspiring future work in some of your previous research concerns, such as in gentrification and home ownership?
BM: I think there have been a few topics for me to research when I come back based on a set of issues that I’ve been working on with my colleagues here which carry some interesting questions. For instance, there is a program called Small Area Fair Market Rents, from which a lot of interesting research questions have opened up. There is a lot of interest in programs to make home ownership more affordable, especially in communities of color. So, there are a lot of questions I can take with me back to Georgetown about how to expand home ownership opportunities; there are a lot of interesting policy questions that are opening new lines of research.
PM: You mentioned interest in projects to increase housing supply; this of course is a contentious issue in different urban contexts. Generally speaking, what do you see as being most pressing in the context of the housing shortage and rising urban populations in the US? How does this inform your positions as well as your academic work on gentrification?
BM: This is an issue where many of the challenges come from local factors, and local constraints on housing and affordability. One of the major obstacles from the HUD perspective is that HUD is a Federal agency, and so we have a limited toolkit when dealing with such an issue where local actors have much more of a say in housing outcomes. This becomes an interesting question around “housing federalism,” or what tools the Federal government has to incentivize local governments to change. Some of these tools include an AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) rule that we are working on, we can issue guidance on best practices and disseminate information on what is going on locally.
As it relates to gentrification research, my previous work is about the politics of homeowners and homeownership, and thinking about why it is that homeowners don’t want things to be built in their communities. While it’s not something that I’m actively working on at the moment, much of the action is at the local level. There is a lot of thinking about best practices; some neighborhoods have changed zoning codes to allow more multi-family homes; we see that idea spreading from city to city. We see cities working to decrease regulatory barriers in order to increase housing supply, which is another concept spreading city to city.
PM: What do you see as HUD’s role, and more specifically your role, in developing HUD’s approach to “housing federalism?”
BM: There are a few things that HUD can do, and much of it has to do with setting policy. For instance, the federal government determines the number of housing vouchers and how much money is available for that. HUD then works with local housing authorities to get that money out there, but it’s on local housing authorities to actually house families. HUD in many ways sets the basic rules of vouchers, and we set the rules that determine how local agencies administer their voucher programs; we can mandate that they do some things, we can roll back regulations, and so on.
We also issue information surrounding best practices and we draw attention to certain issues. Yesterday we held an event about institutional investors and how they are changing the housing marketplace. We issue guidance, and even though it may not be legally binding, people still pay attention to what the agency says. We also do something called “Notice of Funding Opportunities” or NOFOs, which are grants for projects relating to HUD priorities in terms of voucher programs and the research thereof, and similar initiatives the agency can be pursuing at a given time.
PM: Do you see housing vouchers as competing with increased housing supply, when it comes to affordability in housing?
BM: When it comes to affordability and the housing crisis, we need all hands working at the same time. We need to increase housing supply, and the hope there is that doing so will bring housing prices down, and we especially need to increase supply in places where people want to live. We need to increase supply in wealthy neighborhoods, the kinds of places which have kept out lower-income and poorer renters; that’s one part of it.
But we also need to increase rental assistance so that families can have access to it, so that it isn’t just a lottery that people have to go through. I think that if Federal housing policy works right, then we can do all of these at once: we increase supply, we create opportunities for home ownership, we ensure that people have access to vouchers, we fix our public housing units that are falling apart. All these pieces need to come together, and anyone who says “it’s just one or another aspect,” doesn’t know housing policy that well.
So, supply is a big part of this, but even if supply goes down, you still have a lot of renters who can’t afford housing without rental assistance or who can’t access assistance, so we need to increase access to that as well.
PM: Switching gears, we’ve also heard about your recent election to ANC 2F04. First of all, congratulations! Second of all, can you tell us a little bit about what motivated you to run for ANC, and what challenges you expect to face in your neighborhood?
BM: My interest in the ANC is because I believe city government has an important role to play in policymaking, and I hope to shape some policy in issues that I care about and have some expertise in. There are a lot of discussions in the city around the use of public space, neighborhood relations, and affordable housing policy. I think people across the city who have expertise in these and related issues should help out. That’s how I see what the ANC is.
Some others see ANC’s as a form of constituent service. In my view, the DC City Council is already responsible for this; instead, it’s the ANC’s job to listen to neighbors on issues that they care about and which affect the neighborhood. That can be little things, like concerns about a stop sign at a certain intersection; that’s something that a Council Member may not be as attuned to, but it’s an issue that I can raise to the city. Or, it can be a bigger issue. Our ANC includes most of 14th street, and there’s a bigger policy issue around how much we want 14th street to be a road for speeding cars versus how much we want 14th street to be full of street eateries and public life, or mixed-use buildings.
The ANC doesn’t have much legal power in these discussions, but we are given “great weight” by the Council. So, on those issues, it’s a great opportunity for us to weigh in and think about city involvement and raise the voices of the neighborhood to the Council.
I’m also interested in really understanding more about how the city operates as far as local housing issues go. I have good sense from the academic perspective of how the city operates, but less day-to-day knowledge of what agency does what and how I can contribute as well.
PM: What are some housing issues on the hyperlocal level of your ANC?
BM: While the ANC doesn’t have much legal authority over housing issues, it can advise on these issues on a citywide level. Some of the biggest issues locally are historic preservation, as well as increasing density. We’re in a neighborhood where there is already quite a bit of density, and you can build relatively densely on 14th street compared to other parts of the city. In a lot of ways, our neighborhood figures in solving the housing crisis by focusing on ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) in the backs of existing housing, as well as ensuring that vacant properties can be developed into housing quickly.
PM: Do you foresee yourself holding this ANC position for more than your current two-year term? Especially since, through talking to other current and former ANC Commissioners, I have heard of how draining it can be.
BM: I think I’d like to see if I can make it through this term first. I have only just started so I can’t speak to how draining it will be in my case, but I think mileage may vary.
PM: For sure. Thank you so much, it was a pleasure interviewing you!
BM: Thank you!