At its 40th annual awards program on December 5, the New York Housing Conference and theNational Housing Conference awarded NYU’s Furman Center and its directors, Vicki Been and Ingrid Gould Ellen, the Empire Award for Leadership in Affordable Housing.
This distinguished award recognizes the Furman Center’s excellence in conducting objective, policy-relevant research to help policymakers address the challenges facing neighborhoods in New York City and across the nation. The award was presented by Michael Schill, the founding director of the Furman Center, who is now the Dean of the University of Chicago Law School.
“We are humbled and honored that the Furman Center was selected for this honor,” said Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center and Boxer Family Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. “To be recognized by affordable housing leaders who do such admirable and important work is quite gratifying.”
The Furman Center is an academic research center that studies public policy questions related to land use, affordable housing, and community development. It is an interdisciplinary center jointly housed within the School of Law and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
In 2010, the Furman Center celebrated its 15th anniversary and launched the Moelis Institute for Affordable Housing Policy to improve the effectiveness of affordable housing programs through analysis and evaluation of key policy questions and promising new ideas.
Recent examples of Furman Center and Moelis Institute work include:
• State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2012
• #NYChousing: 10 Issues for NYC’s Next Mayor
• Policy brief series, recent topics have included:
• Buying Sky: The Market for Transferrable Development Rights in New York City
• Investigating the Relationship Between Housing Voucher Use and Crime
• Shifting the Burden: Examining the Undertaxation of Some of the Most Valuable Properties in New York City
• Sandy’s Effects on Housing in New York City
• Investigating the Relationship Between Housing Voucher Use and Crime
• Do Foreclosures Cause Crime?
• Transferable Development Rights Programs: ‘Post’ Zoning?
“In pursuing our mission of providing policy-relevant data and analysis, we are also training the next generation of leaders,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, co-director of the Furman Center and Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at NYU Wagner. “This award is a testament to our student and post-graduate researchers who have contributed so much to all the work the Furman Center produces.”