Cheyenne Joins National Effort to Confront Local Housing Challenges
Published on June 01, 2023
CHEYENNE, Wyoming − The City of Cheyenne is pleased to announce its participation in a national peer learning initiative that will help the city develop solutions to pressing housing challenges. Organized by the Housing Solutions Lab, an interdisciplinary team from the New York University Furman Center, and partnering technical assistance providers, the eight-month-long initiative will support local housing officials as they seek to address urgent housing policy challenges in Cheyenne.
Teams will include senior city officials and staff from housing agencies and non-profit institutional partners, all of whom share a deep understanding of their local housing context and needs. Areas of focus for this year's network cities include financing construction and preservation of affordable housing, exploring anti-displacement strategies, and advancing components of comprehensive housing planning, such as data collection and community engagement.
“Housing is a critical need in our community,” said Mayor Patrick Collins. “Businesses, corporations, and the people who work for them find Cheyenne a desirable place to locate, but the lack of housing supply makes it difficult for them to execute these plans. I believe everyone needs and deserves a place to live, and I hope that we can leverage the combined knowledge and resources made available through Cheyenne’s participation in the Peer Cities Network to create and retain housing.” Cheyenne was selected to participate in the third iteration of the Peer Cities Network, which also includes Jackson, TN; Olympia, WA; Rapid City, SD; and Skokie, IL.
Seth Lloyd, Senior Planner, will lead a team that includes city staff; Brenda Birkle, Executive Director of My Front Door; Dan Dorsch, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity; Brittany Wardle, Project Director of Community Prevention at CRMC; and Amy Spieker, the Director of Community Health and Analysis at CRMC. The group is looking forward to collaborating with leaders from other cities and working with policy experts to develop forward-thinking and creative solutions to meet the evolving housing needs of our diverse populations.
An important component of the lab’s work is hosting housing policy peer networks with cities across the country to foster learning and innovation. While large coastal cities often receive the majority of policy attention for their housing challenges, the Housing Solutions Lab focuses on serving small and midsize cities with populations under 500,000. Participants in the network gain access to expertise in policy and data analysis, policy evaluations, technical assistance, peer support, and help to disseminate policy strategies and outcomes.
“Our Housing Solutions Lab peer cities networks provide incredibly valuable insight into the ways that small and midsize cities are tackling housing instability and other local housing concerns,” Martha Galvez, executive director of the Housing Solutions Lab shared. “At the same time, they offer city leaders the opportunity to learn from peers from across the nation who are grappling with similar housing challenges. Working with Cheyenne and the other network cities will help us identify and share policy solutions that advance racial equity, encourage cross-sector collaboration, and improve housing conditions in cities nationally.”
About the Housing Solutions Lab: The Housing Solutions Lab at the NYU Furman Center works with cities across the country to design, monitor, and evaluate promising local housing policies. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the lab helps cities advance evidence-based local housing policies that promote racial equity, increase access to opportunity, and support residents’ health and well-being. The lab serves cities of all sizes, with a focus on small and midsize cities (those with populations of 50,000 to 500,000).
Learn more about the Housing Solutions Lab
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