Save the date for our next webinar!
On July 1, Housing Forward Virginia is hosting From Data to Decision: Mapping Housing & Climate Equity, a 75-minute conversation about what it actually takes to turn raw data into smarter housing and climate policy.
What the Webinar Is About
Good housing policy starts with good data. But knowing what to measure — and what to do once you have it — is harder than it sounds.
Mapping tools and data visualization have gotten remarkably powerful in recent years. Local planners and advocates can now layer zoning data, Census figures, and environmental justice indicators in ways that bring to the surface patterns that no single dataset can reveal on its own. That’s genuinely useful. It’s also genuinely complicated.
This session doesn’t pretend otherwise. The goal is practical insight: what these tools can do, what they can’t, and how communities are putting them to work right now.
Who’s Speaking
The session features two researchers doing applied work at the intersection of housing, climate, and data.
Claudia Aiken is the Director of New Research Partnerships at the NYU Furman Center and Housing Solutions Lab. The Housing Solutions Lab at the NYU Furman Center helps small and midsize cities plan, launch, and evaluate evidence-based local housing policies that advance racial equity, increase access to opportunity, and improve long-term health and wellbeing for residents. Claudia previously led the Housing Initiative at Penn, where her research focused on rental assistance program design and the racial and ethnic disparities that shape who can access housing programs. She has consulted on municipal housing planning processes in Philadelphia and Cleveland, and holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania.
Alex Fella is the Principal of CityWork, a research consultancy based in Norfolk that translates spatial and social data into interactive maps, dashboards, and policy briefs. His portfolio spans housing affordability, climate adaptation, economic development, food access, and public health for governments, nonprofits, and private organizations across the Mid-Atlantic and Canada. His forthcoming book, Liquid Cities: Climate, Capital, and the Crisis of Affordable Housing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026), examines how climate adaptation plans are reshaping housing markets and who gets left out. Alex also consults with the United Nations as a Housing Policy Specialist, focusing on the financialization of rental housing and climate adaptation
What You’ll Walk Away With
The session covers a lot of practical ground. Attendees will see a live demonstration of how zoning patterns correlate with vehicle miles traveled and carbon emissions in Virginia: showing how decades-old land use decisions show up in today’s climate data. Hear how to layer multiple data sources to surface equity patterns that wouldn’t be visible otherwise, and what tools are available right now for planners, advocates, and researchers.
There’s also space built in for honest conversation about what data cannot do. In our experience, this is often just as valuable.
Who Should Come
This one is designed for people working at the crossroads of housing, land use, and climate: local planners, housing advocates, climate and sustainability professionals, researchers, and students. If you’ve ever tried to make an evidence-based case for better housing policy and hit a wall, this is worth your time.
From Data to Decision: Mapping Housing & Climate Equity takes place on July 1, 2026 from 12pm-1:15pm.