Breathe Easy, Move Up: AffordableHousing.com's New Maps Show Renters Where Opportunity and Clean Air Collide

Yahoo

27-06-2025

Platform combines Opportunity Atlas economic mobility data with air-quality insights, providing renters comprehensive insights to choose neighborhoods with brighter futures
BOCA RATON, Fla., June 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- AffordableHousing.com announced today the launch of pioneering new mapping tools designed to provide renters, especially low-income families and the public housing agencies that serve them, with unprecedented insights into neighborhood economic opportunities and environmental health. AffordableHousing.com is notably the first and only housing platform to integrate economic mobility maps based on The Opportunity Atlas alongside neighborhood air-quality indicators.
The primary filter tool, "Where Kids Grow Up to Earn More," clearly shows average earnings in adulthood for individuals raised in each neighborhood (Census tract), specifically those born between 1978 and 1983. This feature leverages data from Harvard University's Opportunity Atlas, an authoritative resource demonstrating the critical influence neighborhoods have on children's long-term economic outcomes.
"We're excited to see the Opportunity Atlas helping renters better understand how neighborhoods can shape their children's financial futures. By making this data accessible during the housing search, families gain meaningful context about how their choice of where to live may influence long-term outcomes for their children—ensuring that housing decisions are better informed and aligned with the goals they hold for their family," said Raj Chetty, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the Director of Opportunity Insights.
Complementing the economic mobility maps, AffordableHousing.com also introduces an Air Quality score to identify neighborhood air pollution relative to nearby areas, helping renters to make informed choices about the environmental health of potential homes.
While other real estate platforms have incorporated climate-risk data, AffordableHousing.com uniquely offers economic mobility insights derived from The Opportunity Atlas. By providing both environmental and economic data, AffordableHousing.com offers renters comprehensive information critical to making well-informed housing decisions.
The launch of these innovative tools is part of an ongoing collaborative study with Learning Collider, an organization dedicated to enhancing social mobility through evidence-based research. This partnership previously resulted in the successful introduction of AffordableHousing.com's School Quality filter, demonstrably leading families to select neighborhoods with higher-rated schools.
"Economic mobility insights, paired with environmental health data, represent a major step forward for families and communities," said AffordableHousing.com Founder & CEO Richard Cupelli. "We built these maps because renters deserve more than just a roof––they deserve real choices. Now, families can see which neighborhoods open the most doors, not just which ones have a vacancy."
Peter Bergman from UT Austin and Learning Collider added, "Our ongoing research underscores the immense potential of providing clear, actionable economic mobility data. Building on the impactful results from our earlier school quality collaboration, we anticipate similarly positive outcomes from these new tools."
AffordableHousing.com's new mapping layers help public housing authorities and Housing Choice Voucher families identify neighborhoods that pair stronger economic-mobility prospects with healthier environmental conditions.
AffordableHousing.com is the first major housing-search platform to overlay Opportunity Atlas tract-level mobility data with neighborhood-level air-quality information. This dual-layer view gives households clearer, side-by-side insights to support moves that foster long-term health and upward mobility.
HUD's Housing Mobility Toolkit lists the Opportunity Atlas as one of the "pre-established indices" that public housing agencies may adopt when defining opportunity areas and assembling Housing Choice Voucher briefing materials, underscoring the dataset's suitability for mobility programs.
"In our work with low-income families across the country, we hear time and again that what they most hope for is to live in safe, healthy neighborhoods with access to thriving schools. Housing mobility programs ensure that these families can choose where to live, and the new tools will make it easier for them, and for all renters, to find the homes they want." said Valerie Rosenberg, Executive Director of Mobility Works, a non-profit organization that provides technical assistance, training, advocacy and field-building on housing mobility.
About AffordableHousing.com
AffordableHousing.com is transforming the U.S. affordable housing landscape, making it easier for families to find a safe, stable place to call home. By unifying fragmented systems and streamlining information, AffordableHousing.com removes barriers to accessing government housing programs, making a complicated process simple and accessible for everyone. As the nation's largest online affordable housing marketplace, AffordableHousing.com helps renters secure affordable homes, property owners fill vacancies quickly, and housing agencies operate more efficiently with enhanced compliance.
About Opportunity Insights
Opportunity Insights is a non-partisan research and policy institute based at Harvard University, co-founded by economists Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Nathaniel Hendren. The organization uses large-scale data to study economic mobility and identify barriers that prevent children from achieving upward income mobility. Through tools like the Opportunity Atlas and partnerships with local governments, Opportunity Insights translates academic research into practical policy solutions aimed at expanding opportunity and reducing poverty across the United States.
About Learning Collider
Learning Collider is a research organization focused on improving social and economic mobility through evidence-based interventions and collaborations. Their previous work with AffordableHousing.com, notably the School Quality filter project, demonstrated measurable success in helping families make better-informed housing choices.
About Mobility WorksMobility Works is a nonprofit consortium founded in 2016 and incorporated in 2021 that leads the national Housing Mobility Network, offering technical assistance, training, and advocacy to help low–income families use Housing Choice Vouchers to move into high–opportunity neighborhoods. It collaborates with public housing agencies, nonprofits, and stakeholders—especially through its flagship technical assistance program—to design and implement mobility initiatives, from opportunity mapping and landlord outreach to policy reform and post-move support. The network also facilitates peer learning and capacity building via its annual Housing Mobility Training Institute, national conferences, webinars, and biennial overviews of mobility programs across the U.S.
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SOURCE AffordableHousing.com
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