Virginia Researchers Link Housing And Education, Offer Policy Insights Through New Website

By Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

September 18, 2025

Over the summer, the University of Richmond launched the Live and Learn website, a new feature of a study examining the connection between housing segregation and educational inequality in Richmond and its surrounding areas released last year.

The new interactive site will help inform educators, experts, and policymakers about the local links between housing and education.

Michelle Quach, a recent graduate from Richmond, was one of the students who worked on the project. The Henrico County native helped with the visualizations and came away from the experience feeling “grateful,” she said.

“It was really cool for me, specifically to have the opportunity to work on this project, especially as an undergrad,” said Quach, who graduated with a double major in health studies and geography and a minor in data science. I think I was the youngest person in the room at times, and it was still really cool to be able to be part of these conversations and to understand a little bit more about where I grew up and where I came from.”

Some of the visualizations revealed unequal educational opportunities and outcomes for some Central Virginians, which were linked to housing segregation and funding disparities. Researchers focused on eight localities in the metro Richmond area: Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, New Kent, Goochland, Powhatan, and Charles City.

The second release of the study, based on data collected between 2011 and 2024, revealed several notable data points that showed the region becoming more racially and economically diverse, Black students facing racially disproportionate discipline and being excluded from school at twice their enrollment rate, and schools in higher-poverty areas having higher percentages of inexperienced or provisionally licensed teachers.

Researchers also found that four school divisions — Charles City, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Richmond, all with a majority of students of color — had inadequate funding to meet the national average assessment scores for their students.

Tom Shields — one of the co-authors of the report — said that researchers have known that localities are often segregated by race and income, but the pairing of the data was able to reveal how zoning also “creates segregated schools.”

The report lays out a series of policy recommendations to address housing and educational equity at the state and local levels. Lawmakers have already been working on some of these ideas.

Researchers recommend that lawmakers remove education barriers by creating more regional school choice options, helping students learn multiple languages by teaching them in two languages, and combining school districts.

Another idea is to address equity concerning resources by allocating more funds to schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged students, offering incentives for top teachers to work in schools that need them most, and improving how the state measures school success.

Over the past three years, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, state lawmakers and education leaders have taken major steps to improve public K-12 education through investments and reform efforts. However, what remains unsettled is overhauling the funding formula, which determines how schools receive their funds.

Va. lawmakers prepare to overhaul decades-old school funding formula

Under the researchers’ list of housing policy ideas, one recommendation is to fund the 5,000 Families program. The idea is a bipartisan state budget amendment that Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, and Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield, have carried.

If implemented, the program would provide rental relief to certain families with school-age children to prevent displacement during academic years.

Researchers also suggested more robust funding for Richmond’s Eviction Diversion Program, and adjusting local zoning to allow more flexibility on the types of housing that are allowed to be built. They recommended redrawing the school zone lines to “help break the neighborhood-school segregation link,” the study states.

Zoning is a local issue that city councils and boards of supervisors have authority over, but state lawmakers have proposed ways to incentivize stagnant boards to allow for increased density in certain areas. The legislation advanced through this year’s legislative session for a time before eventually being voted down.

“We’ve been relying on localities to do this for long enough,” HOME policy director Laura Dobbs recently told The Mercury, of localities’ efforts to support affordable housing. “They just aren’t going far enough or not keeping up with the demand.”

The organization was involved in crafting the report and interactive website and has lent its policy insights to state lawmakers when working on legislation.

Shields concurs that “state laws are where we could get a lot more bang for our buck.”

But there are still local tools to utilize, he added.

For instance, the report recommends that the Richmond region adopt small area fair market rents that could allow Housing Choice Voucher administrators to calculate payment standards at the zip-code level rather than the metro levels. The idea is that it would help ensure payment standards reflect local markets and help voucher-holders find homes.

In the meantime, nonprofit organizations like Housing Opportunities Made Equal, have stepped in to take on discrimination cases for voucher-holders or help them find homes when they struggle to land one.

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Another recommendation was a bill that cleared the legislature this year before meeting Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto pen. Carried by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, the bill would have allowed localities a right of first refusal when subsidized housing is up for sale in order to help preserve it from becoming market rate.

Youngkin explained his veto as an “intrusion” on local government. If such a bill passes the legislature again next year, gubernatorial candidates Winsome Earle-Sears or Abigail Spanberger could potentially sign or veto it.

The study team consisted of researchers from the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Partnership for Housing Affordability, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia and the Commonwealth Institute.

This story was originally published by the Virginia Mercury. For more stories from the Virginia Mercury, visit Virginia Mercury.com.