This week, during Public Service Recognition Week of all weeks, my social feeds are filled with tributes and reflections from friends and colleagues leaving federal service because they were either forced out or saw the writing on the wall. We are collectively losing decades upon decades of expertise and knowledge that up until now has always been deployed in our collective best interests. It is difficult to calculate the long term damage we are inflicting by pushing out our public servants. 

And it’s not just people we’re losing—it’s the policies and programs they built. When it comes to housing, the administration appears to seek to dismantle the limited safety net that exists. In the midst of a prolonged housing crisis, the proposed budget would significantly reduce the taxpayer funding for housing vouchers and public housing, as well as programs to house the elderly and people with disabilities, and slow programs that help remove lead from older homes. 

Bruce Katz has described what is currently occurring as a large-scale defederalizing of the republic. In the face of massive retrenchment at the federal level, it remains an open question of whether state, local, and civic organizations can step up to fill the gaps. State and local actors, however, are not sitting still. They continue to innovate and forge ahead. 

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of testifying before the Oregon Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue about the promise of state-level revolving loan funds and how building the capacity of state and local public entities, like public housing authorities and state housing finance agencies, can help communities more readily address the housing crisis. Senator Khanh Pham has introduced legislation (SB 684) to create a new state-level revolving loan fund for construction financing, following the path laid by Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission to leverage their Housing Production Fund for mixed-income public development.

This week the City of Chicago also took a step forward to formally enable the creation of an independent developer of mixed-income housing through their Green Social Housing Ordinance. And earlier this year, 71% of voters in Seattle approved an initiative to fund their newly created social housing developer. By Center for Public Enterprise’s count, there is well over $350M in revolving loan funds for public development, 731 units built and/or under construction, and over 3,000 more units in the pipeline. 

What are we to make of this surge of state and local action? I find it helpful to borrow some of the framing put forth by David McDonald of Queens University, in his essay on the “Curious Case of Public Services.” He charts the evolution of water, sanitation, and electricity provision across time, identifying four distinct periods of public services: early municipalization (1850-1930), nationalization (1930s-1970s), privatizations (1980s), and finally re-municipalizations and renationalizations (post 2000). He makes the point that our conceptions of the “public sector” have always been fluid and there have been numerous ebbs and flows, as well as reimaginings of what public sector participation in society looks like.   

My most optimistic belief is that perhaps these coming years will be an extended period of re-municipalization, a moment for state and local entities to rethink and rebuild their capacity, and a prelude to a future cycle of federalization yet to come. 

There are already faint echoes of patterns we have seen in the past. Catherine Bauer’s descriptions of European social housing helped set the vision for the eventual system of federal public housing brought forth by the Housing Act of 1937. Today there seems to be no shortage of US delegations returning from Vienna or Singapore to once again remind us that there are other options for ensuring our neighbors have a safe, decent, and affordable place to call home. 

Viewed through this lens, the emergence of new public development programs springing up in places like Chattanooga, Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, Syracuse, and Boston are not just a fulfillment of Brandeis’ vision of states as laboratories for democracy, but also jumping off point to think critically about what role the federal government might play to scale the successes of these varied experiments. The capacities and functions our federal agencies will need in this new era may look quite different from those they provide today. It is the type of inquiry that CPE is uniquely suited to explore. 

The other solace I have taken from seeing so many brilliant federal employees sign off this week is their continued conviction to serve the public. I have no doubt they will continue to find ways to contribute to our shared commons and be ready when their nation calls for their talents once again.