Howard Husock is the Vice President, Policy Research and the Director of the Manhattan Institute's Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. He was formerly the director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Husock is a prolific writer on housing and urban policy issues.

Husock is most recently the author of The Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake, a collection of his City Journal essays, and of the Reason Foundation study Repairing the Ladder: Toward a New Housing Policy Paradigm. His work has appeared in periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, Public Interest, The New York Times, Policy Review, and Reason. In 1999, Husock co-authored the study "Keeping Kalamazoo Competitive" for the City of Portgage, Michigan, an examination of proposed tax-based sharing and urban growth boundaries for the Kalamazoo metro area.

Husock has been a speaker at housing and urban policy forums sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the Massachusetts Department of Communities and Development, and the Urban Development Institute.

Husock is a former broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker whose work at WGBH-TV, Boston, won three Emmy awards. He is a 1972 graduate of the Boston University School of Public Communication and was a 1981-82 Mid-Career Fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has served as an elected member of the Brookline Town Meeting (1982-90) and member of the town’s Finance Committee.

Howard Husock is married and the father of three sons.

Select Media

• Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, 10-16-08
• Noticias, Univision, 5-14-08
• KABC News, 3-10-08
• Justice Talking, NPR, 02-05-07

Articles/Op-eds

• Government Takeovers: Is Charity Next?, Townhall.com, 10-29-09
• Housing As Busing, Forbes.com, 10-28-09
• Merits of a Virtual Fence, Washington Times, 10-19-09
• The Affordable-Housing Pact: A Flawed Remedy For Suburbs, The Journal News, 08-30-09
• Puffing The Projects, New York Post, 06-08-09
• Eating From the Hand That Bites You, Wall Street Journal, 04-24-09
• First rung on ladder to new life, The Australian News, 03-07-09
• Housing Goals We Can't Afford, The New York Times, 12-11-08
• Nobody Does it Better, Wall Street Journal, 10-24-08
• What Barney Frank Doesn't Grasp: Lending Mandates Hurt The Poor, Investor's Business Daily, 10-09-08
• About the Next Crisis, The New York Sun, 07-29-08
• Don't Blame Rangel for His Rent, The New York Sun, 07-14-08
• Prison To Work, New York Post, 05-20-08
• Leaving the House, The New York Sun, 04-01-08
• More Marriage Penalties, The New York Sun, 11-16-07
• A Bush-Clinton Idea, The New York Sun, 10-24-07
• Post-9/11 Bureaucracy, The New York Sun, 09-12-07
• What's Lost in the Move, Wall Street Journal, 08-31-07
• "Clean for Gene', The New York Sun, 08-08-07
• Pretext for Lawsuits, The New York Sun, 05-01-07
• Subprime Lending Worth Keeping, RealClearPolitics, 03-11-07
• Privatization of Politics, The New York Sun, 02-28-07
• A Standing Oration, Wall Street Journal, 04-28-06
• Privatize the Welfare State, Wall Street Journal, 03-09-06
• Mayor Must Reconsider 'Affordable', The Boston Globe, 01-02-06
• Every Vote Can Be One of Confidence, The Boston Herald, 10-26-04
• Wasted Vote? There's No Such Thing, Los Angeles Times, 10-25-04
• Our Own Private Fannie?, Wall Street Journal, 09-27-04
• Working Poor: Housing Hope, New York Post, 03-02-04
• Public housing developments bring Hope but history says projects call for caution, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 02-15-04
• Credit Where It's Not Due, Wall Street Journal, 02-10-04
• Subsidy is Poor Foundation for Housing, The Boston Herald, 12-09-03
• Public Housing’s Hidden Costs to Cities, The New York Sun, 01-07-03
• Puffing The Projects, New York Post, 00-00-00
• ----------------------------
• Mancur Olson and the Campaign Society, July 2008
• The Assimilation Factor New York Sun, 05-13-08
• Leaving the House New York Sun, 04-01-08
• The Frozen City New York Sun, 12-03-07
• Post-9/11 Bureaucracy New York Sun, 09-12-07
• Sell the Buildings, Too New York Sun, 06-05-07
• Gefilte Economics New York Sun, 04-04-07
• Stock Market for Nonprofits Society Magazine, March/April 2007
• Pelz's Point New York Sun, 01-26-07
• Sins of Omission New York Sun, 10-18-06
• Nonprofit and For-Profit: Blurring the Line The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 6-29-06
• When one door closes Times Picayune, 5-23-06
• Guns Are Butter New York Sun, 2-3-05
• New Ideas People Government inefficiency around the world motivates social entrepreneurs to find another way, Philanthropy Magazine, July/August 2004
• A Better Housing Reform New York Sun, 7-22-04
• A Better Site Visit To learn more, engage potential grantees intellectually, The Philanthropy Roundtable, January/February 2004
• A Housing Scam in Jeopardy New York Sun, 5-7-03
• Public Housing’s Hidden Costs to Cities, New York Sun, 1-7-03

Speeches

• Challenging the Two Americas: New Policies to Fight Poverty, Center on Work, Poverty and Opportunity University of North Carolina Conference, March 23-24, 2006

Books

• America's Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy (Ivan R. Dee, 2003)

City Journal articles

• Housing as Busing, Autumn 2009
• Project Phaseout, 20 September 2009
• Jane Jacobs’s Legacy, 31 July 2009
• Slums of Hope, Winter 2009
• Build Big, Mr. President, 23 January 2009
• Notes on the Election, 7 November 2008
• The Financial Crisis and the CRA, 30 October 2008
• Wall Street Explodes, 1 October 2008
• Uplifting the “Dangerous Classes”, Winter 2008
• Sin of Omission, 13 November 2007
• A Grand Tax-Code Bargain, 13 July 2007
• The Compassion Gap, 18 January 2007
• Liberal Blinders, 8 September 2006
• Jane Jacobs, 1916–2006, 27 April 2006 (updated from Winter 1994)
• Why Hollywood Loves Johnny Cash—and not Merle Haggard, 13 January 2006
• New Philanthropists Talk Left, Act Right, Winter 2006
• America’s Most Successful Communist, Summer 2005
• Today, Guns Are Butter, 31 January 2005
• Reining in Housing Vouchers, 26 October 2004
• The Anti-war Hero, 30 July 2004
• The Housing Reform That Backfired, Summer 2004
• The Real Miracle, Spring 2004
• Hope on Housing Policy, 11 February 2004
• When They Say “Community,” Watch Your Wallet, 2 May 2003
• Real Public Housing Reform, Spring 2003
• Real Public Housing Reform, 12 February 2003
• How Public Housing Harms Cities, Winter 2003
• Crime-Wave Blues, Autumn 2002
• Housing Humbug, Autumn 2002
• Lion in a Jungle, Spring 2002
• A Public Housing Victory, 29 March 2002
• Don’t Hike Gotham’s Cab Fares, 26 February 2002
• Adios, San Fernando Valley, Autumn 2001
• Don’t Let CDCs Fool You, Summer 2001
• The Frozen Neighborhood, Autumn 2000
• Let’s End Housing Vouchers, Autumn 2000
• How Charlotte Is Revolutionizing Public Housing, Spring 2000
• The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities, Winter 2000
• A Model Park, Autumn 1999
• New York’s Unsung Taxi Triumph, Autumn 1999
• Appalled by Sprawl?, Spring 1999
• How the Agency Saved My Father, Spring 1999
• Let’s Break Up the Big Cities, Winter 1998
• We Don’t Need Subsidized Housing, Winter 1997
• Enterprising Van Drivers Collide with Regulation, Winter 1996
• It's Time to Take Habitat for Humanity Seriously, Summer 1995
• Urban Iconoclast: Jane Jacobs Revisited, Winter 1994
• New Frontiers in Affordable Housing, Spring 1993
• Subsidizing Discrimination at Starrett City, Winter 1992