Bushwhacking A Path
By Junia Howell | August 20, 2025
3 minute read
I glanced back at my brother and smiled. “There’s definitely no trail here.”
We had veered off a well-marked hiking trail in hopes of using what we thought was a smaller access path to get back to our car. For the first few minutes, we seemed to be saving ourselves some time. However, the trail gradually became overgrown. Then, suddenly, we were surrounded by dense bushes, and there was no longer any doubt. This was not a trail.
We retraced our steps, found what seemed to be the path, and proceeded forward. Quickly, we realized this was also not a trail. We gave up trying to find a designated path. Using the position of the sun to orient us, we hiked towards our car, trying to harm as few plants as possible as we traversed through the brush.
As I reflected on our unplanned bushwhacking on the drive home, I realized our backtracking and weaving felt a lot like my recent work.
A Year of Reconfiguring
Each summer, I spend time reflecting on the previous year’s accomplishments and challenges. When I sat down this summer, I was feeling as though not much had been accomplished.
There was a long list of things that had transpired at eruka. We had:
Completed a research brief for the federal reserve
Published the first part of our appraisal application
Submitted three federal court reports (each about 100 pages long)
Designed four new research studies
Created a new dataset on local taxation laws across all 50 states
Applied for federal restricted data access
Built a new multidisciplinary engineering team across four universities
Implemented new hiring and payroll processes
Mapped out a five-year strategic plan
Incorporated in two additional states (Michigan and Maryland)
Revamped our bookkeeping to enable organizational scaling
Received our first major grant
Yet, despite the list of achievements, I still felt as though not much had happened.
Wanderings
I began to wonder why my emotional impression of the year did not seem to match the number of accomplishments. I realized that it was because almost every single item on the list hadn’t gone as planned.
The change in presidential administrations has directly or indirectly impacted all of our research projects and almost all of our funding sources. Internally, we have also experienced growing pains as we have tried to figure out the best processes and personnel for our current needs.
Together, these changes have required retooling and reshuffling. We take a few steps forward only to run into an obstacle and need to turn around to find a new way to proceed.
Charting A Path
We have always known that eruka is charting new pathways. Not only are our housing services brand new, but we are also trying to innovate new ways of implementing structural change.
Our destination remains clear—a just economy that starts with an equitable housing market. We continue to orient ourselves towards that end goal. We will continue to run into thickets and logs, but at each obstacle, we turn around and try a new approach.
For this season, we have decided to focus on developing our educational materials. Our first major product is a book. We hope to tell the story of how current housing and finance services—like the secondary mortgage market, appraisal approaches, and inconsistent interest rates—have created a racially unequal and increasingly unaffordable housing market and what alternatives would be better for all of us.
Laying a new educational foundation will help us create a new path. One we are hopeful you and many others will join us in walking down towards a more just and equitable economy.
