#157 Spring 2009 — Foreclosure Crisis

Oprah Donates to Newark Nonprofits and Schools

A handful of Newark, New Jersey, nonprofits received some much-needed relief in a time of reduced donations from a surprising benefactor — Oprah Winfrey. In February, the talk show host […]

A handful of Newark, New Jersey, nonprofits received some much-needed relief in a time of reduced donations from a surprising benefactor — Oprah Winfrey.

In February, the talk show host and media mogul donated a combined $2 million in charitable gifts to Newark’s Apostles’ House, Robert Treat Academy, St. Benedict’s Preparatory School and Integrity House, a drug rehabilitation program building transitional housing for women, and Newark Now, a community support organization. All the organizations received $500,000 except for Newark Now, a nonprofit founded by Mayor Cory Booker, which received $250,000. The donations, first reported in The Star-Ledger, resulted from a list of organizations in need of additional funding provided to Winfrey by Newark Now.

OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE

  • The Continued Importance of Fair Lending in the Age of Obama

    June 4, 2009

    Housing discrimination continues to plague the market, as does the myth that the housing crisis resulted from extending homeownership and home mortgage credit to historically underserved groups: minority families. Even with the Obama administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan and, within that, the Making Home Affordable program, minority groups continue to suffer ongoing discrimination and fair housing violations.

  • Can the Silk City Forge its Next Industrial Revolution?

    June 4, 2009

    New Jersey's Paterson is among the nation's oldest planned industrial cities, but it has fallen on hard times since the once-booming silk industry there declined in the latter half of the 20th century. Much of the industry in this city of 150,000 has since left, but now a geological attraction once envisioned by Alexander Hamilton as something that could be harnessed for industrial might, is fully protected, and could be channeled, this time, for its community-building potential.

  • Organizing Lessons from Allen Parkway Village

    June 4, 2009

    When Lenwood E. Johnson, the son of Texas sharecroppers, moved into Houston’s Allen Parkway Village project housing, the Freedmen’s Town section of the city had yet to be designated historic, […]