Matthew Brian Hersh

84 Posts

Matthew Brian Hersh served as senior editor at Shelterforce from March 2008 to October 2012. He studied English at Rutgers University and has spent his professional career in journalism, policy, and politics.
Housing

“Political Lift”: An Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison

As we head into the election home stretch, pieces of Rep. Keith Ellison’s interview with Shelterforce in our latest issue keep coming to mind. Ellison is both a committed advocate for […]

Policy

Rep. Keith Ellison

In the spring of 2008, as the country plunged into the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Keith Ellison, a freshman Democrat representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district, took to […]

Organizing

Direct Action Governing

When community developers and organizers get elected to office, how do they preserve the community-minded sensibility and ethos that got them there? What lessons can they bring back to their colleagues on the ground? Shelterforce sat down with a cadre of organizers- turned–New York City Council members to find out how to bolster the bridge between the city and City Hall.

Equity

Big News for Pennsylvania Voting Rights

You can add Pennsylvania to the list of states to have a voter ID law shelved, at least for now. The decision came after the state's supreme court instructed a […]

Providing Tools to Age in Place

A bill that would establish a program to ensure support services for neighborhoods with high concentrations of seniors cleared a key hurdle in the New Jersey Legislature this week, in […]

Communities

Where the Community Comes Together

There’s a place in every community where people congregate to exchange ideas, socialize, pray, engage, or just plain hang out. Those places aren’t home; they’re not work; they’re the point […]

Neighborhood Change

Cory Booker’s #Neighborhood

If there was some radio silence on Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker's Twitter feed on Tuesday, it was only because he was delivering the Democratic Party platform as the DNC […]

Equity

Good News for Voting Rights

A three-judge panel blocked Texas's voter ID law today, stating the law would curb voter turnout and would foist “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor.” The ruling, according to The […]

Housing

7 Questions Candidates Need to Answer on the Housing Crisis

Aside from Romney VP pick Paul Ryan proposing to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, any talk of fixing the ongoing housing crisis has been notably absent in 2012. This […]

Community Control

Olympic Redevelopment in London: Displacement or Empowerment?

The Olympics are filled with fascinating storylines that illustrate an athlete’s life-long goal of competing at the games—often overcoming adversity in the process. But there’s always another story quietly taking […]

Homeownership

Interview with Senator Robert Menendez

Shelterforce talks with Sen. Robert Menendez about the ongoing federal response to the housing crisis, the Sustainable Communities Initiative, the Occupy movement, and more.

Communities

Urban Farms and Growing Communities

Urban farming has long served as  a way for distressed communities to turn blighted land into socially and economically productive community spaces—a means of stabilization illustated in Alex Kotlowitz’s report in […]