Matthew Brian Hersh
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.
“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...
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...
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.
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....
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...
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;...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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.
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...
FHA Expands Disposition Program
HUD announced today that it will make 3,500 distressed loans available through its Distressed Asset Stabilization Program—part of an expansion to the...
What Are the Goals of Community Planning?
What are our priorities when it comes to neighborhood planning? According to the results of a public opinion poll...
Is Demo a Good Use of AG Settlement Funds?
While the $25 billion national mortgage settlement is widely viewed as a “first step” toward fixing a larger system...
Peoria LISC
What does it mean when the country's largest community development intermediary opens its first new office in 15 years in...
Preserving and Improving Affordable 2- to 4-unit Properties
In a Shelterforce–hosted roundtable discussion of leading research and policy experts to looking at what makes housing affordable and how the nationwide housing crisis...
The Challenge of Scattered-Site Rental Management
In the winter 2011 issue of Shelterforce we looked at the difficult challenge behind managing scatttered-site rental housing by nonprofits, and...
Going Upstream, Bulk Note Purchase Programs Look to Keep Families in Their Homes
The latest issue of Shelterforce examines a handful of short sale and bulk note purchase programs—Second Opportunity of Arizona, the Mortgage Resolution Fund, Oregon's Loan...
Housing the Political Agenda
It's official, at least it is to you. In order to get housing on the agenda this election cycle,...