Matthew Brian Hersh

326 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

NJ’s COAH: Finding Common (and Vacant) Ground

As New Jersey’s Council on Affordable Housing, or COAH, continues to defend its plan to use a growth-share model to encourage towns to build working class and affordable housing, we’re […]

Housing

ACORN’s Home Defenders

Should have posted this sooner, but here’s interesting news from ACORN=22533&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12387&cHash=933307a56f ACORN members in 16 kicked off the “Home Staying Campaign the week of February 23. These cities include San […]

Equity

Blog-Heavy, Link-Heavy, (and Some) Breaking News

It’s now a regular exercise where we report the demise of another respected, long-standing, print media outfit and while news that the Hearst Corporation-owned The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will likely to […]

Housing

New Regulations for Loan Modification and Refinance

According to the Treasury, as many as six million families are expected to face foreclosure in the next several years, with millions more struggling to stay current on their payments, […]

Policy

Finally Touching That Third Rail?

Rail travel is romanticized so much in our nation’s culture — be it in song, film, or political theater — that it’s easy to forget that we forgot about it […]

Housing

Making a Profit on the Shards of a Glass Bubble

You’ve got to give the money-makers credit: when their giant, festering wound of an enterprise was pried open, cleansed with salt and rubbing alcohol, what did they do? They invested […]

Housing

“Ethical Lenders” Employ a Tried and True Method: Long-term, Fixed-rate Loans

This report from ABC News focuses on Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a nonprofit and part of a growing list of organizations that embrace the identity of “ethical lender,” working […]

Equity

Who’s Going to Report the News?

Rooflines has been watching a disturbing decline in the newspaper industry as print media is falling victim to fewer subscribers, falling numbers in advertising, and increased competition from the Internet […]

Housing

Rethinking Home Mortgage Deductions

Harvard economics Professor Edward Glaeser, in The New York Times this week, asks us to rethink the home mortgage deduction in the tax code, and it certainly sounds like a […]

Housing

Does Obama’s Plan Go Far Enough?

Barack Obama’s announcement this week outlining $75 billion in direct funding to help homeowners stay in their homes, and up to $200 billion designed to allow for the government-controlled mortgage […]

Housing

Obama’s Foreclosure Plan: Just the Facts

The Obama administration announced February 18 its Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan that aims to offer assistance to as many as 9 million homeowners making a “good-faith effort to stay […]

Organizing

Task Force Calls for $4 Billion in NSP Funding

Editor’s Note: The following is from the National Foreclosure Prevention and Neighborhood Stabilization Task Force. See the bottom of the page for a list of task force members. In 2008, […]