Miriam Axel-Lute
Miriam Axel-Lute is CEO/editor-in-chief of Shelterforce. She lives in Albany, New York, and is a proud small-city aficionado.
Is the Mortgage Interest Deduction Vulnerable?
Shelterforce and the National Housing Institute have been outspoken about the need to change the mortgage interest deduction — the country’s largest housing subsidy,...
Sustainable Homeownership vs QRMs
One of the many themes running through the interactive session “The Future of Mortgage Finance in America,” this morning at NCRC’s annual conference was...
Community-Labor: A Coalition Whose Time Has Come
Ed Gorman of the NCRC board introduced Mark Ayers, president of the building trades department of the AFL-CIO, as “the man who is opening...
Nonprofit Chamber of Commerce?
When you see a conference plenary session described as “positioning your organization for growth,” you probably expect some descriptions of grant writing strategies or...
Housing Counseling in Danger: They Say Cut Backs, We Say ??
Housing counseling works. Counselors form a critical bridge between servicers and homeowners in distress, advocating for them in the face of perverse servicer incentives,...
Rent Regulation in the Great Recession
Over at the Gotham Gazette, David King walks us through the latest round of politics over New York City’s rent regulation laws, which have...
No One Left Behind
By 2050, possibly sooner, people of color will be a majority in our nation. There is no way we can build a strong, stable...
No More Crumbs
When I attended a housing-focused conference right after Election Day last year, there was an understandable pall cast over any...
Can We Stay, Can We Go? A Discussion on Displacement, Mobility, and Concentration of...
As part of a research project funded by the Open Society Institute, one of the sessions Monday at the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s...
Homeownership Is a Bad Investment?
This chart from Visualizing Economics calls into question the bedrock assertion that housing is a good investment, showing that its real value doesn’t actually...
What Is the Emergency in Michigan?
From one perspective, the recent expansion of the Michigan’s 1990 Emergency Financial Management Act is just the latest salvo in a right-wing-led war against...
Can’t Sue ‘Em? You Can Move Your Money
Local governents, frustrated (there’s an understatement for you) with the devastating effects of massive foreclosures have tried suing lenders for essentially offering defective products,...
Can Lease-Purchase Save Us?
As developers struggle to find buyers for rehabbed affordable homes, many are looking to a lease-purchase model to expand the pool of potential owners. But lease-purchase is far more complicated than just an end-run around the credit crunch.
Making Connections
How often have you heard the phrase “affordable transportation” as a companion to “affordable housing”? My first time was at the National Inclusionary Housing...
The Self-Help Model
In 2008, Self-Help Federal Credit Union began working on a way to help lease-purchase programs come to scale. Although it originally thought it would...
CLTs and Lease Purchase
A community land trust like Albany’s or City of Lakes CLT, retains ownership of the land under a house, which gives it an interest...
Shelterforce Interview: Mercedes Márquez
HUD Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development Mercedes Márquez spoke with Shelterforce about NSP, technical assistance, and the importance of leveraging resources.
Rules Matter
Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use” praises people who jump right in to whatever work needs to be done, passing buckets of water...
Investing In Community Land Trusts
Why have funders embraced CLTs? To answer that question, NHI interviewed 15 funders from 13 foundations whose scope ranges from local, to state, to regional and national.
Not Just Inclusionary Spot Zoning: Conference Portrays IZ As Essential to Civil Rights, Sustainable
The 3rd biannual National Inclusionary Housing Conference, which wrapped up Friday in Washington, DC, had plenty of the expected workshops focused on details of...