Tainted Loans: Fighting Toxic Mortgages in the Courts
It's not too late to treat toxic loans as the defective product they are.
Relaxing the Credit Crunch
Three years after the financial meltdown, credit remains elusive in many underserved communities. Although the reliance on credit scores is greater now than it’s been in a decade, many housing activists and community lenders are arguing for other means to evaluate credit risk.
Public Housing Residents as Activists
In the 1990s, a group I co-founded, the Eviction Defense Network, was asked by public housing residents to organize alongside them during the HOPE VI process. The HOPE VI process promised to tear down...
Collective Efficacy: Who’s in the Collective?
Kari Lydersen’s post on the challenges of mixed-income communities yesterday reminded me of some things I’d wanted to bring up regarding the conversation Alice was starting on collective efficacy.
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Abolishing HUD, Simplistic Solution to Complex Problems
A call to eliminate HUD will easily attract many right-wing politicos, and apparently others as well — and it is appealing.
That said, while all of us can point to various examples of incompetence, ineffeciency,...
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 current on their mortgage...
Housing: Code for Social, Economic, and Racial Integration
Last week, the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey celebrated its 20th anniversary in New Brunswick, New Jersey’s humble urban area in the center of the the state. The mood was celebratory,...
Perez: Inclusionary Zoning Can Work, If Implemented
Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division laud’s Montgomery County, Maryland’s inclusionary zoning policy, the largest inclusionary zoning policy in the nation. So much so, that it represents a...
Waiting for Details: NJ’s Foreclosure Relief Corp.
New Jersey has roughly $300 million in a housing trust fund that is currently unused, so on first glance, a state senator's proposal to create a “Foreclosure Relief Corp.” that...
From Burden to Boon: REOs Can Expand Housing Choice
This post is part of an ongoing series based on the National Fair Housing Alliance report, “The Banks Are Back, Our Neighborhoods Are Not,” that examines ongoing discrimination in...
Shared Equity Homeownership for Geeks
I was proofreading our second installment of The Answer earlier this week, which happens to be on whether shared-equity homeownership builds assets. (Sneak preview: It does! But we'll soon give it...
Links Roundup: Independent Foreclosure Review Scrapped for New Settlement
The Independent Foreclosure Review has been scrapped for a new $8.5 billion settlement with the banks. These articles describe the reasons:
Foreclosure Review Insiders Portray...
4 Lessons from “Envisioning Home”
Relationships are critical to promoting affordable housing and community development, but how we invest in those relationships may be even more important.
This is the message that...
The Racial Wealth Gap and the Great Recession
In 2005, according to the U.S. Census Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the median Asian American household had a net worth of over $150,000. This was compared...
In Pursuit of a “Both/And” Housing Policy–The Case of Housing Choice Vouchers
Readers of Shelterforce are accustomed to seeing commentary about the perceived tension between community development and housing mobility. Almost everyone agrees at this point that there is a place...
From Cargo Shipping to Home Sweet Home?
Livable buildings can be created from shipping containers, the big rectangular corrugated metal things stacked at docks by giant cranes. There are large and impressive shipping container homes in numerous...
Same-sex Couples Can Love, But Where Can They Live?
Same-sex couples’ right to marry is now protected, but do they have the right to housing? It is not only possible but also legal under federal law to discriminate...
Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted” Supports, Challenges Housing Field
With Evicted, Desmond is taking a powerful argument that housing matters beyond the usually circles where that is discussed.
One Million Families At Risk
The dangers of Mark to Market and the needs for preserving expiring subsidized housing.
Could an Anti-Homelessness Program Also Stabilize Affordable Housing Supply?
Periodically in the affordable housing world, a few of us acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of low-income people live in unsubsidized rental units located within one- to four-unit buildings. And then we...
