Interview with Shelley Poticha, Director of Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities
Shelterforce speaks with Shelley Poticha, director of HUD's Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, about implementing sustainable policy at the federal level while encouraging local innovation, keeping down the cost of green housing, and effecting change while dealing with federal government bureaucracy.
So It’s Come to This?
Forget two-year presidential campaigns that raise hundreds of millions in donations. It’s back to basics time and it’s time to know your candidates.
In an...
The Biggest Winners
Obama’s election. For those under 30, it was a landslide.
Despite the news that Obama is considering the neoliberal Larry Summers for Treasury Secretary and...
Study: NJ Land-Use Patterns Increase Exclusionary Zoning and Sprawl
All too often, we hear how sprawl development continues to eat up the last remaining open spaces across New Jersey,...
Rural Housing Budget Disappointing, But Not Surprising
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the Obama administration’s rural housing budget continues trends that were evident in the last several...
Tune into NHI & PDI Web cast—How To Get Out of the Mortgage...
For those of you unable to tune into our June 3 Learning Lab Web cast held in collaboration with The Professional Development Institute, ...
Government Works Badly–If We Refuse to Invest in It
At the Bipartisan Policy Center's Housing Summit earlier this week, Shelterforce got to interview former HUD secretaries Mel Martinez and Henry Cisneros (we'll publish that interview here next week). One of the questions we asked was how to handle the fact that the American electorate often seems to have a bias, not so much against […]
Reshaping Housing Policy with a Health Lens
In Georgia, public health practitioners used a Health Impact Assessment to suggest changes to the allocation plan for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. This is how they made it happen.
Bold Political Leadership on Housing Policy? In 2018? You Heard Right
Local elected officials are having to re-examine the risks and rewards of making housing and housing affordability a political priority. Could one mayor's bold steps on housing policy be a national bellwether?
How to Temper the Influence of Private Equity in Manufactured Housing
The risk of onerous lot rent increases and the fear of eviction are more threatening than ever as private equity enters the manufactured housing market.
CRA Modernization: A Critical Moment for Underserved Neighborhoods
The Community Reinvestment Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act hold great promise for the creation of a more financially inclusive nation, but both depend on critical "moments in time" in Congress that will determine whether they become good laws or are weakened beyond recognition
Interview with Former HUD Secretaries Senator Mel Martinez and Mayor Henry Cisneros
At the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Summit on Sept. 15 and 16, five former HUD secretaries joined a panel discussing their time at the...
Another Disaster
One of the stories that has been submerged in the Midwest flooding is the complete lack of an effective FEMA response, bad judgment, and...
Job Quality & The Stimulus Package
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the Stimulus Package — passed by Congress in a painful process in February, proposes to create or...
“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...
Congress Agrees: Collaborative, Comprehensive Care Needed For Rural Vets
Rural America has a strong history of protecting our country. In fact, as highlighted in a recent report on...
Malign Neglect? Urban Policy in the Trump Era
To paraphrase physicist Niels Bohr, (or maybe it was Yogi Berra), “predicting is difficult, especially when it’s about the...
We Are All NIMBYs…Sometimes
If we built enough housing, we would still need subsidized housing for many people, but market prices would be low enough that most people could afford them. But we’ve chosen not to. And the reason we give for that choice, more than any other, is that we are trying to preserve or improve the character of our communities.
Shelter Shorts—The Week in Community Development, April 20
NIMBYs, YIMBYs, PHIMBYs-Oh My! | Can Algorithms Make Equitable Cities? | Retail Segregation Takes a Toll | E.R. Visits and "Tough" Neighborhoods | Enough Innovation Already | More...
Affordable Housing Was On the Ballot, Here Are Some Election Results
A majority of voters nationwide supported funding for affordable housing as state and local governments try to address the problem in the absence of an adequate federal response.