Who Owns That Vacant Building? Scan the Art to Find Out
In a brilliant mash up of classic protest/beautifying strategies and state-of-the-art data management, artists are painting murals on abandoned Baltimore buildings  . . ....
Permanent Mortgage Modifications Fall Short of Expectations
Only a very small fraction of mortgage modifications made under the $75 billion Making Home Affordable program have been made permanent, triggering some tough...
NSP: An Emphasis on Neighborhood
Neighborhoods across the United States have been devastated by the impact of foreclosures and are struggling to stay afloat. The U.S. Department of Housing...
ARRA Adds Resources for Rural Mortgages and Persistent Poverty Counties
The American Recovery and Revitalization Act of 2009 (ARRA) included substantial funds for rural America, much of it targeted to low-income homeownership and some...
The Mistakes Project
This article is one of a series of papers written as part of the “Mistakes, Learning, and Adaptation” Project. In November of 2007, a...
Paying for Planning
So where does the money come from for all these grandiose plans and their implementation?
In a number of major U.S. cities, such as Seattle,...
Participatory Budgeting: The International and NCBG Approaches
International Approach…
Uses “geographical and complementary political boundaries to facilitate decision-making and service delivery”
Uses public meetings to initiate and carry out the budget process
Relies upon...
Vision 20/20
Springfield, Missouri
www.ci.springfield.mo.us/vision2020/index.html
Springfield’s Vision 20/20 program was a community-based planning process that involved residents in decision-making processes and encouraged citizens to view referenda as a...
Small-Scale Healthy Food Options
There are many options for improving healthy food access, each with a unique set of advantages to residents and community health. Farmers’ markets (www.localharvest.org)...
Overturned
In 2001 California imposed a strict prevailing wage requirement on affordable housing developers. But that was before two studies showed the effect of prevailing...
CLU’s Mission Statement
CLU’s mission is to move strategic campaigns combining the joint power of community-based organizations and labor unions in order to protect and promote the...
Democracy at Work
Thanks to the collaborative work of many nonprofits led by the Alliance for Justice, last year’s efforts to limit funding to community-based organizations who...
Educating Consumers Against Predatory Lending
In October 2001, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition established the National Anti-Predatory Lending Consumer Rescue Fund (CRF) to help victims of predatory lenders. CRF...
Promoting Consumer Education Policy
Several institutions across the country are working to promote policies that will expand consumer education and financial literacy opportunities for low-income people. Predatory lending...
OTS Reverses Course
Thanks in good part to a change in leadership, the federal Office of Thrift Supervision announced in September that it is reversing its regressive...
No Smoking Gun
It seems that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has been heard urging his staff to steer contracts toward people who like President Bush. But since...
The Seven Basic Principles of Universal Design
Equitable. Useful to people with all sorts of abilities. Provides the same means of use for all; does not segregate any user; makes the...
Why Merge?
Since its inception in the late 1960s, the community development corporation (CDC) industry has grown dramatically, totalling 4,600 CDCs in 2005, according to a...
A Surprising Payoff in California
Inclusionary housing (also called inclusionary zoning) is gaining popularity in California. It requires for-profit developers to build a percentage of affordable housing in all...
Foreclosure Fuzziness Media Watch
Pity the poor media consumer. It’s nigh-on impossible to understand the burgeoning mortgage crisis rippling through communities around the country if you’re relying on...