Nov/Dec 2004
Issue #138
Neighborhoods, even public housing neighborhoods, are flesh and blood communities. When neighborhoods are torn, culture and memory are ripped apart. As we “revitalize” these places, we must be ever aware of what’s really in front of us and how deeply go the roots of all communities.
Tearing Down the Community
A year after she left Chicago’s notorious Robert Taylor Homes public housing development, 30-year-old Lee-Lee Henderson said she was ready to return. “I’d rather live in Robert Taylor,” she answered […]
The Housing That Community Built
In 1993 President Bill Clinton visited Pittsburgh to promote the new HOPE VI program to residents of the Hill District. The program was developed to reform severely distressed public housing […]
Be It Ever So Humble
In the American idiom of good things, the importance of “home” and “community” cannot be challenged. The associated images – mom, apple pie and the picket fence – serve as […]
The Reality of Poverty Deconcentration
A “moral panic” over crime in central cities, combined with a demand for reform of the most troubled public housing developments, led to a profound shift in the late 1980s in how this country housed poor people.
Restoring the Commonwealth
Public housing is not a gift to those who cannot find shelter: it is an obligation of the commonwealth that asserts no person living in this country should be deprived […]
Shelter Shorts
Rent Control Advocates Lose Again in Boston The long fight to bring some form of rent control back to Boston continued this winter, as advocates asked city and state elected […]
Alabama Arise Fights For Tenant Protections
It was hardly an unusual story in 1993 in Montgomery, Alabama. A tenant had spent months trying to get her landlord to fix a persistent leak in her roof, and […]
Creative Fundraising
When Habitat for Humanity volunteers Lynne Blaesser and Mary Scott were approached by a Habitat executive about the prospect of leading Newark Women Build in the fundraising and construction of […]
Paradise Lost
When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago, by J.S. Fuerst. University of Illinois Press. 2004. 264 pp. $20 (paperback). When the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) released its “Plan […]
Jesus “Jesse” Leon
The lyrics of an old Diana Ross song swirl around my mind when I think about Jesus “Jesse” Leon: “Reach out and touch somebody’s hand and make this world a […]
Housing, Politics and Moral Values
How long will it take for us to wise up? I would guess that almost all readers of Shelterforce feel very deeply that extensive poverty remains a national scandal, that […]
The Lack of Support is Taxing
Well, the people have spoken and given George W. Bush a second term in the White House. Housing advocates should prepare for more of the same, only worse. What lessons […]
What Did We Learn and What Do We Do?
This was an election not so much about economic and social justice issues, but about values and culture. While economic security, health, education and income were always a part of […]
We Must Rein in the Regulators
Following the presidential election, advocates working for economic justice are alarmed that ultra-conservatives in Congress will turn back the clock on access to credit, capital and basic banking services for […]