Winter 2008
Issue #156
Coming Up for Air: What Housing and Community Developer Practitioners Need to Know to Survive the Economic Deluge
Without a full-scale campaign to stabilize urban neighborhoods and rural communities, the fallout from the subprime foreclosure mess is likely to wipe out three decades of solid, successful community revitalization work in the next few years. The articles in this issue make clear that public and private funders and government agencies must recast themselves to meet the challenges of our economic upheaval.
Rethinking the Rescue
This time of economic uncertainty presents an opportunity for the community development movement to reinvent itself.
Taking the Bull by the Horns
As they rebuild from the financial meltdown of 2008, policymakers can finally craft measures to guarantee healthy communities and secure homes for all Americans.
Brave New World for Nonprofits
The current “bathtub recession” poses a drowning hazard for community development and housing groups, as philanthropic giving shrinks and foundations look beyond nonprofits for solutions to social problems.
Homes That Last
Counter-cyclical stewardship is the only way to ensure that lower-income families are neither nudged out by rising costs nor forced out by foreclosure.
Do or Die for Nonprofits
In a time of great economic peril for the communities they serve, nonprofit grassroots organizations must push the federal government to raise foundations’ payout requirements.
The Housing Change We Need
The foreclosure crisis has pushed the envelope so far, it’s left an opening where we can start building a real national housing policy.
Riding the Storm Out
The $3.92 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program can spur recycling of the stock of abandoned and foreclosed homes produced by the mortgage crisis.
Capitalizing on Hope in the Capital
It’s as though we’ve suddenly discovered a new form of Prozac called Obama. Miraculously, millions of depressed progressives have the audacity to hope again. Alas, hundreds of them are also […]
Thirty-Five Years of Building Citizen Power
The 2008 presidential contest vaulted community organizing into the national limelight, as the McCain campaign sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s background in the field. Spurred […]
Getting a Fix on a Shape-Shifting Bailout
The oversight panel headed by Elizabeth Warren, which monitors the federal bailout for the ailing economy, is due to submit a report to Congress by Jan. 20.
Building Hope and Homes
Taller San Jose, a Santa Ana, California-based job-training program, broke ground in September on an affordable-housing project for first-time homebuyers. The planned development — three houses in Santa Ana’s historic […]
Chicago Public Housing Museum in the Works
The Chicago Public Housing Museum will trace 70 years of public housing through the stories and artifacts of six decades of residents of the red brick Addams buildings along Chicago’s West Taylor Street.
Housing a Rising Homeless Population: Female Veterans
In Dayton, a 27-unit apartment building on the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Campus has been renovated to serve as housing for female veterans, one of about a dozen such facilities around the country.
Location, Location, Location
In an effort to promote inner-ring Philadelphia suburbs and unsung city neighborhoods, a regional planning commission has launched a high-profile informational campaign. The initiative, “Classic Towns of Greater Philadelphia,” created […]