Fall 2015
Issue #180
Looking Toward Resiliency: Equitable Disaster Recovery in the Era of Climate Change
In this issue we take a look at a few of the lessons and challenges that are emerging for those who care about equity in the era of climate change. In “The Justice Gap,” New Orleans–based reporter Katy Reckdahl shows us how crucial legal services are in the face of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. In “Detours on the Road Home,” M. A. Sheehan walks us through some very concrete ways in which a recovery program like Road Home can better serve those who need it most. And in “Rising Tides, Rising Costs,” we learn about one of the next frontiers of equitable disaster preparedness—dealing with skyrocketing flood insurance rates for those who have long been pushed into flood plains.
Interview with John Henneberger, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service–Part 1
Shelterforce talks with John Henneberger of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, one of the 2014 MacArthur Fellows.
How to Prevent the Next Mortgage Crisis
Yes, we need to finally achieve certainty in our housing finance system. But not the way most people are suggesting.
Building the Cars of the Future . . . in Detroit
How the nonprofit Focus: HOPE is helping to bring manufacturing jobs back to Detroit, and the Detroiters who need them.
Interview with Richard Baron, CEO of McCormack Baron Salazar
It still surprises many people that Richard Baron, the CEO of one of the largest for-profit affordable housing developers, got his start in the field supporting public housing tenants in a rent strike.
The Revitalization Trap
Place-based initiatives won’t address the kinds of injustice and poverty that community development was formed to fight.
With responses by Brentin Mock and Miriam Axel-Lute.
Rising Tides, Rising Costs
In the face of climate change, flood insurance rates are rising. But program rules, and the history of who has been shunted into the floodplains, means the brunt is being bore by those least able to absorb it.
Detours on the Road Home
Serious flaws in the Road Home program have kept many hard-working homeowners from coming back to the Lower 9th Ward. Let’s not repeat them after the next disaster.
The Justice Gap
The post-Katrina work of legal services lawyers shows that if you care about equity, legal aid belongs high on the list of crucial disaster recovery programs.
Dispatches from Whose City?
City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis, edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb. N + 1. 2015, 496pp, $18 (paper). Purchase here.
Joy and Justice
Community Projects as Social Activism: From Direct Action to Direct Services, by Benjamin Shepard. Sage Publications, 2014. 253pp.
Reviewed by Matthew Borus. Purchase here.
Organizing and the Community Land Trust Model
What happens when organizers win a campaign for community control of land? That depends a lot on the choices they make about how to exercise that control.
Fair Housing and Community Developers Can Work Together
Two organizations in New Jersey show that with a good working relationship, a balanced approach to healthy communities and housing choice for all can be more than pretty words.
Fighting Gentrification Through Collective Bargaining
For the past two years, the Crown Heights Tenant Union of Brooklyn has turned collective bargaining strategies on landlords—and policymakers.
On Beyond Anniversaries
When I visited New Orleans last June for the NeighborWorks Comeback Cities event, many of the people I spoke with were ambivalent about the approaching 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina […]