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A Housing Renaissance?

A group of former FEMA trailer residents has formed an organization to raise money to house Louisianans displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The nonprofit —...

$3.9 Billion in Federal Aid. Now What?

Community advocates are concerned about how wisely the emergency neighborhood stabilization fund will be used.

Who You Gonna Call?

Hurricane Gustav blew into the Gulf Coast on Labor Day weekend, almost three years to the day that Katrina brought its misery to New...

$4 a Gallon Gas Changed (Nearly) Everything!

This contribution arrived via time capsule from Aug. 28, 2020: Looking back, the signs should have been obvious: After decades of decline, city populations stabilized...

A Fair Housing Agenda for 2008 and Beyond

With more than 3.7 million instances of housing discrimination occurring annually and segregation remaining a central feature of the nation’s housing markets, fair housing...

Early Childhood Education: A Teachable Moment

One of the greatest contributions that the new president could make to education would be to put the federal government squarely behind initiatives recognizing that improvements in schools depend on more children getting off to a good start.

‘A Fighter of Uncommon Grace’

The death of U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio came as a shock not only because of its suddenness, but also because it...

Poverty Measurements Fall Short

After more than four decades using a formula considered by critics as substandard and outdated, the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income...

Environmental Justice: Heck of a Job Ahead

The new president has a lot of catching up to do on the unmet imperatives of environmental justice. Originally anchored in the urgency of...

The Other Health Agenda

What the next president can do to improve the health of low- and moderate-income Americans and to reduce glaring inequities in health care.

Memos on How To Make Change From the Grass Roots to...

From the grass roots to the Oval Office: Shelterforce contributors offer policy suggestions for the next president on how to make change.

Urban Policy Next

Urban policies are the rules and incentives that shape the prosperity, equity, and environmental sustainability of the metropolitan regions in which 8 in 10 people live.

Time to Address the Rural Housing Crisis

The next administration will face significant housing issues well beyond those related to foreclosures and mortgage markets. The housing needs of low-income people in...

Breaking Asset Poverty: Better Homeownership—and More

Rather than abandoning homeownership as an asset-building strategy the next administration must pursue alternative strategies: bringing back “good homeownership,” supporting quality affordable rental housing, and developing other ways to help families of modest means invest for themselves and their future.

Needed: National Leadership for Sustainable Development

Imagine a country of walkable neighborhoods, transportation choices, healthy homes, less time in traffic, and more disposable income, complemented by a beautiful landscape of conservation lands and working forests and farms. That is still within our reach with vision and leadership.

What’s the Matter With Newark?

For the community economic development organizations that have spent decades trying to keep Newark's neighborhoods afloat, the promise of a new mayor has only managed to throw the city's paradoxes into sharper relief.

Trading Bullets for a Better Future

Youth violence scars lives, turning America's streets into war zones. How do we transform killing fields into training grounds for stronger communities?

In Praise of Faith-Based Community Organizing

Government has frequently turned to the voluntary religious sector to provide social services. The question is how and why it’s done: to entice religious conversion, impose sectarian values, to win conservative votes? Or to meet human needs?

What the Mermaid Taught Me

Wrestling With Starbucks, by Kim Fellner. Rutgers University
Press, 2008, 283 pp. $24.95 (hardcover).

A Two-Year Skills Guarantee: More Than Just the “Dream”

The new president could guarantee every U.S. worker access to the skills necessary for a good-paying middle-skill job, or the first two years of college.