Archives
The Self-Help Model
In 2008, Self-Help Federal Credit Union began working on a way to help lease-purchase programs come to scale. Although it originally thought it would...
A Partial Win for Post-Katrina Mississippi
The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the state of...
Affordable Housing Has Mass. Appeal
While many people had their eyes on the Congressional midterm and gubernatorial elections last Election Day, we were looking at the big win in...
Communities Investing in Their Values
In November, Illinois People’s Action, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, and 15 other community organizations from across the country filed an official protest against...
Building the Progressive City
Making change is not always easy, even when “your candidate” wins. Activists in City Hall looks at two well-known progressive city administrations and the way that activists working for them did and didn’t achieve their goals.
No Cover for Making Home Affordable
We’ve long known that the administration’s collection of foreclosure prevention programs, known together as Making Home Affordable, has been underperforming, with government data indicating...
Shelter for the Homeless in the Emerald City?
In Seattle, a mayor-appointed citizens’ panel has concluded that the city should put a permanent homeless encampment on city land and make certain parks...
Best of Both Worlds
Permanent affordability and asset building might seem at first blush to be contradictory goals for a low-income homeownership program, but new research says in fact they can be achieved together.
Atlanta’s Pittsburgh Neighborhood: Building the Sustainable Urban Community
One Atlanta neighborhood's experience of the housing bubble and expected transit investment leads it to invest in a land trust and a vision based in sustainability.
Organizing for Inclusive TOD
Large-scale and small-scale transit-oriented development projects are popping up everywhere around the country, and in many places advocates are working to include affordable housing and other community priorities in the mix from the start.
Shelterforce Interview: Ron Sims
HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims doesn't just want the 8,500 employees he oversees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to do their jobs: he wants them to challenge themselves, even if there's a risk of failure.
The Plague of the Nonprofits
The familiar transformation from volunteer organizing effort to established nonprofit needs an overhaul, or it will keep sucking the life out of truly grass-roots organizing.
Making Connections
How often have you heard the phrase “affordable transportation” as a companion to “affordable housing”? My first time was at the National Inclusionary Housing...
Bringing CLTs to Scale in Atlanta
To ensure affordable housing around the Atlanta BeltLine, the new Atlanta Land Trust Collaborative will balance citywide scale with local control of individual land trusts by existing CDCs.
Can Lease-Purchase Save Us?
As developers struggle to find buyers for rehabbed affordable homes, many are looking to a lease-purchase model to expand the pool of potential owners. But lease-purchase is far more complicated than just an end-run around the credit crunch.
An Affordable BeltLine?
The Atlanta BeltLine brings much promise to the city of Atlanta, but will elevated housing costs be an unwelcome addition? Atlanta is looking to a community land trust to preserve affordability for the long-term near this new asset.
Building in Affordability
A range of existing policy tools can help preserve and expand affordable housing near planned transit stations -- but to have the most effect, they need to be put in place up front.