Did You Miss These? (September 27 Edition)
September 27th, 2008 by Keith Forest
A recap of this week’s equity news
”Road Home fix falls short,” - Times-Picayune
As soon as Louisiana homeowners could take stock of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, thousands of them had to turn their attention back to the Road Home program and their ongoing efforts to collect grants to repair damage caused three years ago by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
More than 3,100 Road Home applicants still have active appeals to fret over — and some worry that highly touted reforms to the process carried little impact.
”Low-Income Housing: Another Crisis Looming?” - TIME Magazine
Another housing crisis may be looming even as the mortgage meltdown continues and as Americans who once dreamed of home ownership see their properties foreclosed. The Housing Act of 1937, imposed in the wake of the Great Depression, and amended a number of times in the 1970s, is reaching a crossroads — and close to five million Americans who depend on subsidized public housing may soon have to figure out where and how they are going to live.
That’s because under the provisions of Section 8 of the historic law a significant change will be under way in the next few years. As a result, building owners who participate in the program — receiving subsidies from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in exchange for taking in lower-income renters — will be able to opt out of those contracts. And many are thinking of doing just that. America’s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, will be severely affected as will many smaller communities.
“Author tracks one man’s quest to fix Harlem,” - USA TODAY
In 1999, Geoffrey Canada, president of a respected non-profit for families in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, embarked on an “outsized and audacious” endeavor. Programs that helped dozens or even hundreds of kids, he’d concluded, weren’t enough. So he traced out a 24-block “children’s zone” and blanketed it with social services: a health clinic, parenting classes, an intensive charter school, after-school tutoring and more. The idea, says author Paul Tough, was to create “a safety net woven so tightly” that kids couldn’t slip through.
Tough, an editor for the New York Times Magazine, spent five years following Canada’s efforts as the zone grew to 97 blocks. USA TODAY spoke with Tough about his new book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America (Houghton Mifflin, $26).
Tags: , affrodable housing, charter school. Paul Tough, fannie mae, foreclosure, freddie mac, geofrey canada, Harlem, harlem children zone, health clinic, homeowners, housing, hurriccane katrina, hurriccane rita, levee, louisiana, low income housing, mortgage, new orleans, New York City, non profit, parenting clases, public housing, Road Home, the housing act of 1937