A recap of this week’s equity news.

“8,800 Road Home properties to return to private hands, ” - Times Picayune

Actor Wendell Pierce and trumpeter Terence Blanchard have come back to their old neighborhood, Pontchartrain Park, and are poised to take over one of every nine properties there — so they can build and sell affordable homes,
On Monday, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority will vote on an agreement to transfer 114 abandoned and vacant properties to Pierce and Blanchard’s Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corp. It’s a big moment for the star of HBO’s cop drama “The Wire,” the Grammy-winning musician and some of their childhood buddies and fellow investors, who want to return New Orleans’ first middle-class black subdivision to its pre-Katrina glory.

“Homeless numbers ‘alarming’,” - USA Today

More families with children are becoming homeless as they face mounting economic pressures, including mortgage foreclosures, according to a USA TODAY survey of a dozen of the largest cities in the nation.

Local authorities say the number of families seeking help has risen in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington.

“ACORN fights back,” - San Francisco Chronicle

In the midst of the predictable partisan exaggerations, distortions and occasional lies that close election races generate, ACORN has become the focus of an extraordinary amount of attention over our voter-registration program. We submitted nearly 40,000 voter registration applications in San Diego and throughout California, and 1.3 million nationwide. In communities across the country, anxiety about the direction of our country, and more specifically our economy, is driving much of the interest in this year’s presidential election. Voter turnout is expected to be of historic proportions. What is surprising is that these attacks, issued from partisan sources, have become relentless, and wildly exaggerated. We’ve even been accused by some Republicans of causing the global economic crisis.

The truth, plain and simple, is that no illegal votes will be cast as a consequence of ACORN’s voter-registration program. In fact, illegal votes constitute fewer than 1 out of a million votes cast, and no illegal vote has ever been tied to ACORN, in spite of the almost 2 million registrations we submitted in 2004 and 2006. The small percentage of problematic cards that we have submitted to local election boards in 2008 - and that we are required by law to submit, even cards that we can plainly see are invalid - will not result in any illegal voting, contrary to over-the-top partisan claims. The irony in these attacks is that our registration drive and get-out-the-vote program is nonpartisan.

A recap of the week’s equity news

 ”Report: Road Home falls short,” - The Times-Picayune

Most storm-beleaguered Louisiana homeowners did not receive enough Road Home money to completely rebuild their homes, and limited recovery dollars will only help replace a portion of the state’s damaged rental units, according to a report to be released today.

The group PolicyLink produced the report, called “A Long Way Home: The State of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008,” after analyzing three major federally funded housing-recovery programs: the Road Home and the state’s small and large rental-repair programs. Researchers concluded that “enormous obstacles” blocked the recovery for homeowners, most of whom faced shortfalls to rebuild, and renters, who cannot find moderately priced places to rent.

“More families requesting free or reduced lunch,” - USA TODAY

The troubled economy may be prompting more families to turn to federal school nutrition programs that aid poor children, a survey suggests.

For the first time since 2004, a majority of cafeteria operators say the number of children getting free or reduced-price lunches has risen.

“Can NY infrastructure handle floods, intense heat?,”  - Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Flooded subways. Bridges deteriorating in the hot sun. Rising seas nipping at the edges of Manhattan. Those scenarios are up for review by a panel of scientists, government officials and private sector representatives studying how the city’s infrastructure will hold up to climate change.

The Climate Change Adaptation Task Force met Tuesday for the first time as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to address global warming in New York City, which already includes orders to switch the city’s taxi fleet to hybrids by 2012 and to retrofit city buildings to meet greener standards.