Daily equity news

“Road Home program amended to assist owners of homes of modest value,” - The Times-Picayune

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan came to town carrying a letter that could help thousands of area homeowners finally finish their renovations.

The letter, which Donovan gave on Thursday to Louisiana Recovery Authority head Paul Rainwater, approved a change to the Road Home program that could distribute $600 million in leftover program money, giving up to $34,000 in extra grant money to as many as 19,000 low- to moderate-income homeowners, Rainwater said.

“States eager to power up electric car-battery industry,” - USA TODAY

DETROIT — The U.S. government has made it clear that developing a domestic auto-battery industry — for advanced batteries to power next-generation electric cars — is a priority. That has states scrambling to be sure they get a piece of the action.

This week, business leaders, politicians and entrepreneurs will gather in Detroit at a conference called “The Business of Plugging In” to discuss the future of plug-in electrics and plan how to attract and develop businesses involved in plug-in vehicle development.

“Public option gains support,” - Washington Post

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.

Americans remain sharply divided about the overall packages moving closer to votes in Congress and President Obama’s leadership on the issue, reflecting the partisan battle that has raged for months over the administration’s top legislative priority. But sizable majorities back two key and controversial provisions: both the so-called public option and a new mandate that would require all Americans to carry health insurance.

Daily equity news 

 ”How Valid Is the Insurers’ Attack on Health Reform?,” -  TIME MAGAZINE

After months of lending its cautious, very qualified support to health-care reform, the health-insurance industry has lobbed its first bomb at the Democrats’ proposals. But many of the industry’s assertions appear to have missed their mark.

Just two days before Tuesday’s scheduled vote on the Senate Finance Committee’s health bill, a report warning that the bill would result in sizable hikes in insurance premiums was released, and then widely panned as a flawed analysis of cherry-picked information. A spokesman for the committee called the report a “hatchet job, plain and simple”; and some Democrats on Capitol Hill claimed that the insurers’ broadside would actually ease, rather than slow, passage of health reform by unifying the various factions of the party against an industry with precious little credibility among the public. (See 10 players in health-care reform.)

“Public Option Is Next Big Hurdle in Health Debate,” - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — As the White House and Congressional leaders turned in earnest on Wednesday to working out big differences in the five health care bills, perhaps no issue loomed as a greater obstacle than whether to establish a government-run competitor to the insurance industry.

One day after the Senate Finance Committee approved a measure without a “public option,” the question on Capitol Hill was how President Obama could reconcile the deep divisions within his party on the issue. All eyes were on Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the Maine Republican whose call for a “trigger” that would establish a government plan as a fallback is one of the leading compromise ideas.

“Obama: New Orleans not forgotten,” -   USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS — In his first presidential visit to this city, Barack Obama praised the resiliency of residents in rebuilding their flood-wrecked homes and promised to continue flowing federal dollars to the effort.

“It is always an inspiration to spend time with the men and women who have reminded the rest of us what it means to persevere in the face of tragedy and rebuild in the face of ruin,” Obama said during a town-hall-style meeting at the University of New Orleans.

Daily equity news

“Grass Roots Put New Orleans Back on Its Feet,” - The Wall Street Journal
With Federal Aid Finally Flowing to Hurricane-Ravaged City, a Flurry of Rebuilding Helps Shield It from U.S. Downturn

NEW ORLEANS — This once-ravaged city is finally mending from Hurricane Katrina after years of administrative delays and political disputes that choked the flow of millions of dollars in federal aid.

Money now flowing through the city is beginning to deliver the most visibly widespread improvements since Katrina struck four years ago today. Scores of public works projects are under way. The last police precinct using a FEMA trailer as temporary headquarters moved into real offices earlier this year. More than half the public schools in New Orleans have been turned into higher-performing charter schools. Returning residents have pushed the population to 76% of its prestorm total of about 455,000.

“Yes, We Can Afford Health-Care Reform,” - Washington Post

“Moderate” opponents of health-care reform like to say that we cannot afford it, particularly in the midst of a recession that has widened the deficit with both reduced tax revenue and the fiscal stimulus package. This was the argument advanced by Sen. Joe Lieberman on TV a week ago and repeated by Michael Gerson in this newspaper: “Obama’s massive spending, intended to stabilize the economy, also drained the Treasury, making it more difficult to propose major new expenditures.”

 ”Report maps out solutions to child obesity,” -  USA TODAY

To make it easier for children to eat healthfully and move more, local governments in towns and cities across the country need to help create a better environment, a new report says.

Children and their families should have access to grocery stores that offer plenty of healthful food such as fruits and vegetables, and schools shouldn’t be surrounded by fast-food restaurants. Children should be able to ride their bikes or walk safely to school, and they should have safe places to play afterward, says the report out today from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council.

Daily equity news

“First Lady Steps Into Policy Spotlight in Debate on Health Care,” -  The New York Times

WASHINGTON — She has become one of the Obama administration’s most visible surrogates on health care, announcing the release of $851 million in federal financing for health clinics, calling for tougher nutritional standards in the government’s school lunch program and urging Democrats to rally around the president’s efforts to revamp health care.

The high-profile emissary? Not Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, or Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House health policy adviser. It is the first lady, Michelle Obama.

“Highway spending isn’t the stimulus it was envisioned to be,” - Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington — In February, when Congress approved President Obama’s mammoth plan to stimulate the economy, transportation projects were supposed to be among the fastest-acting pieces of the $787-billion package.

All 50 states moved quickly to qualify for their share of the money. But since then the pace has slowed considerably, particularly in California and Florida, where the effect of the economic crisis has been especially severe.

“Orleans Wants Ex-Residents Counted,” - The Wall Street Journal
Census Bureau Says Mayor’s Plan to Boost Numbers Is Illegal

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is calling on former residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to claim their old city addresses in next year’s census, drawing criticism for trying to circumvent rules for winning federal funds.

The mayor — encouraged that New Orleans has thrown off its post-Katrina malaise to become the U.S.’s fastest-growing big city by percentage — wants the U.S. Census Bureau to grant an exception for its former residents, currently living elsewhere, who want to rebuild homes in New Orleans.

Daily equity news

“A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics,” -  The New York Times

“Thousands still in FEMA trailers,” -  USA TODAY

“The Metro Crash: A Nation’s Aging Transit System,” - Times Magazine

This week’s update on equity news. 

“Administration to Reveal Plans for Katrina Housing Transition,” - Washington Post

The Obama administration will announce plans today to virtually give away roughly 1,800 mobile homes to 3,400 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who are living in government-provided housing along the Gulf Coast, officials said.

The administration also will make available $50 million in rental vouchers to income-eligible trailer occupants who move to targeted housing projects, and take over from Louisiana the job of helping residents find permanent homes, said a senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.

“Measure would help promote groceries in ‘food deserts’,” - Chicago Tribune

The effort to bring more grocery stores to low-income areas–so-called “food deserts”–would receive a shot in the arm from legislation passed this week by the Illinois General Assembly.

The $3.1 billion public spending bill passed Monday includes $10 million for the Illinois Fresh Food Fund, money that would go to urban and rural neighborhoods with reduced access to healthier foods because they’re underserved by supermarkets.

“States, Nonprofits Jockey for ‘Weatherizing’ Funds,” -  The Wall Street Journal

HOUSTON — President Barack Obama wants to make a million houses a year more energy efficient as part of his goal to create thousands of “green” jobs and reduce U.S. carbon emissions.

But the administration’s push to expand an obscure antipoverty program into a centerpiece of that initiative is stirring debate over the best way to use a flash flood of federal stimulus dollars.

Updates on this week’s updates equity news.

 ”An Effort to Save Flint, Mich., by Shrinking It,” - The New York Times

FLINT, Mich. — Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

“Health, education cited as poverty breaker,” - AP

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Investing up front in early education programs and health care for children would save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the long run and help break the poverty cycle affecting millions of kids, a leading child advocate said Tuesday.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Children’s Defense Fund, said it’s one of her group’s goals to end child poverty in this country in “five or six years” and work to dismantle the so-called “cradle-to-prison pipeline” plaguing minorities and the poor.

 ”New Orleans housing project is model for recovery,” - USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS — Wendell Pierce, an actor best known for his role at Detective William “Bunk” Moreland on HBO’s The Wire, splits a lot of his time lately between Los Angeles and his hometown of New Orleans.

Pierce wants to make sure his push to rebuild one of the city’s most flood-wrecked neighborhoods — Pontchartrain Park — succeeds. The neighborhood of 1,000 homes was slammed with up to 10 feet of floodwater in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and has been slow to rebound. Now a grass-roots plan that partners residents with the city is about to return the neighborhood to its mid-1950s splendor, developers and residents say.

A recap of this week’s equity news.

“Defying economy, New Orleans keeps rebuilding,” - Los Angeles Times

The numbers aren’t so dismal here as pre-Katrina residents continue to return, creating a constant demand for construction. Nearly $35 billion in federal aid doesn’t hurt either.

Reporting from New Orleans — This city is a rarity in 2009: a place full of hard hats and big building projects and subcontractors roaring around in pickup trucks. A city where home prices have dipped only slightly, and where the unemployment rate is 5.3% — compared with 8.1% nationwide.

New Orleans, it seems, has largely dodged the Category 5 recession pummeling the rest of the country, thanks to its unique post-Katrina economy. For locals accustomed to bad luck and trouble, the good news can feel a little strange.

  ”Reinventing America’s Cities: The Time Is Now,” - The New York Times

THE country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just pouring money into shovel-ready projects, regardless of how they might boost the economy. Windmills won’t do it either. We long for a bold urban vision.

With their crowded neighborhoods and web of public services, cities are not only invaluable cultural incubators; they are also vastly more efficient than suburbs. But for years they have been neglected, and in many cases forcibly harmed, by policies that favored sprawl over density and conformity over difference.

“Congress Approves Budget,” - The Washington Post
$3.5 Trillion Spending Plan Paves Way for Obama Goals

Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama’s ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities.

Voting along party lines, the House and Senate approved budget blueprints that would trim Obama’s spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The blueprints, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama’s presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

A recap of this week’s equity news

 ”Food Banks Finding Aid in Bounty of Backyard,” - New York Times

Natasha Boissier did not expect an epiphany while pushing her baby’s stroller exhaustedly around the neighborhood. But eyeing her neighbors’ yards, Ms. Boissier began noticing the abundance of fruit trees — and how much of their succulent bounty wound up on the ground.

“There was all this fruit going to waste,” she said of the apples, pears and plums in her midst. “It seemed like such a natural way to deal with hunger.”

“Community organizers have deep roots in democracy,” - Los Angeles Times

The elementary school moms didn’t ask a lot of questions about this man Bill. They were too eager to tell him — to tell anybodyanybody — about the loose and snarling pit bulls, the gun-toting gangsters, and the dogcatchers and police who always seemed to come too late.

The principal, Helena Lazo, had introduced him simply: “Bill nos va a ayudar.” Bill is going to help us.

“Rebuilt N.O. homes at risk without required elevation,” - USA TODAY

Thousands of homes in New Orleans are at risk from floods because local officials let their owners skirt rebuilding requirements aimed at preventing massive losses and billions in costs to taxpayers.

In New Orleans, city records show at least 2,300 homeowners — many in areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina and imperiled again this month as Hurricane Gustav strained at the city’s levees — escaped requirements that they elevate their homes.

Can you believe it’s been almost three years? Three years since the levee breaks? Three years since the Superdome? Three years since President Bush making promises in a generator-lit Jackson Square?

But three years out, where are we? How much progress has really been made? According to a new report released today by PolicyLink, we’ve seem some progress the past year, but not nearly enough — especially when it comes to the bedrock issue of housing for Louisianans. Far too many residents still can’t afford to rebuild their homes or find an affordable place to rent.

The new report, “A Long Way Home: The State of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008,” shows that while some progress has been made during the past year, thousands of residents who want to return home are facing a critical rental housing shortage, inadequate rebuilding grants and a recovery plagued by red tape and ever-changing rules.

The report (which I co-authored along with my colleagues Kalima Rose and Dominique Duval-Diop) analyzes the three major federally funded housing recovery programs – the Road Home (for homeowners) and the small and large rental programs (for renters). Together, these programs allocate nearly $12 billion in federal recovery funds to restore housing in Louisiana.

Some key findings:

• In New Orleans, 4 of every 5 Road Home recipients rebuilding their homes did not get enough money to cover their repairs. Statewide, more than 2 of every 3 face the same predicament.
• Statewide, the average Road Home applicant fell more than $35,000 short of the money they need to rebuild their home. The shortfall hit highly flooded, historically African-American communities particularly hard.
• Nearly 40,000 low-income homeowners received an average of about $27,000 each from an additional Road Home grant program designed to help vulnerable residents.
• Renters still face huge hurdles—only 2 in 5 damaged affordable rental units statewide will be repaired or replaced with recovery assistance. In the New Orleans metro region, it’s an even more dismal rate of 1 in 3.
• The national credit crunch and personal financial vulnerability keeps many mom-and-pop landlords from being able to rebuild through the small rental repair program. Meant to restore more than 10,000 rental homes, the program has completed only 82.
• Nearly 28,000 families nationwide still rely on disaster rental assistance, with 14,000 in the greater New Orleans metro region alone. There will not be nearly enough affordable rental units on the market by the time the assistance runs out in March 2009.

The election season provides another chance to put the issue of Gulf Coast rebuilding at the forefront of our national dialogue. Let’s hope we’re at a very different place in the process come Year 4.