The NY Times had a great piece over the weekend about the racial disparities in foreclosures in New York. The story was both stunning in the depth of the crisis and, at the same time. so very much expected.

What really got me, though, was checking out this map of Brooklyn (click on the photo below to go to the full interactive map page). I live right smack-dab in the middle of all those red dots in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. I can pinpoint some of the houses that those dots represent. It’s awful and troubling and maddening. Look for yourself.

A recap of this week’s equity news.

 ”A Governor With No Money Seeks to Improve the People’s Health,” -  New York Times

Snacking on shrimp and carrot sticks, doctors and nurses gathered at N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center to celebrate the opening of a new research center called the Center for Healthful Behavior Change.
 
They were tapping into the spirit of the times, and now Gov. David A. Paterson has done so as well, turning the familiar call for political change into an appeal for healthful living as he promotes a number of anti-obesity measures, from a sugar tax on soft drinks to posting calorie counts in chain restaurants.

“House Votes to Expand Child Health Insurance,” - Washington Post

The House easily approved an expansion of government health coverage for low-income children yesterday, a top priority for President-elect Barack Obama and the first in a series of stalled measures expected to move quickly through the Democratic Congress as President Bush leaves office.

Obama hailed the 289 to 139 vote and nudged the Senate to act with the “same sense of urgency so that it can be one of the first measures I sign into law when I am president.”

“In recession, poverty strikes middle class,” - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chaun Frost ran up her credit cards when the U.S. economy was booming, and now the single mother is paying a heavy price.

To service her debt and buy food for her two children, she has taken a second job selling pizza on weekends and some week nights, supplementing the $2,200 a month she earns from her job coordinating volunteers at a children’s hospital.

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).
 

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.