The Shelterforce blog

February 2009

• Obama Budget: The Beginning of Meaningful Tax Reform

  The Obama Budget represents the beginning of a meaningful reform of the U.S. tax code, a reform that is long overdue. In an earlier post on Rooflines , I had quoted Warren Buffet as saying: There’s class warfare, all right,…

• Who’s Going to Report the News?

  Rooflines has been watching a disturbing decline in the newspaper industry as print media is falling victim to fewer subscribers, falling numbers in advertising, and increased competition from the Internet with the concern that as standard media outlets begin to…

• Rethinking Home Mortgage Deductions

  Harvard economics Professor Edward Glaeser, in The New York Times this week, asks us to rethink the home mortgage deduction in the tax code, and it certainly sounds like a good idea. In hard economic times, we all need a…

• Worse Than a Tornado: Neighborhood Stabilization Amid the Foreclosure Crisis

  NHI’s David Sailer appeared in the February 2009 issue of Planning magazine to address “the insidious destruction of entire neighborhoods now goes largely unnoticed.” With few exceptions, he says, “we allow thousands of properties to be abandoned or sent into…

• The Mystery of a Mere Idea

  Compelling ideas are all you need to start a revolution. That could be one lesson to take from the experience of Van Jones, the green jobs activist from Oakland. Jones is one of the best-known faces in the green jobs…

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  The Obama Housing Plan: Bold and Sensible, But Gaps Remain

  There is much that is praiseworthy about the President Obama’s Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. It is an intelligent plan that recognizes the seriousness of the housing crisis and the need to restore confidence in housing markets. First, the plan distinguishes between different types of home mortgage borrowers who find themselves in distress (either due to unaffordable monthly payments or because they are “under water”). The plan lays out the following categories of borrowers who will NOT be assisted: speculators, and those who bought homes that are unsuitable for their economic circumstances ( folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford ) The President did a service to homeowners by plainly stating: This plan will not save every home. However, a serious gap in the proposed plan is a lack of a plan to help homeowners in “unsuitable” housing to transition to a more suitable/affordable housing situation either as homeowners or renters. more

• Does Obama’s Plan Go Far Enough?

  Barack Obama’s announcement this week outlining $75 billion in direct funding to help homeowners stay in their homes, and up to $200 billion designed to allow for the government-controlled mortgage industries, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to issue low-rate (5.1…

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  Where We Live Affects How Much We Drive and What We Can Afford

  The Urban Land Institute has produced a remarkable report that examines in depth how where we live affects how much we drive, and consequently how much we must spend on transportation and housing. The illustration is the Washington, DC area,…

• Obama’s Foreclosure Plan: Just the Facts

  The Obama administration announced February 18 its Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan that aims to offer assistance to as many as 9 million homeowners making a “good-faith effort to stay current on their mortgage payments,” while attempting to address the…

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  The Trailer Park as Affordable Urban Housing?

  Where I grew up, a lot of people lived in mobile homes, as a way to enter the housing market at an affordable price. Still do. And now there is some fascinating new thinking about how to make such sites…

• Commuter Rail’s Promise

  The battle over what sort of transportation projects to include in the economic stimulus package centered around whether to emphasize the same old highway subsidies or to push more progressive transit. But not every smart-growth advocate favors more money for…

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  Beyond the Stimulus: Whither Communities In The Next Transportation Bill?

  I am immensely grateful to my colleagues at NRDC and in the broader smart growth movement for being on top of what’s been going on in the stimulus negotiations, particularly with respect to transportation investment. I know the legislation is…

• Despite Promises of Relief, Foreclosure Crisis Still Escalating

  In the Chicago metro area as across the nation, even with various public, private and nonprofit relief efforts underway, the foreclosure crisis continues to snowball. Foreclosures and foreclosed buildings going into real estate ownerships (REO) and hence likely remaining vacant have continued to rise, according to the latest analysis by the nonprofit Woodstock Institute. There was a 52 percent increase in foreclosure filings in the Chicago metro area between 2007 and 2008; building on a 100 percent increase between 2006 and 2007. While all types of foreclosures have risen, in the Chicago area there has been a recent spike in foreclosures of condos. Condos made up 19 percent of area foreclosures in 2008, compared to 12 percent in 2007. The Chicago neighborhoods of Rogers Park and Uptown — economically and racially diverse, relatively affordable neighborhoods on the city’s north side — were particularly hard hit. more

• Task Force Calls for $4 Billion in NSP Funding

  Editor’s Note: The following is from the National Foreclosure Prevention and Neighborhood Stabilization Task Force. See the bottom of the page for a list of task force members. In 2008, approximately two million families faced the devastating impacts of foreclosure — and at least as many foreclosures are anticipated this year and next. The members of the National Foreclosure Prevention and Neighborhood Stabilization Task Force believe it’s time to make immediate fixes to our housing infrastructure to create jobs now and get our communities back on track. The Task Force — a cross-industry group of nearly 100 local and national organizations concerned about the foreclosure crisis’ impacts on communities — encourages the addition of $4 billion to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) that will help state, county and city efforts to meet the overwhelming and growing need to rehabilitate vacant and foreclosed properties — providing thousands of new jobs for rehab contractors and home builders — and to resuscitate our communities. more

• The Financial Stability Plan

  This morning, Treasury Secy. Timothy Geithner announced the Financial Stability Plan, geared to revive the banking system by way “attack[ing] our credit crisis on all fronts with our full arsenal of financial tools and the resources.” The plan calls for…

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  Two Americas On Display: DC & Las Vegas

  I was struck by two hugely contrasting stories in Sunday’s Real Estate section of The Washington Post. If you want evidence that John Edwards’s “two Americas” campaign theme had substance behind it, you need look no further. The first story…

• Let’s Take Advantage of The Bad Times

  With city budgets shrinking rapidly, municipal governments are desperate to collect property tax revenue wherever they can find it. So they are moving to fast-track new, large development projects that can bring an infusion of new revenue, construction jobs and…

• Latest Simulus Bill Draft

  Find the latest version of the Senate bill here more

• NSP Funding Gets “Compromised”

  While Senate Democrats and Republicans were looking to compromise on what is now a trimmed-down, $780 billion stimulus package, it looks like some key progressive measures have been, well, compromised. $2.25 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds — money that…

• The Stimulus Package and Smart Growth

  It was a busy day on Capitol Hill yesterday as the Senate, in addition to several amendments to the now-$900 billion economic stimulus package, approved a homebuyer tax credit for all new home buyers in 2009. The Isakson amendment, named…

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