Mercedes Márquez, HUD’s assistant secretary for community and planning development, outlines changes to HUD’s Consolidated Plan. These changes are intended to streamline the application process, making it easier to comply with requirements. In addition, the expanded data and new mapping tool will serve as resources in analyzing local need and targeting strategies to address local challenges.

In February, on the heels of $25 billion attorneys general mortgage settlement, Sen. Robert Menendez unleashed the Preserving American Homeownership Act, a bill that would help eligible underwater homeowners by creating a program where banks reduce mortgage principal in exchange for a portion of the increased value of the home over time—shared appreciation mortgage.

The bill was timely because it mirrored Ocwen Financial’s loan modification program, Shared Appreciation Modification, that creates equity by writing down an underwater borrower’s principal balance to 95 percent LTV. In this interview, Shelterforce talks to Menendez, (D-NJ), who serves as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development, about this initiative, the ongoing federal response to the housing crisis, the Sustainable Communities Initiative, the Occupy movement, and more.

We speak with Ocwen CEO Ron Faris about why principal reduction makes business sense and some of the myths that get perpetuated about it.

Boston Community Capital’s SUN program has gotten a lot of media attention. How is it working and what’s next?

Reclaiming REO at a scale that protects neighborhoods will involve a delicate dance between ground game and national reach, and between nonprofit and for-profit capacities.

Attention is turning to single-family rentals as a way to keep a growing inventory of foreclosed properties occupied in a credit-constrained market. But scattered-site rental has long been considered a very tough nut to crack for nonprofit housing groups. How do those who make it work pull it off?

Even the most sophisticated private and nonprofit partnerships for dealing with vacant property will end up with some properties that don’t pencil out. Land banks can step in to keep those properties from dragging down revitalization efforts.

Three years after the financial meltdown, credit remains elusive in many underserved communities. Although the reliance on credit scores is greater now than it’s been in a decade, many housing activists and community lenders are arguing for other means to evaluate credit risk.

A Massachusetts loan program gives lenders skin in the game while providing tools for responsible homeownership for lower-income borrowers. 

For Sister Lillian Murphy of Mercy Housing, your mission must not be an excuse to make bad business decisions.

If a lender won’t or can’t modify, why wait until they foreclose? Some groups are taking matters into their own hands with note purchases or short sale programs.

Foreclosed properties have been flooding the auction block following the housing crisis. Less visibly, pools of distressed loans are also being sold off—and it’s a market ripe for partnership with neighborhood stabilization actors.

The articles in this issue depart from our usual stomping grounds a bit to look at capital markets and how they are partnering or might partner with community developers. Here’s how we came to be consorting with private equity firms and their kin.

“Happening to a city near you” is the unsettling tag line for Land of Opportunity, a film that takes an intimate look at post-Katrina New Orleans and the interrelated struggles of those navigating it.

Shelterforce speaks with Shelley Poticha, director of HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, about implementing sustainable policy at the federal level while encouraging local innovation, keeping down the cost of green housing, and effecting change while dealing with federal government bureaucracy.

Smart growth principles can’t be imposed from the outside.

Nicolas P. Retsinas, a senior lecturer in real estate at the Harvard Business School and director emeritus of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, talks with Shelterforce about his long service in the housing field.

Despite fears that rising prices follow smart growth projects, smart growth and affordable housing advocates need each other to realize the promise of each. 

Affordable housing already exists near transit—but without action it will be lost. 

In Virginia, a statewide incentive program has put new affordable housing projects out in front of most market-rate developers when it comes to green design.

Cleveland housing court Judge Raymond Pianka uses innovative legal tactics to achieve code compliance, but is it enough to stabilize neighborhoods?

The affordable housing movement has not only accepted green building, but is making it integral to its work.

When business leaders in St. Louis withdrew financial support for a campaign to pass a badly needed transit tax, it was a blessing in disguise.

Boston’s City Life/Vida Urbana is finding success by turning conventional wisdom on its head and entering the picture after a foreclosure has taken place.

Fighting organized money takes organized people.

Housing and homelessness are human rights issues—and that can be an organizing strength.

Wall Street’s criminal recklessness and its impact on millions of people across the country is making activists out of an unlikely selection of people.

In Delaware, a partnership with Diamond State CLT let Kent County leverage NSP money it wasn’t originally sure it had the capacity to use at all into permanently affordable housing.

We’re going to take a ride down one of the country’s storied roadways to take a look at some of the organizations that are helping to preserve history and strengthen the future. From Chicago to Santa Monica, Route 66 reflects the challenges facing American communities today. Most places along the highway have seen ups and downs, and many have extraordinary people with important stories to be told.

As credit tightens and higher and higher numbers of commercial real estate loans enter default, CDCs are stepping up to fill the financing gap in economic development deals from which conventional lenders have been retreating.

How do community developers whose goals include neighborhood revitalization identify which businesses or other non-residential tenants (library, healthcare center) are likely to create the most positive momentum in a given area? It’s certainly more art than science. We asked a few long-time community developers for their thoughts.

The idea of turning the community land trust model into an economic development tool is attracting growing interest, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how it would work.

The Affordable Housing Program of the Federal Home Loan Banks is a marked success, and should be a model for expanding the system’s investment in economic development.

Rather than just developing homes for sale, City of Lakes CLT lets buyers pick houses to bring into the land trust.

A promising, billion-dollar Twin Cities light rail project almost bypassed lower-income neighborhoods on its route, but thanks to a coalition of community groups, it will now make all local stops.

We’re not the only 36-year-old in town. Here is a small sampling of other 36th birthdays taking place this year:

We’re going to take a ride down one of the country’s storied roadways to take a look at some of the organizations that are helping to preserve history and strengthen the future. From Chicago to Santa Monica, Route 66 reflects the challenges facing American communities today. Most places along the highway have seen ups and downs, and many have extraordinary people with important stories to be told.

We’ve seen and written a lot about what happens in our communities. In many cases, our writers were prescient in their analysis as they warned of the potential (and often real) community fallout from predatory lending and misguided housing policy.

Can you guess when this Shelterforce quote ran? “As hard times continue to plague most American families, the problem of mortgage foreclosures has intensified … Many families have lost their homes—victims of unscrupulous mortgage bankers, lenders, and real estate con artists.”

Can you guess which president this refers to? “The president has decided that the future of our cities depends on business and that government’s role is to sweeten the pot for private investors.”

Get deja vu—and also see how far we’ve come—-with quotes from 36 years of Shelterforce.

Shelterforce caught up with the HUD deputy secretary on the precipice of retirement, nearly two-and-a-half years after joining the agency. Sims brought to HUD not only his political savvy, but also an unshakable commitment to equity and sustainability. In this exit interview, we talk about his accomplishments at HUD, plans for the future, and what he thinks needs to be done in order to stabilize the housing market.