National Housing Institute

On a trip yesterday into Richmond, Va., I made sure to pick up some of the free media that clutter the doorways of bookshops and cafes and provide a reason for those ubiquitous multicolored news boxes on the sidewalks and corners. Ubiquitous in certain trendy neighborhoods, at least.

Today’s economic crisis is devastating neighborhoods and households across the country. Urban, low-income communities that were slowly recovering from the disinvestment of earlier decades are now falling back to where they were in the 1970s. ...

The House of Representatives is expected to take up the Jobs for Main Street Act, 2010 (H.R. 2847) today, a $75 billion bill that includes $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund and $65 million for project-based vouchers to be distributed along with NHTF dollars

Xavier de Souza Briggs, Associate Director for General Government Programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget is responsible for not only the “budget” of numerous government ...

Banks that once handed out home loans freely are now imposing such stringent requirements that many homeowners who might want to refinance are effectively locked out.

There was some good news yesterday for ACORN, the 40-year-old, and largest grass-roots community organization in the country, as a federal judge ruled that the House ban on issuing federal grant money to the embattled organization was unconstitutional.

Thanks to the National Housing Conference’s Sharon Price for passing this info on only moments after the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 4173, better known as the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. ...

Elizabeth Duke, a governor on the board of the Federal Reserve System, speaking at the Community Stabilization Symposium in Harbor, Md., said recent increases in foreclosures only “exacerbated a pre-existing vacancy problems” in certain cities.

Habitat for Humanity’s East Bay affiliate is retrofitting a brownfield into 54 affordable homes on two acres of land in Oakland, Calif. With excellent location, walkable density, great design, and ...

The political and media war against ACORN continues. In an article published today on the Web site of Editor & Publisher, the well-known magazine about journalism and for journalists, Chris Martin and I ask, “Have the Media Falsely Framed ACORN?”

For decades, the United States government, pushed by its business partners in the financial and real estate world, “marched the nation into a delusion.” The fantasy is that we can create wealth ...

On this Veterans Day, when we remember those who have served, it is troubling to note that, although veterans make up around 9 percent of our population, they comprise 23 percent of our homeless population and fully a third of our homeless men. ...

James Oberstar, the Democrat from Minnesota who chairs the House Transportation Committee, has been sending out cranky letters to governors around the country who haven’t been spending their economic stimulus money fast enough on highway projects. ...

The three-year Knight Foundationsponsored study Soul of the Community has released data from its first two years of surveys that asks people in 26 communities about their perceptions of their city when it comes to things like crime, schools, beauty, nightlife, and roads. ...