#GRANTS: Dell Computers & Dell Foundation Offer Resources For Youth & Environment
Dell Computers was founded in 1984 in Austin Texas and it became a worldwide leader in online sales of MSDOS/Windows/x86 computers within a decade. Michael and Susan Dell established their foundation in 1999 in an effort to present their booming company as a corporate citizen. The efforts of the foundation are to multiply the work of Dell’s individual employees:
Being a good corporate citizen is more than just writing a check to a nonprofit and checking ‘complete’ next to your external branding strategy. To make a meaningful difference, companies must integrate the process into its business model, strategically align community involvement with business initiatives and avoid diluting efforts by consciously focusing on areas where the greatest impact can be made. That’s the recipe for success in today’s global market.
If your organization would like to apply for support from the foundation, we have collated some resources to help you get started.
| Category Advocacy, Affordable Housing, Civics, Community, Environment, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Greening, Health, How-to, Low-Income, Major Gifts, Nonprofit, Resource, Revitalization, Sponsorship | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#PROAGING: Republican Budget Realigns Medicare But Ignores Long-Term Care
The macro-economics of aging over the next 40 years do not look great: the first Baby Boomers reached the age of Social-Security eligibility 15 months ago, but the crest of this so-called ‘Silver Tsunami’ will not come until about 2030. It will not recede for another couple of decades. The issue is not the number of people so much as the economy’s ability/preparation to deal with the number. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, “The baseline 2010 Retirement Readiness Rating™ finds that nearly one-half (47.2 percent) of the oldest cohort (Early Baby Boomers) are simulated to be “at risk” of not having sufficient retirement resources to pay for “basic” retirement expenditures and uninsured health care costs. The percentage “at risk” drops for the Late Boomers (to 43.7 percent) but then increases slightly for Generation Xers to 44.5 percent.”
The combination of retiring Boomers with lengthening life expectancies with a general political trend to cut taxes for all while reducing services only to the poor has meant that the costs of long-term care are growing, while the will to adjust expectations or fund federal programs is shrinking. The FY2013 budget proposed by Senators Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) earlier this month has not much quelled fears of how Medicare will deal with the spread between long-living retired Boomers and the costs they will impose on an already stressed healthcare ‘system’.
| Category Affordable Housing, Aging, Assisted Living, Boomers, Community, Independent Living, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Retirement Living, Senior Housing, Study, Technology for Aging | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#ProAging: Which US Cities Offer The Best Lifestyle To Their Older Citizens?
Dave Letterman offers only a “Top 10″ list, but Bankers Life and Casualty has just published its Top 50 “Best US Cities For Seniors 2011″ and the list contains a few surprises – though, admittedly, not so many laughs.
The list was drawn up with an effort to establish some stable criteria that were, in turn, weighted to reflect the importance of each issue with older Americans. For example, healthcare opportunities are weighted to 10 at the top of the scale, whereas housing was weighted at 5, because many kinds of housing arrangements can be made for many kinds of seniors, whereas healthcare is a priority for all older people.
The good side about a weighted standard is that readers can judge for themselves if a certain concern outweighs other issues. For example, the city noted as having the lowest crime and the safest urban environment for seniors is Nassau-Suffolk County, New York (Long Island), yet the area did not quite crack the top 10. But if security/low crime is most important for you, you now know where to retire.
| Category Affordable Housing, Aging, Boomers, Community, Environment, Health, Healthcare, Healthcare, Independent Living, Marketing, Report, Resource, Retirement Living, Seniors Life, Wellness | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Philanthropy: How to Find and Solicit the Biggest Corporate Donors
In the midst of the present economic crisis, the debate about whether corporations should have social responsibility to give to philanthropic causes has grown heated. Some argue that CR (Corporate Responsibility) departments actually diffuse problems rather than solve them and corporations should put their resources to better, profit-driven, uses for the betterment of all. Others counter that without a role for institutionalized CR, innovation and economic dynamism are often replaced with market suppression and cronyism.
But the present fact is a number of corporations give a good deal of financial and/or goods-in-kind support for social causes (broadly defined). A list of the top 50 (as of July 2011) can be found at The Foundation Center‘s website. What are some of the ways they give? And how might your organization benefit from their philanthropic programs? Over the next few weeks, we’ll present some of the research pursued to see what can be learned about a number of these 50 programs.
We begin with the top 5.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community, Environment, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Greening, Health, Healthcare, Low-Income, Marketing, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Resource, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Aging: Is The Job Part-Time, Or The Retirement?
Click on Carol Simpson's Cartoon To Purchase A Copy
Whatever political position you hold on the TARP of George W. Bush or the bailout of General Motors carried out under Barack Obama, the fact is, a great deal of money, not wealth, was pushed into the economy. ‘Inflation‘ is the result of putting in more money into an economy than the economy is worth: as dollars are pumped in that to do not reflect the perceived value of the market, each person will demand more of those cheap, common, dollars for his or her goods and services.
No one is hurt more by inflation than those on a fixed income that does not respond with the economy; Namely, the retired. When a retiree’s Social Security Check check arrives in the mail, the note on the check might be for $100 (to keep my brain clear with simple round numbers), but the groceries that used to cost $100 might cost $110 with 10% inflation. Those in the labor force can work an extra hour or two to make up the difference. Those who are retired (or unemployed), are stuck $10 short a month. How will they cover the shortfall?
| Category Affordable Housing, Aging, Community, Independent Living, Low-Income, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Report, Resource, Retirement Living, Seniors Life | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Sustainability: Keeping Families In Homes Keeps Neighborhoods Alive
Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of NYC
We welcome Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, Inc. to the growing list of Contributors to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit Blog. Ms. Grier was appointed CEO in May of last year, having been COO of the housing organization since 2004. She is writing about proposed cuts in government funding to community-development programs.
Each day Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City and its affiliated Neighborhood Offices (NHSNYC) assist homeowners that are facing the potential loss of their homes through foreclosure. Government, at every level, has been the primary funder for many of the foreclosure prevention and intervention programs over the past three years.
Now, despite the fact that the foreclosure crisis continues, government funding that has been effective is threatened to be completely cut at the federal, state, and local level.
| Category Advocacy, Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Civics, Community, Low-Income, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Bernell Grier
#ProAging: Federal Budget Cuts Senior Housing & Programs
The fierce debates about the federal deficit, its origins, and how (quickly) to pay it down have affected almost every sector of the US population. The short-term problem of a government shut-down seems to have been pushed down the calendar by a couple of weeks, but only by pressing a host of cuts to the short-term/hold-over budget of Fiscal Year 2010-11.
Even some conservative pundits are unhappy with the proposed cuts, and the outcry has only grown as details about cutting programs for older Americans come to light.
| Category Affordable Housing, Aging, Community, Low-Income, National/International, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Top Ten Senior Housing Trends For 2011
Senior Housing News published their long-awaited report of housing trends in the senior housing market a couple of days ago.
An underlying trend highlighted by the report suggests that “value” is near the top of everybody’s list — developers, facilities managers, and potential residents alike.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the report’s main focus areas:
- Economics 101 – Supply Decreases, Demand Increases….News Flash: Prices will go up for Independent Living, Assisted Living and Nursing Care
- 3 – R’s of Senior Housing – Rehab, Renovate, Repurpose
- Technology – Monitoring Networks, Apps, Devices and Systems Integrator
- Campus Extensions and Home Healthcare
- Finance & Capital Markets – Chicken or the Egg
- Government -Healthcare & Entitlement Reform
- Home Prices – Lending Constraints and Mortgage Interest Deduction
- Local is Cool – Local, Face-to-face social networks make a comebackArchitecture & Design
- Go Long Grannie Stocks
Visit the Senior Housing News website to read the report in it’s entirety.
| Category Adult Kids, Affordable Housing, Aging, Assisted Living, Community, Independent Living, Nonprofit, Report, Resource, Retirement Living, Seniors Life | | Comments Off
Written by: Marco Kathuria
HAMP, or ‘Extend and Pretend,’ Continues To Hurt Troubled Mortgage Holders
We drew up a report about the Obama Administration’s ‘Home Affordable Modifications Program‘ (HAMP) in early August this year, in which we looked at news stories and even the government’s own figures that demonstrated the slow start, and middle stretch, the program was having. The program was meant to offer those who were behind on payments, but with a history of good-faith compliance on their mortgage, a chance to have a three-month trial period of a notably reduced mortgage payment. If/when that period was successfully completed, the mortgage owner would receive a refinanced mortgage with lower monthly payments for up to five years.
An economic quarter later, and the news for homeowners is still not good. Economists are poking holes in the program, and – unlike in August – the knives of political opposition have been sharpened as well.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Conference/Congress, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Meta-Debate About Mega-Cities (Or Not) Of The Future
Yesterday we posted news concerning two multi-family buildings opened or in development in Washington DC and Baltimore. These projects, initiated and funded by a bipartisan association of private- and public-sector institutions, are also meeting the gold standard of LEED Certification of environmental stewardship. The project in Washington DC represents a new model of Section 8 housing that has appeared over the last decade or so – a model that encourages the participation and investment of residents inside and around the building to make the community a success (See also our Perspectives interview with Andrew Vincent and Allison Pendell-Jones with the Baltimore AHC). The one in Baltimore is a broader community project meant to encourage an ethnically and economically mixed community in an environment meant to draw on the conveniences of urban living while retaining the space and modern amenities associated with the suburbs. Today we wanted to call attention to a larger debate about how housing, urban populations, and suburban communities might evolve over the next couple of decades as we recover from the Great Recession. How might we live then?
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Greening, Opinion, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Baltimore/Washington Area Expanding Multi-Use and Green Housing
Mockup of East Baltimore Uplands Community
The housing market remains in the doldrums and the legal ramifications of the market’s bubble and collapse remain in the news. Nevertheless, the Baltimore-Washington metro region has seen an ongoing commitment from lenders, investors, and construction firms within both the private and public sectors to expand green multi-family housing. Multi-Housing News Online (MHN) has recently reported on a couple of projects that are moving toward completion, even as gloom hangs over the rest of the market.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community, Greening, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
The Foreclosure Crisis: The Same, But Different
The economic news relayed via our blog this week has not been much for confidence building, and we close the week with reports of a bleak twist in the ongoing foreclosure crisis. The news of the past couple of weeks has been that reporters and most of the fifty states’ attorneys general have been pursuing the ‘robo-signing’ services‘ that have churned out foreclosure proceedings on people who might even have been in good standing. Now third-party investors are demanding that the banks they support clarify who owns which properties and who owes what amounts to whom. Turns out that the banks can not readily provide that information, as the paperwork and loans on the properties were sliced-and-diced in a process called ‘securitization.’ Some pundits see in this latest twist the undermining of some of the first principles of capitalism: private property and the legal right to register, retain, and/or resell it.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, News and Current Affairs | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Interview: Andrew Vincent & Allison Pendell-Jones of Greater Baltimore AHC
If you’ve ever watched Extreme Home Makeover, you’ve seen the kind of satisfaction one group of people can bring to another by providing them with a home that suits their needs. While the Greater Baltimore AHC (GBAHC) hasn’t caught this kind of ‘extreme’ media attention, they’ve certainly caught the attention of the Baltimore area. GBAHC is part of AHC Inc., a private, nonprofit developer of affordable housing that’s been providing quality homes for low- and moderate-income families since 1975. A subsidiary of AHC Inc., an affordable housing developer in Arlington, VA, Greater Baltimore AHC opened in 2004 to address the need for more affordable housing in the Baltimore region. Today GBAHC has six properties with more than 1,100 affordable apartments.
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Interview, Revitalization, Special Series, Sustainability | | Comments Off
Written by: Cate Neilson
Foreclosures Slowly Start Moving Again, Though Distrust Remains
A week or so ago, Bank of America announced it would put a hold on its foreclosure proceedings while it reviewed the processes that moved the foreclosure claims past lawyers, whose signatures were required. Other financial institutes followed suit. The decision came in the midst of growing fears that the foreclosures on tens of thousands of homes had taken place without real human oversight of the paper trail legally required for the process. Today Bank of America announced it would return to the process in at least 23 states, confident that their materials in those states were being properly vetted. How have politicians and neighborhood associations responded to the hold and release?
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Local/Maryland, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Foreclosure Assistance To Banks Almost Slips Past Obama Administration
President Obama enacted a ‘pocket veto’ earlier today, blocking a bill coming from Congress (HR3808) that would have sped up the status of numerous foreclosure proceedings. The pitch for the bill was that it would ease interstate commerce by allowing states to expedite each others’ foreclosure confirmations, and thus help clear out the backlog of foreclosures that many blame for the ongoing malaise in the housing market. According to CNNMoney.com, “The bill would have required federal and state courts to recognize documents that were notarized in other states. Both congressional chambers approved the legislation by voice votes, a move used for noncontroversial bills. However, housing advocates and attorneys warned that the bill might have made it more difficult to challenge the quality of foreclosure records at a time when reports of improperly foreclosed homes are increasing.”
Not only are such reports increasing, one can not help but also smell the presence of big-bank lobbyists getting their way. Or are we being paranoid?
| Category Affordable Housing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Philanthropy: Baltimore’s Long Tradition Of Civic Philanthropy Unbroken By Great Recession
Baltimore likes to call itself the 'City of Firsts,' which has given it a proud heritage of innovation, civic uplift, and educational creativity. The city has struggled, like so many others on the eastern seaboard and in the upper midwest, with declining industrialization and population shifts to exurbs and to the Sun Belt. And yet, perhaps for the same reasons that such cities have endured such flight, Baltimore has not been ravaged by the housing bubble and Wall Street bailout that have so gravely weakened the economy generally and boom towns in places like Florida and Nevada specifically. One of the striking things about Baltimore, in good times and bad, is its long and deep tradition of civic philanthropy that goes back into nineteenth-century industrialism and continues in twenty-first century online and knowledge-based communities. We would like to celebrate that tradition today.The Peabody Library
Though not a native of the area, George Peabody spent a good deal of his business life in Baltimore, and he showed his appreciation by giving some of his largest philanthropic grants (in money, properties, and educational resources). In his book “All The Money In The World” (Random House, 2007) has this to say about George Peabody: “Even before the Carnegies and Rockefellers became philanthropic legends, there was George Peabody, considered to be the father of modern philanthropy.” Peabody made his wealth in dry goods and cotton at the turn of the nineteenth century, then used that capital to finance railroads in the US and Britain in the middle of that century. He gave the buildings, library, and resources to found the Peabody Library and Musical Institute at Johns Hopkins University, for example. And he sought to improve housing for the working classes around the harbor, whose labor he needed for his overseas shipping interests.
A generation later Johns Hopkins used his fortune made in groceries and dry goods, and then (like Peabody) with the railroads to ensure the foundation of a university that bears his name. His Quaker roots instilled in him a philanthropy based on religious morality, a foundation his father gave him by doing such things as freeing his slaves and asking Johns and his siblings to help work the family farm until debts could be paid.
That tradition of philanthropy in and to Baltimore by the titans of finance carries on today, with the likes of George Soros, about whom we reported earlier this week. Soros’s donations to the Open Society Institute in Baltimore have been in the many millions of dollars and are likely to continue beyond his lifetime. But while the big-splash – nay, gargantuan-splash – donations get the lion’s share of attention, Baltimore has a strong new tradition of micro-donations and giving circles that do not get the attention they deserve.
Paul Sturm recently shined a spotlight on the modern spin to the tradition for BMoreMedia.com:
If manufacturing is the muscle that historically propelled Baltimore’s economy, with higher education providing the brains, then the nonprofit sector –particularly the neighborhood and community-based organizations often operating on a shoestring — has earned its place as the city’s heart and soul. Baltimore and its surrounding region are blessed with an abundance of organizations that make a difference every day in the quality of community living.
Over 10,000 non-profit organizations are registered in the greater Baltimore region, and they employ over 85,500 people, who in turn help tens of thousands with a multiplier effect that is the envy of Austan Goolsbee. Sturm spoke with those who work in the educational, housing, greening, lending/finance, and conflict-resolution sectors, and they all stress not just the breadth of benefits such organizations bring to the city, but the fact that such mega-philanthropic organizations like the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Open Society Institute are based in Baltimore, which act as magnets for other such organizations.
The most recent development, though, is the ‘giving circle’ type of organization that draws like-minded, but not wealthy, micro-philanthropists to pool their contributions and use social media to broaden their reach at almost no cost. Lionel Foster at UrbaniteBaltimore.com ran a story on The Baltimore Women’s Giving Circle at the end of 2007, which is part of a movement that really picked up steam at the turn of the millennium.
The rapid growth of giving circles—most were founded since 2000—may be due to the fact that they allow different combinations of cultures, institutions, and motivations to complement each other. In many instances, giving circles are one of many charitable investment tools offered by a local community foundation. Charitable foundations take their cues from nineteenth-century industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, who was among the first to found one: They have a board of directors and manage large sums of money, which they distribute in the form of grants. Private foundations do not solicit funds themselves; instead, they distribute money on behalf of a person, family, or corporation. Community foundations are trusted with the cash and assets, donated within a person’s lifetime or as part of the estate, of multiple donors to fund projects within a particular geographic area.
Such circles raise thousands, not millions, of dollars, but they can target that money in a wonderfully efficient manner. Moreover, they bring people together who might not otherwise interact, which strengthens the social fabric of the city and keeps people involved in the long-term issues that concern everyone.
Baltimore’s strong tradition of philanthropy is 150 years young, and it has evolved as the city’s inhabitants and their challenges have evolved. Though the image of Baltimore has been tarnished by drugs and crime (real and as relayed by shows like “The Wire”) over the last generation or so, the foundations for regeneration are strong and the renaissance of the city is being driven by activists with deep and not-so-deep pockets. But they all seem to share a first heart-and-soul desire to keep it Charm City.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community, Grants and Funding, Greening, Local/Maryland, Nonprofit, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Census Information on Baltimore and Maryland Suggest Mosaic, Not Melting Pot
This past spring most Americans took a few moments to complete and return their census forms. The exercise, mandated by the Constitution to ensure proportional representation in the House of Representatives (and the Electoral College), takes place every ten years and has been a part of the socio-political landscape since 1790. Nevertheless, the last three or four rounds of census-taking have become targets for anti-government challenges (mostly rhetorical) who see in it an opportunity for the federal authorities to pry into our privacy. The facts that the Constitution enshrines and prescribes the practice, and keeps all information aggregated and out of the hands of law enforcement, seem of little importance to them. (more…)
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization, Sustainability | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Spike Lee Follows Up With “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise”
We finish this week’s focus on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with much help from Spike Lee’s documentary “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise,” which recently showed on HBO and is periodically being repeated. The followup finds many of the same people who told of their immediate post-Katrina experiences so see how they are faring, and what has changed in the intervening years. Lee begins with the Saints’ Super Bowl miracle victory this past February and how it marked a turning point in the morale of the citizens of New Orleans. Recovery was certainly on its way, thanks to the work of Brad Pitt’s “Make It Right” organization rebuilding so many homes and the rise of sound charter schools in the midst of the New Orleans public education system – among other things. But the improvements also mask some of the ongoing rot within.
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Greening, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Housing post-Katrina: What FEMA Can’t Do, Brad Pitt and Friends Can
A neighborhood of east New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
The hurricane was tracked for a week before it made landfall in western Mississippi. We knew it was coming and had ample time to move people out, to board up homes, to store up supplies… Instead, the planning from the federal administration was desultory, and many within New Orleans admitted that they thought they could just wait out another hurricane, even a Category 5 one. None planned on shoddy engineering from the Army Corps of Engineers. When the levees broke, 200,000-300,000 people were driven to their roofs or out of their neighborhoods, and some 1800 directly to their deaths. Though many in fact escaped with their lives, none of their homes survived. None. If the sweep of water did not dismantle them outright, seepage and mold and a couple of years of abandonment ensured their destruction once heavy machinery and big money returned to the city. In the (ongoing) interim?
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, News and Current Affairs, Politics, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
The Flooding of New Orleans – Five Years On
The print, broadcast, and online media have all weighed in on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the resultant flooding of over 80% of the city of New Orleans. Most of the reports we have been reading and watching want to tell a story of recovery, and there are many cases of success to be sure. Yet the reporting also shows how much remains to be done, especially in the areas of housing, medical services, and education. How are they faring according to reports?
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization, Web and Print | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#MovieReview: Revisiting Spike Lee’s Documentary “When The Levees Broke”
Five years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Despite the fact that the worst of the storm was east of New Orleans (by about 100 miles), the largest city in the region received the worst damage when the inadequate levee walls were undermined by the storm surge the day after the eye passed the coastline.
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
The Currents Of The Gulf Coast Beat On Beautifully, If Barely
This past week marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on the western Gulf Coast states, especially – and most infamously – on the city of New Orleans. Almost 2000 people died as the hurricane crashed into the Mississippi Delta and then overloaded the dilapidated and antiquated levees of The Big Easy. $81 billion dollars worth of damage, most of it to homes, local businesses, and schools, made it the most expensive natural disaster in US history. Arguably, the costs are still being paid, though, with further degradation of the wetlands (begun by development but, once thinned, sorely beaten by the storm surge) and the ongoing efforts to rebuild New Orleans.
Director Spike Lee went to New Orleans in the fall of 2005 to film “When The Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” to document the devastation and give some voice to how and why such devastation might have occurred. He was to return this summer to film a sequel: “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise.” He got more of a story than he planned.
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, Revitalization | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Housing Market Continues The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
The shocking number of foreclosed houses in July, over 90,000, has sent shockwaves through the economy – especially the Stock Market, as the Dow Jones Average has been near or below 10,000 the last few days (having reached highs just over 14000 a week ago). Investors worry about perceptions of future growth. The surprise of the number, which National Public Radio (NPR) reports is the second highest rate of monthly foreclosure since the crisis started, sent further ripples of fear of a double-dip recession through the markets.
And yet as NPR also pointed out in its report, “the number of homes in the early stages of foreclosure is down — more than 30 percent from the peak early last year.” This number suggests that the rate of foreclosures in the last months of 2010 and early 2011 might not be too high. What is driving the stock market down, then?
| Category Affordable Housing, Community, News and Current Affairs | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Recent Reports of Administration’s Efforts To End Foreclosure: “Extend And Pretend”
The program has been having to redefine success
With midterm elections coming in November, and with the Democrats generally sailing against the political winds, reports about the difficulties and inadequacies of the Obama Administrations project “Making Home Affordable” (MHA) are likely to slacken further the party’s sails. The MHA program was set up in February 2009 as offering “opportunities to modify or refinance your mortgage to make your monthly payments more affordable. It also includes the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program for homeowners who are interested in a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.” Signs of challenges for it are evident on the website’s front page: a drive in July 2010 – 17 months into the program – “to raise awareness of the Making Home Affordable Program.” Given the high foreclosure rates of the first half of 2009, advertising such a program might hardly seem necessary. Unfortunately, recent reports show that even for those who signed up for the flagship Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), rebounding mortgage payments and/or foreclosure loom over them on a month-to-month basis.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, National/International, Politics | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
Housing Market Remains Soft As Banks Shy Away From Loans
The bubble in the housing market (and the attendant mortgage-backed securities, etc. that pumped up the bubble) is largely blamed for the rise in debt among American consumers. The fear of, and calling in, of that debt led to the collapse in credit in the early fall of 2008 that sparked the recession. Though economists generally agree that technically the US has been out of a recession since the winter of 2009, the fact remains that what we call ‘economic growth’ is really a stagnation: we are only replacing economic consumption with economic production. Better than a recession, perhaps, but not by much.
The problems in the housing market remain, though. Overproduction of housing has led to a glut of living space that no one can afford. At least not without a loan to get started. Which many people can not get because they do not have jobs that could sustain paying back the loan. A new report from The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development in New York argues that banks have been unwilling to engage the lower-income housing market for some time, which only exacerbates the larger problem.
| Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD