http://www.shelterforce.org/ The journal of affordable housing and community building en Copyright 2009 2009-06-03T20:00:01-05:00 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/PzGnDJLYRsI/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/operation_neighborhood_recovery/operation_neighborhood_recovery/#When:19:00:01Z Wayne Meyer scans a master list of properties and tries to locate them on a foreclosure-ravished street in an impoverished neighborhood in Irvington, NJ. There are so many to choose from, he has to first get his bearings as he figures out which empty house he’s looking for. It’s just one of countless streets that feature the boarded-up visages of homes—some majestic and some modest—that have deteriorated as they lay vacant as a result of the ongoing foreclosure crisis in this part of the state. Meyer’s goal is to figure out which of these properties can be saved, and which cannot, all in the name of preserving and stabilizing these historic neighborhoods that have fallen victim to all of the classic effects of hard times: crime, drugs, gangs, and property deterioration. This toxic stew has created what many worry is a long-term decline, with neighborhoods taking decades to rebound. “This is probably the hardest area here—this is where the police officer was shot about 18 months ago. It’s really a tough area.” Meyer, housing director for the Orange, NJ-based community development corporation Housing & Neighborhood Development Services, Inc., (HANDS) points to one house and notes without embellishment that police had been there 30 times in recent months. He’s been to neighborhood watch meetings, heard residents’ horror stories about the decline of the neighborhood, and can only hope to be part of the solution that brings these areas—some of the original New York City suburbs—vitality. Welcome to Urban Essex County, New Jersey, one of the hardest hit areas in the state by the ongoing foreclosure crisis. But it’s here that could serve as the laboratory for a reinvention of community development, as HANDS completes the successful acquisition of 47 mortgages on troubled properties with an eye toward stabilizing neighborhoods in some of the oldest suburban communities in New Jersey. The acquisition project, dubbed Operation Neighborhood Recovery (ONR) and spearheaded by HANDS, is being touted as the first instance nationwide that a nonprofit organization has achieved that type of large-scale bulk purchase of mortgages. The properties, all vacant and abandoned, and many deteriorated, are located primarily in the New Jersey municipalities of Newark, Orange, East Orange, and Irvington. The mortgage portfolio was purchased at a discount from Washington Mutual Bank (which has since become J.P. Morgan Chase) at roughly $50,000 per mortgage, according to Meyer, then-housing director at HANDS. The additional expense for rehabilitation of the properties is anticipated to bring the total cost to about $5.4 million. New Jersey Community Capital, a Trenton-based community development financial institution where Meyer has since been appointed as president, headed up the transaction, coordinating the debt and equity from financial partners that include Prudential Social Investment, LISC of Greater Newark and Jersey City, NeighborWorks America, and Enterprise Community Partners, as well as community partners consisting of a handful of prominent area community development corporations. What’s interesting here is that while the partners could change, this project could serve as a national blueprint for similar initiatives. ONR is the cornerstone project for CAPC—the Community Asset Preservation Corporation. CAPC, a New Jersey nonprofit corporation, is separate from ONR and HANDS, but is working with ONR partners on the project. CAPC seeks to stabilize fragile neighborhoods and to protect homeowners and tenants from the toxic effects of the foreclosure crisis. It has established a long-term goal of recovering 1,000 to 1,500 living units in the next five years, and a one-year goal of one or two purchases of either notes or REOs, seeking $12 to $15 million of debt and equity financing. Communities 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/operation_neighborhood_recovery/operation_neighborhood_recovery/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/rGhSzoei2cI/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/the_continued_importance_of_fair_lending_in_the_age_of_obama/the_continued_importance_of_fair_lending_in_the_age_of_obama/#When:19:00:01Z For some people who have seen minorities rise steadily to the ranks of the nation’s middle class and have witnessed an increase in diversity in what were once exclusively white residential neighborhoods, concerns about housing discrimination and segregation now seem like yesterday’s news. But for many Americans, housing and lending discrimination, and a lack of access to neighborhoods of their choice still make for harsh realities. Census data reveal that segregation has, in fact, declined in the United States on some measures, and while much of the recorded decline in segregation is due to a decrease in the proportion of exclusively white neighborhoods, the share of predominantly black neighborhoods has remained virtually unchanged since 1980. Where segregation has declined, generally speaking, it has been in relatively small Sun Belt communities with small black populations. In older Northeastern and Midwestern industrial communities, traditionally high levels of segregation persist. The National Fair Housing Alliance estimates that four million fair housing violations occur each year. But still for some Americans, the election of Barack Obama represents a final and definitive end to discrimination in our society, allowing for some to deem unnecessary continued fair housing enforcement. Moreover, we keep hearing that old resilient myth that the current home foreclosure crisis is the result of extending homeownership and home mortgage credit to historically underserved groups—minority families. According to this argument, a broad range of policies aimed at expanding homeownership opportunities and fair lending contributed to the present crisis. In reality, these policies, which include the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the affordable housing goals of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the expansion of homeownership in minority communities, are not responsible for the foreclosure crisis. There are several places where we can look to find the real culprits in the current economic crisis. They include the decades of housing and lending discrimination that led to the exponential growth in abusive subprime loans; the lack of adequate regulations in the mortgage lending sector; the deregulation in the financial sector including the mortgage lending sector; the failure to enforce existing consumer protection laws; the 2000 law that ensured that credit default swaps would remain unregulated; the 2004 SEC decision to allow the largest brokerage firms to borrow more than 30 times their capital; the unchecked close relations between rating agencies and companies packaging mortgages and selling securities; and the failure of the SEC to oversee the brokerage firms as they got further invested into subprime debt. These are the culprits of the economic crisis. There is enough evidence that the current crisis is the result of misbehavior by brokers, lenders, servicers, and the mortgage-backed securities industry that even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in a 2007 Newsweek interview that the “big demand” for subprime mortgages “was not so much on the part of the borrowers as it was on the part of the suppliers who were giving loans which really most people couldn’t afford.” Handsome profits were made at each level of the supply chain, not least of all by investors on Wall Street, who became the prime drivers for expanding high-cost unconventional home mortgage loans. And despite the evidence and arguments refuting the notion that expanding homeownership in minority communities caused the foreclosure crisis, the myth continues, and might influence the actual behavior of lenders and policy makers. The reason for its persistence is that it lies near the germ of truth, even though the myth is false. The germ of truth about the housing crisis is that abusive lending targeted at minority communities was the precursor of this crisis. And it is the lax regulatory environment surrounding such lending that allowed ever more abusive practices to be developed and expanded. Policies 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/the_continued_importance_of_fair_lending_in_the_age_of_obama/the_continued_importance_of_fair_lending_in_the_age_of_obama/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/hofAHga92Ag/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/can_the_silk_city_forge_its_next_industrial_revolution/can_the_silk_city_forge_its_next_industrial_revolution/#When:19:00:01Z It’s early February and by far the coldest day in an already frigid winter in the Northeast, never mind a wind chill that only the bravest Midwesterner could tolerate. But something about the bright sun and the falling mercury allows for the 77-foot Great Falls, a powerful and elegant geological oasis in these urban environs of New Jersey’s Passaic County, just 12 miles west of New York City, to appear particularly powerful: one of the few things moving with ease amid the Arctic blast. The falls flow aggressively into the Passaic River at the foot of the New Jersey Highlands, offering a glimpse of the industrial powerhouse that was once Paterson, now one of the country’s most economically distressed cities. Nicknamed “the Silk City” because of the thriving 20th century silk industry here, Paterson was eyed by Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, as the spark that would ignite a new form of industrial productivity, thus adding wealth, independence, and economic security to a fledgling democratic nation. The New Jersey Community Development Corporation (NJCDC) a Paterson-based CDC located in a rehabbed factory on the former Rogers Locomotive campus—an area that came close to being bulldozed in the 1970s for an early vision of nearby Route 19—is looking to build upon Hamilton’s vision, and recently helped to complete a successful campaign to save the Great Falls. On March 30, President Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act that protects more than 1,000 miles of scenic rivers and streams from commercial development and creates new conservation areas and national parks. The Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park is now established. While known fairly well (though not nearly well enough) in state, the Great Falls are relatively unknown out of state, despite the role they played in the nation’s industrial birth. According to the Paterson Friends of the Great Falls, the 118-acre industrial historic site is home to the largest and best example of early manufacturing mills in the United States, replete with 18th, 19th, and 20th-century waterpower remnants, including a three-tiered water raceway system that was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the architect and civil engineer better known for overseeing the planning and development of Washington, DC. The second largest waterfall by volume east of the Mississippi, Great Falls stands at the center of this site, described as America’s first systematic attempt to develop extensive waterpower for manufacturing purposes. Of course, manufacturing in Paterson has since left, and while there are still some prominent local businesses, Paterson, the county seat of Passaic, with its 150,000 population, could be described as an urban bedroom community, a Rust Belt city in the heart of New Jersey, and the depressed economy only makes things more challenging. Unlike other cities, Paterson does not have any universities or prominent medical facilities, and while there are some long-standing business community partners, they are not large-scale employers. As such, making the jump into the next economy is a difficult one. Economic Development 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/can_the_silk_city_forge_its_next_industrial_revolution/can_the_silk_city_forge_its_next_industrial_revolution/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/WHZ5gleMfp8/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/organizing_lessons_from_allen_parkway_village/organizing_lessons_from_allen_parkway_village/#When:19:00:01Z When Lenwood E. Johnson, the son of Texas sharecroppers, moved into Houston’s Allen Parkway Village project housing, the Freedmen’s Town section of the city had yet to be designated historic, and the village had yet to be saved. By the end of the 1990s the village was preserved, and Johnson proved to be something of an unlikely hero here in Houston’s fourth ward, historically one of the poorest sections of the city, but always ripe for redevelopment because of its proximity to the downtown. Opened as San Felipe Courts in 1944, the 1,000-unit Allen Parkway Village (APV), whose namesake is the parkway named for Houston founders John and Augustus Allen, was the crown jewel of the Housing Authority of the City of Houston (HACH) and the largest one in the South. As APV aged, Houston property developers began eyeing the 37-and-a-half acres of prime inner-city real estate that it occupied—an area where freed slaves settled after the Civil War. The developer’s lust for the land can be traced back to November 1977. HACH’s director Robert Wood crafted a letter proposing demolition to the Department of Housing and Urban Development claiming that the APV land values had escalated “beyond a cost where housing is the highest and best use.” In 1979 Houston Mayor Jim McConn’s Urban Policy Board blamed the state of public housing on the city’s lack of leadership, which they found “inexcusable in the midst of such wealth and well-being.” McConn’s board wrote that the city had no “central single focus for dealing with housing issues.” Allen Parkway Village residents were given some hope that their decaying project would be rehabilitated when HUD authorized $10 million dollars to modernize it in 1979. Unfortunately, HACH failed to spend the money to revitalize the project. Congressional hearings held nearly 15 years after the HUD authorization revealed that roughly $8.6 million of the fund was untouched. Of the remaining $1.4 million, HACH had receipts documenting $700,000 used for repairs, but the rest of the cash disappeared. The remaining $8.6 million of the original $10 million from 1979 was used when the renovations began in 1996 (though the residents filed a Federal Injunction in 1991 that stopped the Housing Authority’s request to HUD to use the remaining $8.6 Million for other programs). But long before that fact was disclosed, Johnson was continually bothered by the decaying condition of the housing project. He began to organize. Johnson became the mastermind organizer of the struggle to save APV. He always held the moral high ground because of Houston’s paucity of public housing. The tenants elected Johnson as the president of the APV’s Residents Council in 1983. By 1984 the Houston City Council passed a resolution approving the HACH plan to raze APV. Local and regional HUD offices approved the plan in 1985. During the fight Johnson used several tactics and strategies to stop the destruction of APV—strategies that included empowerment, education, coalition building, litigation, and legislation. Johnson told Shelterforce that his most important strategy was teaching the residents that they could gain the power to help themselves. After that, Johnson and his supporters were able to use the courts to stall the demolition. Lawsuits allowed the facts to become public information and kept the issue in the media. Once the residents got into federal court they could conduct discovery to produce facts that would support their cause, Johnson remembered. “Legislation was useful but without support from people it fails,” he said. After Johnson organized the residents, he turned to non-residents including credentialed members of the community. Johnson’s allies convinced San Antonio U.S. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, from Texas’ 20th District, to hold a Housing and Community Development subcommittee hearing in Houston about the proposed APV demolition. After the October 1985 hearing Gonzalez ordered the General Accounting Office to launch an investigation into the APV plan and a similar plan to raze public housing complexes in Dallas. Gonzalez also asked then-HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce to withhold a decision until more hearings could be held. Gonzalez’s actions stalled the city’s demolition plans. Although the APV residents got Gonzalez on their side they could not get any support from their own Congressman, Mickey Leland, despite the fact that the public housing issue fit with Leland’s public persona as a champion of the poor. His record in Congress included co-sponsoring a bill that created the House Select Committee on Hunger. In 1985 he was elected to the chairmanship of the Congressional Black Caucus. He pushed for affirmative action in broadcasting, led initiatives that created the National Commission on Infant Mortality, and visited soup kitchens and homeless encampments. But Leland, for his own reasons that, Johnson says, were in the interest of the property developers, did not champion the APV cause. Meeting requests made by the Coalition for Homeless of Houston and the Committee in Defense of Allen Parkway Village were also ignored. Leland left himself politically vulnerable by not taking up the APV cause. His inaction on the controversy did not square with his activist reputation and legislative record and many of the APV residents who faced displacement were African American, as were Leland and Johnson. In addition, APV sat in the most historic black neighborhood in Houston, which left Leland vulnerable to attacks by Johnson and his surrogates. Leland had spoken about the homeless issue, yet here, in his own district, were residents facing the threat of eviction and homelessness. Johnson came up with a tactic that pressured Leland to act. It would prove to be the most important turning point in the campaign to save APV recalled Joan Dinkler, an important APV ally and founder of the Houston Housing Concern (HHC). Dinkler and HHC recruited over 100 churches to sign on to a resolution to save APV. Johnson recruited Peter J. Riga, a lawyer and a former Catholic priest to write an editorial. On August 7, 1987 The Houston Post published Riga’s editorial, titled “Allen Parkway Village: Whose Fault?” and subtitled “Officials at all levels seem determined to disperse needy residents.” Riga described two factors that were working overwhelmingly against the residents. He wrote that elected officials were cooperating with developers’ interests and that there were few resources allocated to renovate APV. Further, Riga contended that the renovation funds had been cut off long ago in an effort to push out residents and that the housing authority had been working with other city officials to disperse the poor. Finally, Riga noted that there were about 20,000 families on the waiting list for public housing in Houston and highlighted the moral injustice of developers pushing public housing tenants off the land. The letter worked. Twelve days after Riga’s editorial, The Houston Post published an editorial by Leland titled “Housing for Poor Has a Long Way to Go” and subtitled “Allen Parkway Village reflects administration’s failure to develop policy. He pointed to a 71-percent decline in the federal budget for low-income housing since 1981 and wrote that it was inappropriate to demolish APV when there were thousands on the waiting list for public housing. Leland mentioned Lenwood Johnson’s name twice. Suddenly, Leland was in the APV tenants’ corner. Johnson pushed him to introduce legislation to benefit APV residents. Rep. Gonzalez wrote an amendment that Leland introduced. Leland and U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas got the amendment added on to an appropriations act in 1987. Frost had similar public housing concerns in his district. After some legislative triumphs and setbacks, including Leland’s untimely death in a plane crash in Ethiopia in 1988, APV residents in 1996 finally signed an agreement, with then-HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros that provided $36 million from HUD’s Office of Distressed and Troubled Housing Recovery for the renovation of APV. The final result was that 300 of the 1,000 units named to the National Register of Historic Places were saved and renovated. Another 200 units were built, for a total of 500 units on the site. One hundred more units were constructed in Freedmen’s Town. While the residents were short 400 units, the larger win was that not one inch of the land was transferred to private developers. Because of the organized effort initiated by Johnson, we saw how the Houston City Council, first voting to demolish APV, later had to backtrack when they saw that the public would not support their actions. The government entities never sought a public consensus or the tenants input before their demolition campaign. Public housing tenants and activists can learn that organizing is the key to getting their voices heard and getting a place at the negotiating table. It shouldn’t sound like, nor should we allow it to be a cliché when we read about residents taking on City Hall and winning. As for Lenwood Johnson, he’s still involved in organizing and inspiring younger people to be involved in social justice struggles. Organize! 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/organizing_lessons_from_allen_parkway_village/organizing_lessons_from_allen_parkway_village/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/0HqSop-7WUg/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/publications_and_resources/publications_and_resources/#When:19:00:01Z Reinventing Transit: American Communities Finding Smarter, Cleaner, Faster Transportation Solutions, released by the Environmental Defense Fund, showcases 11 case studies of existing, innovative public transit across the country. An Engine of Opportunity: A User’s Guide to Advocate for Transportation Equity in the 2009 Recovery Act, a joint release from PolicyLink and Transportation Equity Network, written by Radhika Fox and Solana Rice, aims to identify who benefits from the $50 billion allocated for infrastructural improvements in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and who decides how those monies are used. The Challenge of Foreclosed Properties, a study released by Enterprise, written by Amanda Sheldon, Phillip Bush, Aaron Kearsley, and Anne Gass, examines the rapid increase in foreclosure rates, and offers an analysis of the $3.92 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program and how state and local plans implement the HUD allocation. The report concludes that NSP funds are being directed toward innovative and effective programs, though states that longer-term analysis will ultimately offer a final grade on NSP efficacy. Property Disposition: Exploring Different Approaches for Preserving Affordable Housing Opportunities, released in March by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). This report describes how banks and their partners in the community are working to dispose of foreclosed properties in creative ways that will preserve affordable housing opportunities and stabilize communities. The report reviews initiatives and strategies for building partnerships between banks and nonprofit organizations, for-profit affordable housing developers, government entities, and others. Decade of Neglect Has Weakened Federal Low-Income Housing Programs, by Douglas Rice and Barbara Sard, and released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities*, addresses the large and growing number of low-income renters facing unaffordable housing costs. The report points to how recent funding shortfalls and policy changes have hurt federal housing programs, and outlines a series of steps to make housing more affordable for low-income families. Beltway Burden: The Combined Cost of Housing and Transportation in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, from the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center, in partnership with the 8Center for Housing Policy* and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, measures the combined housing and transportation costs for 22 areas within the Washington region, and finds that increases in transportation costs start offsetting housing savings when families locate roughly 15 to 17 miles from employment centers. Post-Foreclosure Community Stabilization Strategies: Case Studies and Early Lessons, prepared for NeighborWorks America by Anne Gass, presents 14 case studies concerning community development corporations, that, either by themselves, through intermediaries, or through regional public-private partnerships, have participated in the sort of large scale solutions that, the study argues, will be required to restore neighborhood housing markets to equilibrium. Revisiting CRA: Perspectives on the Future of the Community Reinvestment Act, a joint publication of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and San Francisco, is a series of articles and essays offering different perspectives on the past and future of the CRA in an effort to provide facts, and highlight possible reforms. Access 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/publications_and_resources/publications_and_resources/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/Om3DHAtX03Q/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/publishers_note/publishers_note/#When:19:00:01Z It’s quite a time to rejoin Shelterforce. As we struggle with the pain and despair that comes from the worst economy in decades, fueled by a subprime crisis so many of us saw coming, we also find ourselves in once-in-a-lifetime moment. For the first time in years, we have a chance to change the rules of the game; rules that always hindered and often punished the people and communities we serve. So how do we seize this moment? Let’s learn to play the inside game. At HUD, as well as at many other federal agencies, we have potential partners with open minds and open doors. As we walk through those doors, let’s continue to press for all our needs, while remembering that our new partners have other pressures to contend with. We can help ourselves by helping them make our case. To do that, we need to: Do it right; do it better. Let’s stipulate that the current administration cares about our work and understands its importance. There couldn’t be a better time to take a careful, reflective assessment of our methods, accomplishments, and failures. No longer is it enough to say we do important work, though true, or that we have never been supported at the level required, though also true. We need to do our work well. We need to adapt, build new alliances, innovate, and create permanent change beyond the borders of our neighborhoods. Prove it. A few years ago, the MacArthur Foundation announced a $25 million dollar housing research program based on the firm belief that facts drive policy. Now we have an administration familiar with the term “fact.” We need to document our work and show how it can and does bring benefits to everyone. And we need to drive the efforts to create new public policies, at all levels of government, which will support our communities. In the coming year we will be looking at the changing field of community development, the impact of the stimulus on our work, and the impact of our work on public policy. We hope that you continue to find Shelterforce and our online media useful as we move through uncharted territory. Editor's Note 2009-06-03T19:00:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/publishers_note/publishers_note/#When:19:00:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/Kn9CubfzL0o/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/homeownership_done_right/homeownership_done_right/#When:19:00:00Z Standing tall on the porch of her two-family home in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Roslyn George looks like the proudest woman on Earth. She owns this elegant wood-frame, and she means to take good care of it. She doesn’t own it free and clear yet, and will be paying the mortgage for years to come. But she doesn’t look at all worried—she knew what she was doing when she signed her name. “I’m a person for information,” she says. “It’s like the biggest investment you’ll make in your life, and you want to make educated decisions. I followed the rules.” George lives very close to streets awash in foreclosure. She bought her house in 2006, at the height of the subprime mortgage epidemic. But unlike many of her fellow Bostonians, George took a homebuyer class. Twice. While she may have already been a cautious sort by nature, in these classes she was reminded repeatedly that there are good lenders, and then there are very bad ones. It was the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA) that showed George the way. Founded in 1985, this organization has helped thousands of people buy homes. Many of them could not have done so in this very expensive state, if not for the classes they took at MAHA and the loans to which those classes opened doors. From its beginnings MAHA was much more than a place to get homebuyer training. It tackled organizing and advocacy, fought to strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and created new loan programs designed for low- and moderate-income buyers. In 2007, MAHA successfully pushed legislation to make Massachusetts the first state to extend CRA provisions to mortgage lenders. The bill’s provisions includes full state examinations for all lenders making 50 or more mortgage loans each year in Massachusetts and a rating system based on how well each lender meets the state’s credit needs. Long before the national media caught wind of the subprime mortgage crisis, MAHA was warning federal and state legislators, mayors, and the media of what was coming. But these advocates have also learned from the crisis about how to do their work better. “In some ways the loan sharks have taught us all a lesson,” says Thomas Callahan, MAHA’s executive director, who has been with the organization since 1987. “They got their business because they were out in the church halls, socializing with the community. It was a wake-up call for nonprofits everywhere that we’ve got to be that aggressive.” Callahan points out that this is not the first time MAHA has watched the bust of an unsustainable economic boom. After housing prices climbed 37 percent in Greater Boston in one year, in 1986, they dropped precipitously during the recession of the early 1990s. That economic decline provided a golden opportunity for MAHA and other housing advocates, which had been publicizing the discriminatory practices of local banks that offered few home loans in neighborhoods of color in Boston. Banks already under pressure to open up their lending were also anxious to make up for falling real estate prices. Throughout the 1990s and into the new century, banks steadily improved their lending in low-income communities in Massachusetts. By the first few years of this decade, MAHA was able to broaden its focus from lending practices to finding creative ways to draw more people into homeownership education. The group began to train graduates of its own classes to engage neighbors in legislative battles and get-out-the-vote campaigns. George found MAHA back in 2001, when she first enrolled in one of its courses. Over the span of five weekly sessions, she learned about each aspect of the process from a host of professionals. First, one of MAHA’s counselors explained the ups and downs of owning a home. Then she learned about fair housing laws from a Realtor and, from a home inspector, how to find a good inspector. An attorney filled her in on the finer points of purchase and sales agreements, and title insurance. A credit counselor talked about the importance of developing a budget. A lender took the class through the mortgage application process. Finally, the MAHA counselor touched on what happens after the new process is over, though much of this information is left to a separate post-purchase course. George took lots of notes in that class. But, “I knew I wasn’t ready to buy then. My son was a baby, and I didn’t have the finances.” But she had caught the homeownership bug, and MAHA organizers encouraged her to get involved. She became a member of what MAHA calls the Homebuyers Union, made up of people who have taken the homeownership pre-purchasing course and perhaps bought a house. Plenty of people who haven’t bought a house get involved in the Homebuyers Union anyway. They see it as in their self-interest to be connected to a group that can eventually steer them to a smart home purchase. Soon George was passing out cards on the streets, getting people to sign a petition for the City of Boston to support more funding for affordable housing. She would also come to MAHA’s office to participate in phone banks. Meanwhile, she opened an Individual Development Account (IDA) with another local organization, saving money toward an eventual home purchase. In 2005, having completed the two-year IDA program, George returned to MAHA to re-take the homebuyer course. She wrote down every detail in her notebook, including contact information for the particular lender, Realtor, attorney and home inspector who spoke to the class. These individuals were people MAHA believed would do right by their customers. George went on to use several of them in her house search. She looked for a house for a long time. “There were many houses with a nice appearance on the outside, but not much to work with on the inside. So I started losing faith.” Then she found a house with an owner who had been there over 40 years. This owner had kept the house in good shape. The house was within a half-hour of George’s work, and not so far from where her son would go to school. It was perfect. George probably couldn’t have bought the house though, without the help of a state-run second mortgage program called SoftSecond. With her certificate from a first-time homebuyer’s course, George was eligible for the program. The Massachusetts Housing Partnership, which administers SoftSecond, requires participants to complete the homebuyer class to make sure they understand the financial implications of buying. Moreover, the mortgage program is generally only available to first-time buyers, so it’s assumed that applicants have little prior experience. MAHA itself had led the effort to create the SoftSecond program in 1991. It was developed in response to media reports of racial disparities in bank lending in Boston neighborhoods. The program’s name derives from a first mortgage that covers 77 percent of the loan, and a second mortgage for an additional 20 percent. The second mortgage is interest-free for the first 10 years of the loan. The final 3 percent represents the down payment. Both loans are originated at interest rates that are slightly below-market. Some 10,000 people have benefited from SoftSecond in Massachusetts; its delinquency rate in the first nine months of 2008 was 2.2 percent, compared to a 4.4 percent rate for all prime mortgage loans statewide. A New Space Brings Added Visibility A few years before George got involved, MAHA had moved into a little house on a retail corridor in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Before that, they were downtown in the city’s financial district, but realized that as a grassroots organization they belonged closer to their base. “Dorchester is the largest neighborhood in the city and the most diverse, so we made a conscious decision to go there,” says Callahan. “Twenty-eight percent of our homeownership graduates are from Dorchester.” While operating in Dorchester might have been good for MAHA’s relationship with its base, the house was far too small for homeownership classes and phone banking. It was hard to meet the demand for the classes with so little room. So, in 2004, MAHA launched a capital campaign to build a new, larger building that would give it improved visibility in the neighborhood. They tore down the old house and, in 2008, completed a striking, contemporary new office with lots of green features. The center of the building was designed as something of an atrium, with lots of light streaming down from windows near the ceiling. It gives an especially welcoming feeling to visitors. “This room is really the motivation for the entire project,” says Callahan, standing in the expansive second-floor space where people come for the classes. Over the first four months after the building’s completion, some 1,200 people used the space. They didn’t just come for classes; MAHA encourages neighborhood-based groups from crime watches to the local health center to schedule their meetings here. This year, MAHA is stepping up its outreach to the community to build more confidence in its vital role in the home-buying process. They planned to host 34 community events, from game nights to an energy-efficiency fair, to draw more people into the building. This way, people can learn about the organization without any pressure to sign up for a class. Adding these community events is not just about connecting better with the neighborhood where MAHA is headquartered. The subprime mortgage crisis shows that many people didn’t just lack the proper education to buy a house, but they were also unaware that they had options. In order for MAHA to meet this challenge now and in the future, the organization needs to expand its reach. “We’re trying to build ourselves as a trusted advisor,” says Jennifer Tsolas, MAHA’s development manager. “People might think a class would be intimidating, or a waste of time. We want them to think of us when they’re ready to buy.” This May MAHA will hold a homeownership fair and rally at a large track and field facility in Boston. Officials from large banks are invited to the event, where MAHA plans to ask them to commit once more to lend fairly and responsibly. Moving Beyond the City While MAHA has derived much of its success from working with Boston residents, students in its “Homeownership University” come from 100 different zip codes. In 2004 MAHA opened an office in Dedham, a town just south of the city, and began organizing residents and advocating for affordable developments in the suburbs. There weren’t many housing groups active in these small towns, and MAHA leaders had noticed a sharp uptick in the number of suburban residents coming into the city for homebuyer training. “There was an appetite for unbiased mortgage information in those places as well,” says Callahan. The group has had notable success in the relatively affluent town of Needham, just west of Boston. MAHA worked with a Needham-based nonprofit to win passage of a local referendum in 2004 to allocate funding to affordable housing. Called the Community Preservation Act, the measure allowed Needham to adopt an annual property tax surcharge of up to 3 percent, with the funding allocated to housing, open space and/or historic preservation. At least 10 percent of the money must go to housing. The money helped assure that there would be ample affordability in High Rock Estates, a new homeownership development on a former public housing site near the town center. At least one graduate of MAHA’s pre-purchase class has moved into the development after gaining a SoftSecond mortgage. She had learned of MAHA because its course was required as part of High Rock’s application process. MAHA continues to encourage its clients to not only seek homeownership but to also advocate for safe homeownership and lending practices. Their story is “homeownership done right.” George says she is a believer in MAHA’s method, which encouraged her to reach homeownership through education and careful planning. This kept her on track to avoid the pitfalls that befell many of her neighbors. “You may think you know enough, but when you get to one of those classes, it’s an eye-opener,” she says. George’s participation in a homebuying course gave her a leg up on the many people who bought houses without a class, and either made poor choices or were victimized by shady lenders. But homeownership carries risks to which even a savvy consumer like George is subject. What if she were to lose her job, and as a result have trouble paying the mortgage? What if some unforeseen medical issue arose in her family? It’s not as easy to walk away from a mortgage as it is to leave behind a lease. Still, through MAHA, George is part of a community of homebuyers and advocates that she can call on for help if she ever needs it. Affordable Housing 2009-06-03T19:00:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/homeownership_done_right/homeownership_done_right/#When:19:00:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/LLfvYe1txlg/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/industry_news12/industry_news12/#When:19:00:00Z People Sheila Crowley, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) were honored in April for their contributions to the passage of National Housing Trust Fund legislation, as well as for leadership on housing and homelessness issues. The two were recognized in April at the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 27th Annual Housing Leadership Awards Reception in Washington, DC. President Obama has pledged a $1 billion commitment to the fund, which was established in July 2008. Crowley has also received the National Alliance to End Homelessness’ John W. Macy Award that recognizes achievement in bringing national attention to the affordable housing crisis. Robert Gallucci, Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for the last 13 years, will serve as the next president of the MacArthur Foundation, effective July 1. Before taking up his current post at Georgetown in 1996, Gallucci served as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Envoy for the U.S. State Department, dealing with the threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. He was chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994. He also worked as Senior Coordinator for nonproliferation and nuclear safety initiatives in the former Soviet Union and as Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission overseeing the disarmament of Iraq in 1991. Susan C. Fisher, a three-term Democrat in the North Carolina House of Representatives, received the Legislator of the Year Award from the North Carolina Housing Coalition. A champion for reform within the state’s manufactured housing industry, Fisher sponsored and helped to pass North Carolina’s H1700, “Prevent Displacement of Manufactured Homes.” The bill seeks to reward mobile park owners, by way of a financial incentive that would give them a tax credit, if they sell to resident-owned groups or to nonprofits. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) received the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Legislator Award from the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations for her contributions to community development and community economic development at this year’s Third Annual NACEDA Summit in March. Upon accepting the award, Waters also honored the awards namesake, the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the Ohio Democrat and affordable-housing advocate who died in August 2008: “She was a very bright, intelligent, competent woman, who worked very hard for her neighborhoods and who worked very hard for poor people, working people, and basically people who need representatives in Washington.” President Barack Obama nominated Ron Sims, the three-term County Executive of Washington State’s King County, to become the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Other HUD nominations include: Bridge Housing’s Carol Galante as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multi-family Housing Programs; Boston Housing Authority’s Sandra Henriquez, as Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing; and Los Angeles Housing czar Mercedes Márquez as Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at HUD. David Stevens was nominated as Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner. Shelterforce recognizes the passing of Jack Kemp, the one-time U.S. Representative, HUD secretary, and Republican vice presidential candidate. His ability to work with HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros under President Clinton to develop pragmatic, thoughtful housing policies, and his accessibilty for nonprofits and advocacy groups will be missed. Organizations The National Housing Conference & Center for Housing Policy in Washington, DC, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Chicago Community Loan Fund, both based in Chicago, were among eight organizations in five countries that received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Each organization will receive up to $650,000. For a complete listing of awardees, visit www.nhi.org/go/macarthur. New Jersey Future, a statewide research and policy group advocating smart growth, announced the winners of its annual smart growth awards, to be issued in June. The awards recognize smarth growth planning and development throughout the state. For a complete list of awardees, go to: www.nhi.org/go/newjerseyfuture. Industry News 2009-06-03T19:00:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/industry_news12/industry_news12/#When:19:00:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/uTK9Y2CZQSY/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/note_from_the_board/note_from_the_board/#When:19:00:00Z I would like to take this opportunity today to tell you about some important changes at the National Housing Institute—changes that, like so much of life, are both happy and sad. In February, David Sailer left his post as NHI executive director to return to the SEIU where he will be rejoining the labor movement. With more than 2.2 million members, SEIU is the fastest growing union in the country, and David will focus his efforts there developing systems for providing services to SEIU’s growing membership on a national and international scale. While David’s tenure at NHI was short, it was far from uneventful. David maintained and enhanced many of the long-time relationships we’ve had here within the community development, affordable housing, community organizing, and advocacy worlds. He also began to guide us to new relationships that will strengthen the ties between labor and community in the years to come. Though we will miss David’s everyday presence, we’re pleased that he will stay on as a senior fellow, helping us to establish and maintain a link to the progressive labor movement as we all continue our struggles to help raise families out of poverty. I’m happy to report that Harold Simon, an NHI senior fellow and long-time past executive director and Shelterforce editor, has stepped in to fill the hole created by David’s departure. Harold has been busy with a number of important projects, most notably the Community Asset Preservation Corporation (CAPC), where he served as a project coordinator. CAPC is a new organization designed to rescue homes in fragile neighborhoods harmed by the foreclosure crisis. Many individuals close to NHI are involved in CAPC, including NHI board members Diane Sterner and Patrick Morrissy, and NHI senior fellow Alan Mallach, who each serve on the CAPC board. In addition to serving on the board, Pat is also executive director of HANDS Inc., the CDC that executed “Operation Neighborhood Recovery” a project that serves as a cornerstone of the CAPC concept (see story on page 8). We hope to continue to provide the information and analysis you’ve come to expect and rely on from NHI/Shelterforce over the past 34 years, and look forward to your comments, guidance and continued support. Editor's Note 2009-06-03T19:00:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/note_from_the_board/note_from_the_board/#When:19:00:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/h97aiZKyfRk/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/fighting_foreclosure_on_all_fronts/fighting_foreclosure_on_all_fronts/#When:10:00:00Z Seven immigrant families living in an apartment building in Chicago’s diverse, vibrant working class Albany Park neighborhood, suspected something was up when their landlord told them to start leaving rent for an acquaintance to collect. Their suspicions were confirmed when, after not seeing the landlord for several months, they started getting foreclosure notices telling them they would have to move. This was spring 2008, and after a prolonged, as-yet-incomplete campaign, and a little help from the sheriff’s department, the residents are still living in their apartments, campaigning to stay in the homes and neighborhood where most of them had lived for more than a decade and have kids in the local schools. Their story was all over the news, but it’s emblematic of a larger picture, where Chicago, the third-most populated city in the U.S., is staving off the effects of the foreclosure crisis on multiple fronts. There were about 58,000 foreclosure filings in the Chicago metro area in 2008 representing a 52 percent increase from 2007, building on a 100-percent increase between 2006 and 2007. We’re seeing similar trends in metro areas all over the country. The impact foreclosures have had on the country’s rental community is severe, unresolved, and until now, almost invisible. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, while one in five foreclosed properties in the U.S. is a rental, that ratio is much higher in poorer neighborhoods, where many of the foreclosed properties are multi-unit. Roughly 40 percent of families who are forecasted to lose their homes in the foreclosure crisis are renters, according to NLIHC. New safeguards are beginning to mushroom throughout the country that protect renters from being evicted from foreclosed properties. In Massachusetts, renters living in foreclosed properties are now required to get at least 30 days’ written notice from the new owner asking them to vacate; and the renter is also entitled to a court hearing that can determine the length of the renter’s residency. A law passed in California last summer requires 60 days notice before a renter can be evicted from a foreclosed building, and an Illinois law passed in the wake of the Albany Park residents’ struggle mandates 90 days notice. Meanwhile, New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, and cities like Washington, DC, have created laws that protect tenants from eviction without proper cause. Not paying rent would be just cause, but in general, foreclosure does not count as cause for eviction. In the case of the immigrant families in Chicago, their fight was born out of an existing community organization, the Albany Park Neighborhood Council (APNC) that works on issues of youth justice, health care, housing and immigrants’ rights. One of the tenants, Esteban Cruz, had previously been involved with APNC, told staff there about the situation, and the group snapped into action with their usual strategy of coaching and supporting people—in this case the seven Mexican families—to lead their own struggle. And so they did; unweaving the tangled legal mess their unscrupulous landlord had left them in. It turned out he had illegally converted the building into seven condos that he sold to himself, receiving loans for each one reportedly totaling more than $1 million. Then he was gone; possibly leaving the country for his native Romania. Meanwhile the condos were foreclosed upon, each owned by a separate bank. With the help of APNC, the families brought their case to the city’s housing court, where the judge ruled in their favor and appointed a nonprofit, Community Investment Coalition, to make needed repairs and to manage the property. Nevertheless, sheriff’s deputies arrived with an eviction order naming the landlord and told the families they had to leave. They were treated roughly and intimidated, the families say, and the children were terrified and confused. Deputies were also confused about the situation and left without evicting anyone. Soon, the APNC organized a protest outside the sheriff’s office calling for an end to evictions of renters in foreclosed buildings. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart made national news for his response. In October, he called a moratorium on renters’ evictions and denounced banks for putting his officers in such unenviable positions. The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, a nonprofit law firm with a project focusing on renters in foreclosed buildings, is currently trying to help the families purchase the units from the various banks and to consolidate into a resident-owned cooperative. Even so, throughout the past winter they continued to get threatening letters from agents apparently representing the banks, though the banks’ representatives have denied this. “It’s a lot of stress, we are always having to deal with something,” said Mr. Cruz, showcasing the physical manifestation of their struggle: a big plastic tub filled with these letters and other documentation. “But we have the right to stay here and we’re going to fight for it.” Condo Foreclosures: Hidden Pain While all foreclosures have risen across the country on all types of homes, there has been a notable spike in condo foreclosure in the Chicago area. Condos made up 19 percent of area foreclosures in 2008, compared to 12 percent in 2007, according to the Woodstock Institute. 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. Brian White, executive director for Lakeside Community Development Corporation, which is active in those neighborhoods, noted that condo foreclosures often fall under the radar, since they don’t result in the boarded up windows, weedy yards, and overflowing mailboxes like single family home foreclosures. Woodstock Institute vice president Geoff Smith said that many of the condo foreclosures were likely “mom and pop” owner conversions, wherein the owners of a three- or six-flat unit converted it to condos but then were unable to rent them due to the housing slump or found the process more costly and complicated than they had expected. Some of the condo foreclosures were likely on units that were not occupied; others resulted in evictions. In a multi-unit condo building, the foreclosure of several units puts an added burden on remaining residents since their assessment fees (to cover building maintenance and utilities) increase substantially. Fraudulent or shoddy conversion and sale of condos in a state and city with very little regulation of the condo industry has exacerbated the problem, according to White. “People built condos any which way they wanted, with no oversight,” said White, whose group has proposed a raft of state legal reforms for the condo industry. “There’s a lot of buyer’s remorse, people stuck with buildings with structural problems and the developer is not returning calls and is going bankrupt.” He described a 66-unit condo building where 25 units foreclosed, leaving the remaining owners with greatly increased utility and maintenance bills. “Either assessments are going up or utility bills won’t be paid. Nobody is coming to the rescue of these first time homebuyers, so it’s a downward spiral.” It’s also common for condo owners in buildings with many vacant units to experience flooding from sewer problems in abandoned units, scavengers breaking into those units to steal copper, rodent infestations, and other risks. Breaking the Law, Intentionally or Not As was the case in Albany Park, and in several instances around Chicago, owners of condos or multi-unit buildings are now finding little interest in reworking a troubled loan or finding a way to keep the building. With all these properties worth less than what is still owed, owners are deciding to simply walk away, according to Mark Swartz, an attorney for the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing. Owners regularly disappear with tenants’ security deposits, which can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Further, even when a condo goes into receivership, tenants’ problems don’t end, often because receivers are poorly supervised, also the case with Albany Park. Lawyers Committee executive director Kathy Clark notes many receivers bully and intimidate tenants. Worse still, there are scammers who pose as receivers to collect rent for units they have no authority over. Banks that take possession of foreclosed buildings usually want to remove the tenants, because they don’t want the responsibility and liability of being landlords: “They often reflect the attitude that an empty building is better,” said Swartz. Part of the Committee’s mission is to convince banks that it is in everyone’s best interest to keep people in the buildings. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs recently launched allow for people in foreclosed buildings owned by the two government-backed mortgage companies to remain in their homes after foreclosure, paying market rate rent. Swartz said this is a good start but the programs haven’t had a noticeable impact yet. With these as with many laws and programs, getting word out to residents, lenders and others involved is a major challenge. Many people don’t know when their rights are being violated or where they could seek aid; and many landlords and lenders don’t know what their legal responsibilities are. For example, the Committee is working to spread the news about an amendment to Chicago’s landlord-tenant ordinance passed last fall that requires landlords to advise tenants within a week of any foreclosure filing. Similarly, many people still don’t know about the Illinois state law passed in the fall mandating 90 days notice to renters like the Albany Park families facing eviction from foreclosed buildings. Swartz notes that just because tenants get notice doesn’t necessarily mean their leases can be broken. Though legal precedent is murky, he said he doesn’t think foreclosure is one of the reasons allowed for terminating a lease in Illinois. Further, it is illegal to lock tenants out of their homes without notice in Chicago, and, in an effort to raise awareness on this part of the ordinance, the Lawyers’ Committee arms residents with copies of the ordinance and tells them to call the police to help them break back in to their own homes. Looking for Relief The 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act created aid to both help people stay in their homes and to help municipalities deal with foreclosed buildings. It helps at-risk homeowners refinance into more favorable, government-insured mortgages, and offers government insurance for lenders who voluntarily reduce mortgages (meaning less burden on the homeowner). The law also created the $3.9 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding for city governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed property in neighborhoods particularly hard-hit by the crisis. Foundations have also played an important role in the Chicago area. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation last year made a $68 million commitment in the Chicago area, considered the largest ever private foundation grant for dealing with foreclosures. The foundation aims to prevent 2,700 foreclosures by 2010 and to return 3,500 vacant properties to affordable rental or ownership, through the city government working in conjunction with the national nonprofit Mercy Housing Inc. The foundation is also funding groups including the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, the Legal Assistance Foundation and local housing organizations. The Chicago Community Trust has also contributed substantial funds including a $5 million investment in ShoreBank, a community bank that helps save people from foreclosure by replacing subprime loans with 30-year fixed rate loans with lower monthly payments. But as the Albany Park situation shows, residents and grassroots community groups may be the most responsive and, at least in the short term, the most powerful forces for protecting and expanding housing rights. In the south side neighborhood of Auburn Gresham, for example, the Greater Auburn Gresham Community Development Corporation sends people out in bright yellow shirts to walk the streets with large signs showing boarded up buildings and letting people know where they can go for help, according to Executive Director Carlos Nelson: “There are so many people facing foreclosure who are so ashamed or afraid that they won’t seek help on their own, it’s up to the community groups to actively reach out to them.” Neighborhood Change 2009-06-03T10:00:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/fighting_foreclosure_on_all_fronts/fighting_foreclosure_on_all_fronts/#When:10:00:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/CBO7yARRjCY/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/the_green_house/the_green_house/#When:09:23:00Z We couldn’t resist the pun when news broke in March that Van Jones will serve as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones is expected to work with departments and agencies to advance the President’s agenda of creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources. Jones will also help to shape and advance the administration’s energy and climate initiatives with a specific interest in improvements and opportunities for vulnerable communities. The appointment is viewed as something of a bellwether for the green jobs movement. Jones, a founder of Green For All, a national organization that promotes an inclusive green economy, and a New York Times bestselling author, could be pivotal in assuring major federal investments that support the growth of a green economy. In a 2008 Shelterforce interview, Majora Carter, a Green For All cofounder and founder of Sustainable South Bronx, called for a “Green New Deal” that included federal support, in addition to community support. Shelter Shorts 2009-06-03T09:23:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/the_green_house/the_green_house/#When:09:23:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/LW2ueDj6Tj0/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/just_a_regular_maverick_realtor/just_a_regular_maverick_realtor/#When:09:23:00Z Jim Klinge, the Realtor-cum-blogger who, first expressing pre-burst housing bubble incredulity, has since lit up the Web with an honesty rarely seen from a real estate agent. It’s not just that he’s telling the truth about his listings, it’s that many of his listings have become material for his ongoing (and often scathing) commentary on the housing market. The broker, who operates in California’s North San Diego County, launched his blog, www.bubbleinfo.com, in 2005 when he saw prospective homebuyers emboldened enough to take on more debt than they could handle. A recent blog surveys a 1,900-square-foot, 31-year-old home directly across from Interstate 5 (or the Detroit River, as Klinge refers to it) that sold for $1 million in 2006—the result of a “fraud deal” as Klinge speculates, noting that the purchaser financed $925,000 of the mortgage. The house, now an REO listed for $575,000 (“and that’s probably optimistic”) is replete with mold, a pool, and possible inhabitants already, as Klinge surveys the pool, he takes notice of a sign that warns against diving because of the shallow water: “This’ll be good for the homeless: they won’t hurt themselves out here.” But then realizes that all the doors to the house were open when he arrived so that “they’re probably living here now.” Shelter Shorts 2009-06-03T09:23:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/just_a_regular_maverick_realtor/just_a_regular_maverick_realtor/#When:09:23:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/TYenEH5aAOg/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/oprah_donates_to_newark_nonprofits_and_schools/oprah_donates_to_newark_nonprofits_and_schools/#When:09:22:00Z A handful of Newark, New Jersey, nonprofits received some much-needed relief in a time of reduced donations from a surprising benefactor—Oprah Winfrey. In February, the talk show host and media mogul donated a combined $2 million in charitable gifts to Newark’s Apostles’ House, Robert Treat Academy, St. Benedict’s Preparatory School and Integrity House, a drug rehabilitation program building transitional housing for women, and Newark Now, a community support organization. All the organizations received $500,000 except for Newark Now, a nonprofit founded by Mayor Cory Booker, which received $250,000. The donations, first reported in The Star-Ledger, resulted from a list of organizations in need of additional funding provided to Winfrey by Newark Now. Shelter Shorts 2009-06-03T09:22:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/oprah_donates_to_newark_nonprofits_and_schools/oprah_donates_to_newark_nonprofits_and_schools/#When:09:22:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/qceY4q6GWGI/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/crossing_silos_hud_dot_and_sustainable_communities/crossing_silos_hud_dot_and_sustainable_communities/#When:09:21:00Z The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation have unveiled a new partnership to help families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs. The partnership eyes a reduction of housing and commuter costs by encouraging affordable, sustainable communities. When the new initiative was announced in March, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and DOT Secretary Ray LaHood first discussed their plans for sustainable communities at a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing hearing titled, “Livable Communities, Transit Oriented Development, and “Incorporating Green Building Practices into Federal Housing and Transportation.” An interagency task force was subsequently assembled to encourage federal transportation and housing investments and to identify strategies for affordable housing near places of employment, as well as pushing for lower transportation costs and shorter commutes (see Justin Massa’s “Equity 2.0: The Missing Pieces” on page 24). Shelter Shorts 2009-06-03T09:21:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/crossing_silos_hud_dot_and_sustainable_communities/crossing_silos_hud_dot_and_sustainable_communities/#When:09:21:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/PudtIWEMCOU/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/tarp_at_six_months_report_delivers_mixed_emotions/tarp_at_six_months_report_delivers_mixed_emotions/#When:09:20:00Z Six months after Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, allowing for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) allocation, a report issued by the Congressional Oversight Panel formed to monitor the federal bailout, labels the Treasury’s actions thus far under the watch of Secretary Timothy Geithner as “reasonable” if his office’s gauge of the actual depth of the economic downtown is accurate. To date, the Treasury has spent or committed $590.4 billion of the available TARP funds, the panel estimates, while the Federal Reserve Board has expanded its balance sheet by more than $1.5 trillion in loans and purchases of securities. But “six months into the existence of TARP, evidence of success or failure is mixed,” the report says, adding that “evaluating the wisdom and success” of federal market intervention “requires a broader understanding of the basic choices available to policymakers during this crisis”—specifically pointing to liquidation, receivership, or subsidization. The report safely concludes that success of the Treasury’s approach depends on which philosophy was correct in the long-term. Was the financial crisis the product of “temporary liquidity constraints, resulting from nonfunctioning markets for troubled assets” as Geithner and company have suggested? Or, does that approach fail to acknowledge the depth of the downturn “and the degree to which the low valuation of troubled assets accurately reflects their worth?” If the latter, the reports says, the Treasury will have a new path to forge. The report certainly indicates progress, to say the least. Particularly when, just last December, Elizabeth Warren, the consumer bankruptcy expert who chairs the oversight panel, worried that TARP funds were being spent on an ad hoc basis, employing shortsighted tactical solutions in lieu of a coherent strategy. Meanwhile, the Congressional Oversight Panel has its hands full. An April 13, 2009 article in The Wall Street Journal reported that the panel is assembling a new study that examines potentially inappropriate lending by banks that received TARP monies, such as annual interest rates that surpass 100 percent for some loans, and other rising fees and rates. Shelter Shorts 2009-06-03T09:20:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/tarp_at_six_months_report_delivers_mixed_emotions/tarp_at_six_months_report_delivers_mixed_emotions/#When:09:20:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/x-ro_0zdwrk/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/equity_20_the_missing_pieces/equity_20_the_missing_pieces/#When:08:37:00Z In April, Secretary Shaun Donovan of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Ray LaHood of the Department of Transportation announced a joint agency sustainable communities initiative that aims to address the intersection of transportation and housing affordability. While any genuine effort to address housing affordability is welcome, this announcement reflects a new understanding of the complex issues that confront metropolitan regions and the ways they intersect. The initiative signaled an understanding within the administration that encouraging smarter planning, expanding the definition of affordability, and researching the livability of communities are all essential in increasing the use of public transportation, decreasing our carbon footprint, reducing urban sprawl, enabling the smarter use of regional resources, and improving affordable housing options for families. Shortly after the announcement, many heralded this initiative as a sign of things to come: smart, collaborative, research-based, and innovative. A newly created interagency task force maps out four goals. First, it aims to develop federal affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs, and other costs that affect location choices, as well as a way to indentify the cost of living in certain geographic areas by way of an online tool that calculates the combined housing and transportation costs families face when choosing a new home. The task force will also design measures that indicate the livability of communities, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas, identify opportunities to better coordinate HUD and DOT programs and encourage location efficiency in housing and transportation choices. Finally, the task force will encourage HUD and DOT to engage in joint research, data collection, and outreach efforts with stakeholders, to develop information platforms and analytic tools to track housing and transportation options and expenditures, establish standardized and efficient performance measures, and identify best practices. This is a good start, but it’s clear that three things were missing from these goals: the importance of open government data, the impact of racial and economic segregation, and the power of private-sector innovation. Government data is necessary to make transparent the true cost of housing and transportation. Just as it is inextricably linked to housing, transportation is woven into America’s severe case of racial, ethnic, and economic segregation. And while the new White House Office of Social Innovation demonstrates the administration’s commitment to private-sector collaboration, in many ways the “Sustainable Communities Initiative” represents just a step forward for an administration that could have leaped ahead. Open Government Data Two Web-based tools recently built by the Center for Neighborhood Technology now provide bureaucrats, elected officials, planners, and advocates with valuable insight into the impact of the combined cost of housing and transportation. Unfortunately, these tools are not as useful for the average housing seeker looking for a more affordable neighborhood. Rather than allowing the housing seeker to enter their own address, their work address, and household income to search for affordable neighborhoods, they instead provide the average transportation time and cost for the current residents of a given geographic area. It provides for interesting data, but not particularly helpful. This lack of functionality is not CNT’s fault or the fault of their research partners. Any effort—including the task force’s—to build an online tool that calculates the combined housing and transportation costs faces a daunting task. Web sites like HopStop and Urban Mapping provide limited information about public transportation options in select geographic areas, and the Google Transit Partners program helps commuters once they’ve chosen a neighborhood. No Web application offers a national, standardized, up-to-date, and free database that would enable searching and sorting of neighborhoods based on commute time and cost to and from a fixed (work) address. Web applications designed to empower home seekers so they can make smarter decisions that require some sort of fee to access what is public data. Just a few days after being appointed as President Obama’s chief technology officer, Vivek Kundra, the former Washington, DC CTO (and the force behind DC’s standard-setting CapStat data sharing system), explained his vision of open government data during his first official conference call: “We need to make sure that all that data that is not private, that is not restricted for national security reasons can be made public.” In this arena, the task force’s path is clear: they should work to make data.gov a full-featured, license-free, and cost-free API (application programming interface) of all public transit system data. APIs provide a method for other Web sites and applications to access and use up-to-date data, empowering people and organizations to mix and mash data into new and engaging tools. Just as the recent stimulus bill compels states to publish standardized feeds of how they are spending the funds, so too should all federal transportation funding. Expanding Opportunity At the Transportation Equity Network (TEN) conference in March, a team of equity advocates crafted a compelling statement on the multitude of federal opportunities to promote racial equity through transportation policy. Under the heading “Support Transportation Policy to Build Diverse, Sustainable Communities” they wrote: “For 40 years, transportation and infrastructure spending has helped drive both sprawl and inequality in our nation’s metropolitan areas…Because of regional transportation and land use decisions, many of the most exclusive communities have gained the greatest share of their region’s business and residential tax wealth while doing the least to promote fair and open housing and school integration. “If transportation policy can drive segregation, it can also play a critical role in reversing these trends by rewarding open housing and pro-integration policies at the local level. In fact, transportation equity must include affirmative efforts to advance integration and the de-concentration of poverty within metropolitan regions if it is to be truly about equity and justice. Promoting more “public transit” is not enough.” TEN recommends an array of rule changes that HUD and DOT could easily implement, including requiring that recipients of federal transportation funding certify that they “affirmatively further fair housing” (already a requirement of the recipients of Community Development Block Grant funds), expand options for low- and moderate-income families as a metric for success, and promote inclusionary zoning policies. They also would compel metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to include minority representatives in the planning process, consider patterns of residential segregation in all studies, and establish as goals reducing racial and economic segregation. The HUD/DOT task force’s goal to create a Web-based tool for housing seekers should be combined with affirmative marketing efforts that would challenge the ignorance and prejudice that perpetuate segregation. In fact, HUD Transition Team member and New York University Public Policy and Urban Planning Professor Ingrid Ellen advocated for just such a system a few months ago: “Many households make their residential choices based on very limited information and consider only a small set of alternatives. Thus, we might also invest in Web-based neighborhood information systems that would make it easy for people to gather information about a broad set of neighborhoods when making their residential choices—about school quality, crime and the like.” Despite the absence of racial and ethnic equity as an explicit goal of the initiative, there is reason to hope. HUD Deputy Secretary nominee Ron Sims, currently King County Executive, has a strong record of advocating for making equity a metric of success in all government programs. In the introduction to a report announcing the “King County Equity & Social Justice Initiative” entitled Working Toward Fairness and Opportunity for All, Sims writes, ”[This] Initiative takes aim at . . . inequities and injustices. Government is better prepared than ever before to address this problem. And correcting inequities and promoting equal opportunity for all residents are the essence of what government should do. This is not business as usual.” Just as housing and transportation are inextricably linked, so are housing and racial and economic equity. An unfortunate reality is rules and policies that remain silent on segregation nearly always reinforce the status quo’s unequal distribution of opportunities. The task force should incorporate the recommendations of the Transit Equity Network Conference into its mission and incorporate affirmative marketing efforts into any housing/transportation affordability Web site. Fostering Social Innovation For a new generation of leaders in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, the planned White House Office of Social Innovation and the Social Innovation Funds pilot program created by the Serve America Act are promising signs that entrepreneurship and innovation will be priorities in the new administration. The excitement on an entire network of social entrepreneurship and philanthropy blogs is almost palpable. Sonal Shah, the newly appointed head of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation in the White House—much like nominee Sims and CTO Kundra—brings with her valuable insight and experience and a stellar record of accomplishments. Shah, who is leaving as the head of Google.org (Google philanthropic/foundation arm) to head the office, has an impressive combination of for- and nonprofit experience. She is the co-founder of Indicorps, a U.S.-based organization offering fellowships for Americans of Indian origin to work on development projects in India, the former Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she focused on trade, outsourcing and post conflict reconstruction issues, and served as Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. where she developed and implemented the firm’s environmental strategy. When you add the new Office of Urban Affairs Policy to the mix, the possibilities for this initiative expand exponentially. Tasked with taking “a coordinated and comprehensive approach to developing and implementing an effective strategy concerning urban America,” this Office’s role was not outlined in the Sustainable Communities Initiative announcement but is not hard to imagine. Including access to green jobs in transportation planning or adding the locations of federally funded social service programs into a housing/transportation affordability Web tool are just a few of their options. In a compelling article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Opinion blog, Mario Marino of Venture Philanthropy Partners makes a passionate case for wide-scale innovation: “While I could not be more supportive of the Office of Social Innovation, I believe this is a chance for the President to systematically foster a mindset in America that is nothing short of a cultural and economic ground-shift. He must broaden the focus across and among the private, public, and nonprofit sectors—to seek and spark the most promising innovations whether they come from commercial or social entrepreneurs, executives or line workers, community leaders, public servants, researchers, or citizens who don’t fit into any of these categories. The real opportunity before the president is to supercharge innovators from all walks of life and make commercial and social innovation our national imperative.” It is not enough for the White House to selectively pilot a handful of new collaborations. Rather, their focus on innovation should be a part of each and every sector of the federal bureaucracy. The sustainable communities initiative should fund innovative, private sector efforts that encourage housing seekers to consider the combined cost of housing and transportation when looking for a new home, develop affordable housing near a variety of transit options, and convene municipalities, researchers, and residents in Web-based, collaborative planning efforts. Organizing 2009-06-03T08:37:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/equity_20_the_missing_pieces/equity_20_the_missing_pieces/#When:08:37:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/6lnWN9r8Wcc/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/new_ideas_for_strengthening_federal_rental_assistance/new_ideas_for_strengthening_federal_rental_assistance/#When:17:04:00Z Tough economic times are straining what is already a maxed-out system of social services. Despite the attention being paid to beleaguered homeowners, renters are being squeezed as well. Since an increasing number of Americans simply earn too little to afford to rent a decent home, one vital element of our social net is the provision of rental housing assistance. To help these families meet their basic needs for shelter, the federal government spends more than $25 billion a year through a mix of housing vouchers and direct subsidies to help about four million households. But the demand for such assistance is increasing as job loses spread and incomes fall. Housing stability is critically important for ensuring the well being of families experiencing economic stress. For this reason, Congress should appropriate additional rental assistance funds to allow local housing authorities to assist more families in need. At the same time, we believe the time is right to experiment with new ideas for strengthening federal rental assistance-especially ones that help families get back into the mainstream as quick as possible. One problem in particular should be addressed head-on. Existing program rules create an unintended barrier to increased earnings once families begin receiving assistance, undermining what could otherwise be a strong platform to help families make progress toward self-sufficiency. Families receiving rental assistance currently pay 30 percent of their adjusted income to cover the costs of rent and utilities. This wisely ensures that families’ rental payments do not consume a disproportionate share of their disposable income and that families with greater needs get more help. But as assisted families’ earnings rise, their rent also increases, creating a likely disincentive for them to pursue jobs that would substantially raise their incomes. To address this “incentives” problem while also expanding the number of families benefitting from assistance, we recommend providing all assisted families with a Rental Assistance Asset Account that grows as their earnings grow. Build a Pool of Resources Under our proposal, families would continue to pay 30 percent of their adjusted income for rent and utilities, but if their earnings go up, a portion of their increased rent payments would be placed into a personal account. The more they earn, the more their account would grow. Over time, they would build up a pool of resources that could be strategically deployed to advance their personal goals. This could mean buying or fixing up a car, making a down payment on a home, investing in education or training, or facilitating a move away from assistance. This combination of increased earnings and increased savings—together with complementary services to help families overcome barriers to increased work effort—could help families prepare to access private-market housing, freeing up scarce resources for other qualifying families. Affordable Housing 2009-05-07T17:04:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/new_ideas_for_strengthening_federal_rental_assistance/new_ideas_for_strengthening_federal_rental_assistance/#When:17:04:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/guLMEiV7Gmk/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/great_falls_and_the_silk_city/great_falls_and_the_silk_city/#When:19:25:00Z The following is a preview of a report to appear in the Spring 2009 issue of Shelterforce. It’s early February and the air temperature hovers in the low teens—never mind the windchill that could only be tolerable to a Midwesterner. But despite the cold temperatures, the Great Falls, a geological oasis in these urban environs located in New Jersey’s Passaic County, just 12 miles west of New York City, flows aggressively into the Passaic River at the foot of the New Jersey Highlands, offering a glimpse of the industrial powerhouse that was once the city of Paterson. The Great Falls, located in one of the country’s most economically distressed cities (known as the Silk City because of the thriving 20th century silk industry here), was first eyed by Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, as the “spark that would ignite a new form of industrial productivity,” thus “adding wealth, independence, and economic security to a fledgling democratic nation,” according to Michael Powell, Vice President of Planning Policy and Development for the Paterson-based New Jersey Community Development Corporation, in an article in the forthcoming Spring 2009 issue of Shelterforce. Communities 2009-04-08T19:25:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/great_falls_and_the_silk_city/great_falls_and_the_silk_city/#When:19:25:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/tG7_n_D_uh8/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/operation_neighborhood_recovery_and_the_future_of_community_development1/operation_neighborhood_recovery_and_the_future_of_community_development1/#When:14:32:00Z NEWARK, NJ—Urban Essex County, New Jersey, one of the hardest hit areas in the state by the ongoing foreclosure crisis, could be the laboratory for an ostensible reinvention of community development, as a local CDC there announced today the successful acquisition of 47 mortgages on troubled properties with an eye toward stabilizing neighborhoods in some of the oldest suburban communities in New Jersey. The project, dubbed Operation Neighborhood Recovery (ONR) and spearheaded by the Orange, NJ-based HANDS, Inc., is being touted as the first instance nationwide that a nonprofit organization has achieved that type of large-scale bulk purchase of mortgages. The properties, all vacant and abandoned, and many deteriorated, are located primarily in the New Jersey municipalities of Newark, Orange, East Orange, and Irvington. The mortgage portfolio was purchased at a discount, roughly $50,000 per mortgage, according to Wayne Meyer, housing director at HANDS, from Washington Mutual Bank, which has since become J.P. Morgan Chase for an anticipated total of about $5.4 million. New Jersey Community Capital, a Trenton-based community development financial institution, headed up the transaction, coordinating the debt and equity from financial partners that include Prudential Social Investment, LISC of Greater Newark and Jersey City, Neighbor Works America, and Enterprise Community Partners. Patrick Morrissy, HANDS’ executive director, as well as National Housing Institute board member, credited existing CDC work, renovating, rehabbing, or developing housing with a particular purview, but pointed to the more regional scope of ONR. “The subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent economic fallout has caused the greatest downward pressure on urban neighborhoods that we have ever seen,” he said at a news conference unveiling the project, adding that “three decades of important neighborhood stabilization work is threatened and could be undone in a very short period of time.” But Morrissy pointed to 16 collaborators involved in ONR that were pivotal in securing the bulk portfolio. Among the projects redevelopment partners include Brand New Day in Elizabeth, NJ, Unified Vailsburg Services Organization in Newark, Episcopal Community Development in Newark, HOMECorp in Montclair, NJ, the Greater Newark Housing Partnership, and La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark. “Never in all this time have we come together with a single resolve that if we don’t work together, our individual efforts aren’t going to add up to enough to meet this crisis,” Morrissy said. HANDS first made contact with then Washington Mutual in 2007 looking to deal with the particular properties, but had limited success in making sustained contact with the bank, Meyer said. “But what we did was go to an auction that they were having and we bought a property.” Meyer noted that after that transaction, his group knew enough to make a proposal: “We knew what the valuation was. We knew what the original mortgage was, we knew that what we paid for it and what they paid in cost.” HANDS conducted a room-by-room renovations analysis, and arrived at a dollar amount for each house to get back to functioning use. Meyer said that only a handful of properties would need to be demolished because of their condition, and replaced with new houses. Out of the properties acquired, 14 will be developed as market rate, intended to support the development of the other properties as affordable housing, Meyer said. Having the financial partners, national community development intermediaries and a financial investment insurance company in NeighborWorks America, LISC, Prudential, and Enterprise, working together in a local context was a major facilitator in achieving the project’s financing, said Robert Zdenek, executive director of New Jersey Community Capital. Michael Meyer, Newark’s director of housing and real estate, who also sits on the regional Essex-Newark Foreclosure Task Force, suggested the scale of the ONR project, as well as the partnerships involved, could prove to be a model for other localities, as well as presenting future potential when it comes to handling the estimated 900 REO properties that currently exist in Newark. “The scale of community reinvestment that is required to stabilize our neighborhoods is substantial,” he said. “ONR is one more weapon we have in our arsenal,” said Gerard Haizel, executive director of Episcopal Community Development. ONR partners hope to use the momentum gained from this initiative to create a national model for a community asset preservation corporation, or CAPC. The federal government’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program could supply additional funding for future projects, Newark’s Michael Meyer said, pointing to last summer’s $3.9 billion in emergency NSP funding, to be distributed to states and localities. New Jersey is receiving $64 million with some of the money funneled to localities, but with other projects seeking funds on a competitive basis as part of $2 billion marked for NSP II, where localities and states can come together in collaboration with nonprofits, as is the case with ONR, and apply director for those resources. Economic Development 2009-04-03T14:32:00-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/operation_neighborhood_recovery_and_the_future_of_community_development1/operation_neighborhood_recovery_and_the_future_of_community_development1/#When:14:32:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Shelterforce/~3/zFuahyGmxIU/ http://www.shelterforce.org/article/gardening_its_gone_to_the_goats/gardening_its_gone_to_the_goats/#When:23:52:01Z Anything to save a buck these days, but in Los Angeles, a cost-savings measure employed by a local redevelopment agency appears to have all of the necessary sustainable ingredients. As part of an ongoing effort to combat urban blight, the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles is cutting its brush- and weed-clearing budget in half—by employing 100 goats at Angels Knoll in downtown Los Angeles. The bearded ruminants plowed through weeds, brush, and bushes during a two-week stay on the steepest portion of the 2.6-acre site. The site will be developed into a mixed-use office development as the last stage of the California Plaza’s development. Until construction can begin, the lower section of the site is being planted with water-saving California native vegetation. The steepest portion of the site, however, was overrun with hard-to-reach weeds and brush—precisely the area where the goats would be up to the task. Using human labor to clear the area would have cost upward of $7,500, but the “no-tech, eco-friendly and cost-effective cleanup solution” ran an estimated $3,000, according to a CRA/LA statement. Further, the goats, of course, release no emissions, their dung is a fertilizer, and their small hooves help aerate the ground. As far as safety, fear not Los Angeles: security and a herdsman were on hand to oversee the progress. Shelter Shorts 2009-01-14T23:52:01-05:00 http://www.shelterforce.org/article/gardening_its_gone_to_the_goats/gardening_its_gone_to_the_goats/#When:23:52:01Z