HUD NEWS BRIEFING

 

HUD NEWS BRIEFING

  HUD NEWS BRIEFING

second helb disbursement - Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs,
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
By TechMIS
www.techmis.com/hud

TO:          U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development& Staff
DATE:    Monday, November 3, 2014 7:00 AM ET



HUD News
Maryland apartment complex kicks out victims of domestic violence (HousingWire)    6
Southgate Apartments [MD] charged with discrimination (Capital Gazette, MD)    6
Michigan, US officials differ on homeless figures (Hometown Stations, OH)    7
Are There Really Fewer Homeless People In America? (YouTube, TouchVision)    8
Wandering Eye: HUD’s bogus numbers on the homeless (Baltimore City Paper, MD)    8
Watchdog: Congress Should Help HUD Improve List of Buildings for Homeless (Government Executive)    8
If HUD Were in Charge of Ebola, 10 Percent of Us Would Be Bleeding From Our Eyes by Now (Huffington Post)    9
HUD Declines to Include Points and Fees Cure in QM Definition (American Bankers Association)    9
Jennifer Ho - National Perspectives on the Role of Housing in the Continuum of HIV Services (YouTube, UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services)    10
Obama Administration Releases Federal Agency Climate Plans on Fifth Anniversary of Presidential Sustainability Initiative (National Journal)    10
Malloy, Foley [CT] campaigning with Hispanic leaders (Stamford Advocate, CT)    11
George P. Bush, headed for landslide win, looks to make his own name in politics (Washington Post)    11
Big HUD problems in tiny Texas town (Washington Examiner)    12
Hurricane Sandy
Learning to Love the Entirely Inadequate but Completely Indispensable Disaster Industry (WNYC - New York Public Radio)    12
200th Home Purchased as Part of Sandy Blue Acres Buyout Program (Atlantic Highlands Herald, NJ)    13
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
Sticking Points Remain in Reverse Mortgage Reforms (National Mortgage News)    14
Lenders Face Stiffer Penalties With New Mortgage Disclosures (National Mortgage News)    14
Home Ownership
A Preference for the Lease Over the Mortgage (New York Times)    15
Freddie Mac: Homeowner demand for home equity loans doubles (HousingWire)    15
Homeownership rate falls to the lowest since early 1995 (Manchester Union Leader, NH)    15
Younger adults choosing to rent, not to own (CBS News)    16
Drop in home ownership for Generation X (CBS News)    16
Americans increasingly face post-foreclosure hell (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO)    16
Embracing homeownership – the right way (Cincinnati Enquirer, OH)    17
First-time NNY [NY] home buyers to benefit from relaxed mortgage rules (Watertown Daily Times, NY)    17
HomeFree-USA to Host Strategic Leadership Forum in Baltimore [MD] (Reuters)    17
Economist: Jobs key to selling more new homes (Daytona Beach News-Journal, FL)    18
Emergency fixes for homeowners in new program [OH] (Dayton Daily News, OH)    18
Guest: How the Seattle City Council could help underwater homeowners [WA] (Seattle Times, WA)    18
Affordable Housing
USDA Announces $29 Million to Provide Housing for Farmworkers (Imperial Valley News, CA)    19
Communities [NH] getting nearly $1.9M in housing grants (Connecticut Post, CT)    19
Malloy, Foley [CT] differ on ways to address need for affordable housing (New Haven Register, CT)    20
Queens Chamber of Commerce endorses Astoria Cove project [NYC] (Boston Globe, MA)    20
Advocacy group asks courts to determine municipalities affordable housing obligation [NJ] (North Jersey.com)    20
Fair Share asks courts to enforce housing law [NJ] (Courier Post, Camden, NJ)    21
Curtain falls on Virginian; another blow to affordable housing in Lynchburg (Lynchburg News & Advance, VA)    21
Hits and misses: [VA] Affordable housing’s economic impact (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, VA)    21
Suburbs feel shorted on funds for affordable housing [MN] (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, MN)    22
Article made affordable housing a scapegoat in Ferguson [MO] (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO)    22
Fair Housing
$975K HUD grant supports Vermonters’ access to housing (VT Digger)    23
Queens [NYC] landlord sued (Crain’s New York Business)    23
Section 8
Nearly 74,000 sign up for Baltimore’s [MD] Section 8 wait list (Baltimore Sun, MD)    23
Section 8 transfer not so smooth [OH] (Hamilton Journal-News, OH)    24
City [TX] gets more than 19,000 applications for housing assistance (KXAN-TV NBC 36 Austin)    25
Cheyenne [WY] Is A Destination For Those In Need Of Housing Help (Wyoming Public Radio, WY)    25
Homelessness
These five charts show the progress made in fighting homelessness (Washington Post, DC)    26
Homelessness Is Falling — But Not Fast Enough (Think Progress)    27
The Real Monsters (Huffington Post)    28
Vet Homelessness Drops As 2015 Deadline For Ending Issue Nears: Report (Huffington Post)    28
Homelessness among U.S. veterans has been reduced by a third since 2010 (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, TX)    29
U.S. cities restrict sharing food with homeless people (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, UT)    29
Liza Horvath, Senior Advocate: Scammers can leave seniors homeless (San Jose Mercury News, CA)    29
Pope hails the poor, homeless as ‘unknown saints’ (Washington Post)    30
Homeless Numbers in Massachusetts on the Rise (Boston.com, MA)    30
Mayor Walsh hopes to reopen Long Island Bridge [MA] in three years (Boston Globe, MA)    30
Feds say Mass. homeless population growing (Quincy Patriot Ledger, MA)    31
Survey: NYC homelessness rose in 2014 (Wall Street Journal)    31
Report Shows Increase in City’s [NY] Homeless Population (NY1-TV, NY)    32
More homeless in NYC this year (Oneida Dispatch, NY)    32
How Homeless People [NYC] Use Technology: A Photo Essay On Street Poverty And Consumer Gadgets (Connecticut Post, CT)    32
$2.25M deal reached in hot NYC jail cell death (Philly.com, PA)    33
Homeless Shelter Will Miss Deadline to Move Out Half Its Tenants, City Says [NY] (DNAinfo New York)    33
Helping children from low-income families [DC] succeed in class (Washington Post, DC)    33
Homeless shelter [MD] Sarah’s Hope starts $8.5 million expansion to increase capacity (Baltimore Business Journal, MD)    34
Number of homeless students at record high in W.Va. Schools (Charleston Gazette, WV)    34
Homeless numbers take a big drop in Virginia (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, VA)    35
Fla.’s decline in homeless population leads U.S. (Florida Realtor)    35
Miami officials try to end veteran homelessness (Tampa Tribune, FL)    36
Police shut down Stranahan Park [FL] homeless feeding site, cite activists for breaking new law (Sun-Sentinel, FL)    36
HALO [WI] turns to private donations as government aid declines (Journal Times, WI)    36
Federal report: Homelessness down slightly in WI (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, WI)    37
Federal Report: Wisconsin homelessness down by 1 percent (WKBT-TV CBS 8 La Crosse, WI)    37
Homeless veterans [WI] get a day of rest, social service assistance (WKOW-TV 27 ABC, WI)    38
Streamlining homelessness [IN]: ‘Single point of entry’ (Lafayette Journal and Courier, IN)    38
Homelessness On the Decline in Arkansas (KSFX/KOLR-TV FOX 27 Ozarks First, MO)    39
Event in downtown KC [MO] to draw attention to homelessness (Kansas City Star, MO)    39
Chris Gabriel: Let’s end homelessness for veterans [LA] (Shreveport Times, LA)    40
Garland [TX] police officer dedicated to helping homeless (Dallas News, TX)    40
Judge rules against Frisco [TX] HOA, allowing City House to operate while civil case is pending (Dallas Morning News, TX)    41
Frisco Homeowners Association [TX] Can’t Kick Out Homeless Teens, Judge Rules (Dallas Observer, TX)    41
Progress on homelessness: Utah’s “Housing First” earns praise (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, UT)    42
New Olympia [WA] homeless shelter gives priority to the ill and elderly (Seattle Times)    42
New housing serves San Fernando Valley’s [CA] most vulnerable homeless (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA)    43
The imperiled health of homeless people (Oakland Tribune, CA)    43
20% of Nation’s Homeless Are in California (24/7 Wall Street)    44
PR Campaign Would Discourage Homeless from Moving to Hawaii (Honolulu Civil Beat, HI)    44
Hawaii’s homeless population grows, nation’s falls (Garden Island Newspaper, HI)    45
Project breaks ground to build homes for less than $100K [Guam] (Pacific Daily News, GU)    45
Public and Indian Housing (PIH)
Ex-Maine worker convicted of illegally collecting benefits (Portland Press Herald, ME)    46
Thornton Street [MA] Project Ribbon Cutting Ceremony 10/30/14 (YouTube, Revere TV, MA)    46
Housing Authority [CT] flies into turbulence with Florida trip (Connecticut Post, CT)    46
35-Year NYPD Veteran James Secreto To Take Over As Chief Of Housing [NYC] In Reshuffling (CBS New York, NY)    47
NYCHA residents demand answers after mailboxes remain broken, vandalized for three years (WPIX-TV PIX 11, NY)    47
Wefer: HUD is likely going to deem the HHA as a ‘troubled housing authority’ (YouTube, Hudson County View, NJ)    48
Johnstown Housing Authority [PA] faces challenges with evictions, chief says (Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, PA)    48
Housing authority [MD] to be applauded for helping people stand on their own (Hagerstown Herald-Mail, MD)    49
Fiscal outlook improves for Housing Authority of Joliet [IL] (Herald-News, IL)    49
Franklin [TN] Housing Authority moves forward with apartments (Nashville Tennessean, TN)    50
Official: Bedbug treatment common at Royal View Manor [IA] (Des Moines Register, IA)    50
Case Closed: No voter fraud found after allegations in Weslaco [TX] (KGBT 4, TX)    51
Public housing rent to rise for some Saturday [TX] (KTXS-TV 12 Abilene, TX)    51
Sustainability
Breaking Ground On Bronx River House [NYC] (Bronx Times, NY)    51
Community Planning and Development (CPD)
State [NY] to fund new housing projects for CNY flood victims (Syracuse Post-Standard, NY)    52
Colonie Town Board [NY] approves housing program budget (Spotlight Newspapers, NY)    52
Montclair [NJ] groups receive $323K in grant funding (NorthJersey.com)    53
Understanding, respect key as Delaware diversity grows (Wilmington News Journal, DE)    53
Agreement between Roanoke [VA] Rescue Mission, Council of Community Services pays mission for client info [VA] (WBDJ7 Roanoke News, VA)    54
Agreements bring thousands into Roanoke Rescue Mission [VA] (WBDJ7 Roanoke News, VA)    54
Officials, residents discuss housing issues [NC] (Salisbury Post, NC)    54
County [OH] land bank able to sell lands without competitive bidding (Akron West Side Leader, OH)    55
Are Single Family Teardowns a Sign of Suburban Gentrification? (Planetizen)    55
City [IN] buying land near Pittman Square Park for fire station (Gary Post-Tribune, IN)    55
HUD to fund new Gary [IN] fire station, West Side fixes (Northwest Indiana Times, IN)    56
HANO looks to develop unused lots [LA] (Lakeland Ledger, FL)    56
Flower Mound [TX] to reopen applications for home rehab program (Dallas Morning News, TX)    56
Thornton [CO] seeks input on using federal grant money over next 5 years (Denver Post, CO)    57
Mattawa [WA] farmworker apartments get big federal boost (Yakima Herald-Republic, WA)    57
Teardowns transforming Bellevue [WA] neighborhoods (Seattle Times, WA)    58
Merced [CA] may reprogram HUD cash (Merced Sun-Star, CA)    58
National News
Underwriting the Next Housing Crisis (New York Times)    59
Fannie, Freddie to take on more credit risk (HousingWire)    59
Federal rules are deterring banks from approving more home loans (Fresno Bee, CA)    59
Mortgage Applications Drop 6% in Latest MBA Survey (Reverse Mortgage Today)    60
JPMorgan Tapped by Fannie Mae for New Risk-Sharing Bonds (Bloomberg)    60
Say Hello to the Next Banking Crisis (U.S. News & World Report)    61
Credit positive in HFA risk retention exemption (HousingWire)    61
Homebuilders forecast a robust 2015 (The Hill)    62
Why more liberal cities have less affordable housing (Washington Post)    62
Is Your House Red or Blue? (Bloomberg.com)    63
6 housing boomtowns that haven’t come back (USA Today)    64
Here’s why falling home prices is not good news (HousingWire)    64
US real estate market is still upbeat on equity (The Real Deal, NY)    65
Black Knight: At least 7.4M mortgages should refinance (HousingWire)    65
One subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t enough? (Bakersfield Californian)    66
Chinese buyers trending into Greenwich [CT] real estate (Connecticut Post, CT)    66
Williamsburg [VA] area home prices on an upward trend (Newport News Daily Press, VA)    67
Miami [FL] No. 1 in all-cash home purchases (The Real Deal - South Florida)    67
Gulf Coast housing market shows improvement [MS] (Jackson Clarion-Ledger, MS)    67
S.A. emerges as Texas’ ‘gateway to power’ (San Antonio Express-News, TX)    68
Bank [CO] made few mortgage loans to Hispanics (Charlotte Observer, NC)    68
Texas housing market on track for second-best year ever (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, TX)    69
Hispanic-focused Solera Bank [CO] made few loans to Front Range Hispanics (Denver Post)    69
As housing market recovers, roadblocks remain [CA] (The Business Journal, CA)    70
Scott Burns: Jumping from bubble to boom [CA] (Dallas Morning News, TX)    70
Headlines
The Washington Post    71
The New York Times    71
The Wall Street Journal    71
ABC News    72
NBC News    72
CBS News    72
Washington Schedule
President    72
Vice President    72
Senate    72
House of Representatives    72



Editorial Note: This Brief represents summarized content - click on the hyperlink to access full-text articles for these news summaries.

HUD News

Maryland apartment complex kicks out victims of domestic violence (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(10/31/2014 3:51 PM, Brena Swanson)
Southgate Apartment Company and A & G Management Company, the owner and property manager of Southgate Apartments and Townhomes in Glen Burnie, Maryland, refused to renew the lease of a female tenant and her two sons after a reported domestic violence case.

In doing so, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is charging the complex for violating the Fair Housing Act, which makes it unlawful to terminate an individual’s housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status.

According to the report, the woman had resided with her two sons in the apartment complex for several years without incident. One evening, her then boyfriend came to her unit and, after a brief argument, stabbed the woman and her 18-year-old son, who had attempted to aid his mother.

After spending several days in the hospital and returning home, she was issued a 30-day notice to vacate, which asserted that she had violated her lease because police had to be called to her home in response to “domestic issues and weapons being discharged.”

Jessica Huseman, a previous HousingWire reporter, wrote a blog back in Feb. 20, 2012 over a similar HUD case about a Mississippi apartment complex that discriminated against a woman when it kicked her out after she called police to report she was a victim of domestic violence.

Escatawpa Village Apartments in Moss Point, Miss., evicted two different victims of domestic violence based on a clause in their leases that requires anyone “who commits a drug violation or domestic violence to vacate the leased unit permanently,” according to documents released by HUD.

The policy seems discriminatory on its face. It could also pressure women to keep instances of domestic violence secret, for fear they will be kicked out of their homes.

“Survivors of domestic violence, who often have to fight for their lives, shouldn’t have to fight to keep their housing,” said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “HUD is committed to working to ensure that women and children are not unlawfully forced from their homes because they were physically abused.”

Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, sent this tweet earlier expressing his opinion on the matter in Maryland.

Know what’s not ok? Evicting victims of domestic violence from apartments because all the cop visits are a nuisance.

Southgate Apartments [MD] charged with discrimination (Capital Gazette, MD)
Capital Gazette
(11/3/2014 5:55 AM, Rick Hutzell)
HUD says Glen Burnie apartment owner discriminated against domestic abuse victim

Federal housing officials said Friday the owners of a Glen Burnie apartment complex discriminated against a woman and her teenage son by evicting them after they were stabbed by her boyfriend in spring 2012.

The woman and her 18-year-old son, whose names were not released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, were attacked at their home in the Southgate Apartment and Townhomes off Klagg Court.

The man fired a gun and stabbed both the woman and her son. They were taken to the hospital, while he was arrested by police.

Shortly after the woman returned home, she got a notice from A&G Management Co. ordering her to move out within 30 days. The notice said she violated her lease because police were called to her apartment for "domestic issues and weapons being discharged."

She contacted Maryland Legal Aid, a nonprofit that offers free legal services to low-income residents, which challenged the eviction. They later filed a complaint with HUD in October, saying the action violated the Fair Housing Act and regulations on the housing voucher program.

Both make it illegal to discriminate against a victim of domestic abuse.

"Survivors of domestic abuse, who often have to fight for their lives, shouldn’t have to fight to keep their housing," said Gustavo Velasquez, assistant HUD secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

The charges name Southgate Apartments and A&G Management, both based at the same address in Baltimore, as well as resident property manager Kenya McKenzie Hutchinson and regional property manager Linda Burlew.

Neither the companies nor their employees could be reached for comment.

Despite the law and provisions in the voucher agreement, the woman was forced to move out in December 2012.

HUD has ordered the apartment owner and its management company to stop discriminating, pay damages to the woman and pay $16,000 each in penalties.

A hearing on the charges will be conducted by a federal administrative law judge.

Michigan, US officials differ on homeless figures (Hometown Stations, OH)
Hometown Stations
(10/31/2014 6:29 AM, Associated Press)
DETROIT (AP) - Federal and state officials differ on the number of people in Michigan they say are homeless.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said Thursday the number of homeless in the state is up 700 from last year to 12,227.

Michigan officials say the number is nearly eight times as high, with a total of 92,341.

The Detroit News reports HUD came up with its number by using "point in time" counts that measured the homeless on one night in late January.

Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness executive director Eric Hufnagel tells the News the federal government’s method vastly undercounts the number of homeless.

Despite the discrepancy, both sets of officials say improvements are being made that will help reduce the number of homeless locally and nationwide.

Are There Really Fewer Homeless People In America? (YouTube, TouchVision)
YouTube
(10/31/2014 10:01 AM, TouchVision)
[VIDEO at source]. While a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development claims the number of homeless people is on the decline, homeless advocacy groups say there are multiple issues with the way the data was collected.

Wandering Eye: HUD’s bogus numbers on the homeless (Baltimore City Paper, MD)
Baltimore City Paper
(10/31/2014 11:10 AM, Van Smith)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mass-emailed some really great news yesterday: "Homelessness in U.S. Continues to Decline, Down 27.6 Percent in Maryland Since 2010" was the headline. HUD’s Mid-Atlantic administrator, Jane C.W. Vincent, claimed that "communities are targeting their resources strategically to give persons experiencing homelessness the support they need," and "as a result, the numbers have declined steadily since 2010, ranging from a 27.6 percent decrease in Maryland to an 8.2 percent drop in Delaware." Baltimore residents might find this a dubious assessment, though, given the visible prevalence of homeless people here—and, as City Paper reported last year, the fact that the official numbers on the size of Mobtown’s homeless population are an acknowledged farce. The Detroit News yesterday highlighted how squishy such numbers can be, reporting how the state of Michigan counts 92,341 homeless residents there, while HUD believes there are 12,227. Homeless advocates, meanwhile, are attacking HUD’s numbers. It seems the only thing HUD is accomplishing by pushing such data-driven headlines is the widespread dissemination of patently false confidence that society’s solving a problem that obviously isn’t budging.

Watchdog: Congress Should Help HUD Improve List of Buildings for Homeless (Government Executive)
Government Executive
(10/31/2014 3:28 PM, Charles S. Clark)
The Housing and Urban Development Department, which is under twin pressures to identify federal properties that might serve the homeless as well as sell off underutilized government property, is producing inventories that lack precision, the Government Accountability Office found.

HUD’s Federal Register descriptions of properties around the country that might make suitable homeless shelters are often duplicative, imprecise and “not user-friendly” to organizations working in the field, GAO said in a report released Thursday.

Under Title V of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, HUD and other agencies are tasked with identifying unused federal real estate and making some of it available to homeless assistance providers.

But GAO’s analysis and interviews with nonprofit groups found that few of the properties that HUD listed as suitable and available since the program began in 1987 received applications from homeless assistance providers. “In most cases, the properties may not have actually been practical for homeless service providers to use,” GAO wrote.

Under the program, 122 properties have been transferred from agencies to emergency shelters, transitional housing and referral services for the homeless, 81 of which are currently still in use. That’s out of 40,000 evaluated over three decades, of which 10,000 were deemed suitable by HUD, GAO reported. In its inventories, HUD by law includes many properties—80 percent of its listings in 2013, for example—that would require an interested shelter provider to move the structure to a new location.

“HUD officials told us that they would prefer that agencies not be required to report certain types of properties at all, such as those for off-site use only,” auditors wrote after conducting eight case studies. “The current statutory requirement for agencies to report all properties that fall within four broad categories—excess, surplus, underutilized, and unutilized—may not be effective for certain types of properties.”

The governmentwide effort to aid the homeless is coordinated by HUD and the Interagency Council on Homelessness. GAO interviewed their officials as well as those from nine other agencies.

Lawmakers and officials working on the programs in the past have questioned some of the reporting requirements as “burdensome to produce or not very useful,” GAO noted in its report addressed to Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Ranking Member Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

The report recommended that Congress relieve HUD of some requirements and allow the agency to focus on the properties most promising as future homeless shelters. And it recommended that HUD modernize its electronic databases to improve transparency, and that all participating agencies improve coordination. The agencies, on review the draft report, agreed.

If HUD Were in Charge of Ebola, 10 Percent of Us Would Be Bleeding From Our Eyes by Now (Huffington Post)
Huffington Post
(11/1/2014 12:03 PM, Pat LaMarche)
Imagine if Ebola scientists worked the way the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) does. If you didn’t look like you had Ebola, if you didn’t admit to having Ebola, if you weren’t in the same room with the doctors when they were talking about Ebola - GOOD NEWS - you don’t have Ebola.

Well, good news until you start hemorrhaging out of places most of us prefer to keep water tight -- and really bad news for the people who live around you, especially the children who are gravely impacted by your condition.

Let me put it another way. I’m pretty sure HUD administrators don’t tell the riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound." Because they don’t think it’s a riddle. At HUD, it’s protocol. If nobody’s there to hear it, it -- of course -- didn’t make a sound, and furthermore it probably didn’t fall at all. Frankly, the way HUD counts homelessness; they’d be relatively certain there wasn’t a tree to begin with and likely no forest either.

The latest report released by the agency says that homelessness is down 2 percent, but what it doesn’t say is that shelters can’t call a person homeless anymore unless the person can prove they were homeless. That’s a tall order, proving a negative.

It also doesn’t tell you that savvy homeless folks don’t admit to being homeless. Why would they? There’s nothing to gain from it. There’s no available government assistance for housing. The Section 8 Housing Voucher Program is what the experts call "oversubscribed." That means there are huge waiting lists, many folks will wait years to get a voucher. Many parents fear losing their children if they go to a shelter or admit to authorities that they are living in their car, storage shed, or the woods.

HUD Declines to Include Points and Fees Cure in QM Definition (American Bankers Association)
American Bankers Association
(10/31/2014 1:24 PM, American Bankers Association)
The Department of Housing and Urban Development today issued a revision to its definition for FHA-insured Qualified Mortgages that applies to Section 501(c)(3) nonprofits that originate and service mortgages. In doing so, HUD declined to adopt the limited cure provision adopted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The cure allows a lender that intended to originate a Qualified Mortgage, but later finds that the points and fees charged exceed the 3 percent cap, to refund the excess and retain QM protections.

HUD said that if it allowed an FHA lender to return funds to a borrower, however, it could violate the minimum 3.5 percent cash investment required by law for FHA loans. Moreover, because the points and fees cap is a requirement for FHA insurability, “it is imperative that FHA ensure all eligibility requirements are met prior to insurance endorsement,” HUD said.

Jennifer Ho - National Perspectives on the Role of Housing in the Continuum of HIV Services (YouTube, UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services)
YouTube
(10/31/2014 4:46 PM, uclahipts)
Jennifer Ho, Senior Advisor on Housing and Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs – 10/21/2014].

Obama Administration Releases Federal Agency Climate Plans on Fifth Anniversary of Presidential Sustainability Initiative (National Journal)
National Journal
(10/31/2014 11:33 AM, White House, Council on Environmental Quality)
As part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, Federal agencies today released their plans for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change impacts such as flooding, sea level rise, severe weather and temperature extremes. These agency Sustainability Plans and Climate Change Adaptation Plans coincide with the fifth anniversary of the President’s 2009 Executive Order on Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance, which set aggressive energy, climate and environmental targets for agencies, and detail how their actions have already reduced the Federal Government’s direct greenhouse gas emissions by more than 17 percent since 2008 - the equivalent of permanently taking 1.8 million cars off the road.

"Under President Obama’s leadership, Federal agencies have already made significant progress in cutting carbon pollution, improving energy efficiency, and preparing for the impacts of climate change," said Mike Boots, who leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "These agency climate plans underscore the Administration’s commitment to leading by example throughout the Federal Government so we can leave behind a planet that is not polluted and damaged and protect our ability to provide the vital services American communities depend on."

To recognize extraordinary achievement in pursuit of the President’s Federal sustainability goals, the White House today also announced the winners of the 2014 GreenGov Presidential Awards, honoring Federal agency teams and individuals who are taking innovative approaches to curbing waste, reducing energy use and saving taxpayer money in Federal agency operations. And to seek the best ideas for new climate and sustainability initiatives from the Federal community, the White House today launched the GreenGov Challenge, an online tool for Federal employees from across the country to suggest and vote on ideas for new ways to meet the President’s sustainability goals.

The agency plans outline steps they will take to address these issues and incorporate climate change considerations into their decision-making. These include work by the Department of Commerce to stimulate new technologies and initiatives to build resilience in American communities; efforts by the General Services Administration to identify and address vulnerabilities in agencies’ data center, telecommunications equipment and services supply chains; an initiative by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to require higher flood elevation for HUD-funded hospitals, housing, and other vital community resources; and work by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release case studies from state and city health departments that have conducted climate vulnerability assessments. Agencies are also working to factor resilience to the effects of climate change into grant-making and investment decisions and in the design and construction of new and existing agency facilities and infrastructure.

Malloy, Foley [CT] campaigning with Hispanic leaders (Stamford Advocate, CT)
Stamford Advocate
(11/01/2014 10:26 AM, AP)
HARTFORD, Conn. — Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley are campaigning across Connecticut with well-known members of the Hispanic community.

Malloy was scheduled on Saturday to make several stops in Stamford with Julian Castro, the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Castro is a former mayor of San Antonio, Texas. He received national attention when he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

Also on Saturday, Foley is scheduled to campaign with Luis Fortuno, the former governor of Puerto Rico. A member of the Republican National Committee, Fortuno served as governor from 2009-2013. He was defeated by Alejandro Garcia Padilla, who campaigned with Malloy on Oct. 28.

George P. Bush, headed for landslide win, looks to make his own name in politics (Washington Post)
Washington Post
(11/2/2014 12:43 PM, Karen Tumulty)
Karl Rove, who was George W.’s chief political strategist, said of the younger Bush, “He has been supported by and actually created a new generation of friends, supporters, advisers and fundraisers.”

That was deliberate, the candidate said. “As you can imagine, with the name Bush, there would be certain assumptions made about my candidacy. So whether it’s my ideas, my policy positions, my vision for the [land commissioner job] and Texas, or just the way I built this team — it’s brand new. That was important to me on a personal level.”

Still, when people approach him at campaign events, it is often to talk about his name and what it means to them.

“I love your grandmother,” Myrna Dozier told him at a Republican women’s event in San Antonio. “I cried when your grandfather lost that election.” She pulled out her smartphone to show him pictures of her grandson.

He is often badgered for the inside scoop on whether his father is going to run for president in 2016. That is a subject that has put George P. into awkward positions. At a Texas Tribune forum in September, he was asked whether he would endorse Jeb, should he run. The younger Bush, strangely, declined to say — though later he told Politico, “I would obviously vote for him and support him.”

Bush insists, as he must, that the land commissioner’s job is the only one he is thinking about right now, but it seems everyone else is gaming out his future. Will he run for attorney general in 2018? The Senate in 2020?

A governor’s race somewhere down the road seems almost inevitable — maybe against the other party’s rising Latino star, former San Antonio mayor and current Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

“It’s the battle of the titans that everyone sees coming down the pike,” said the Houston Chronicle’s Cohen. “Castro vs. Bush.”

Big HUD problems in tiny Texas town (Washington Examiner)
Washington Examiner
(11/3/2014 5:02 AM, Mark Tapscott)
Sammy Baugh may no longer be the only reason anybody in the nation’s capital might have heard of Rotan, a tiny West Texas town where the former Washington Redskins quarterback lived after retiring from pro football.

Thanks to an new audit report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General, Rotan Housing Authority officials could make the little burg the talk of Washington, or at least its federal bureaucracy.

The HUD IG’s report documented in detail that Rotan officials failed at every turn in their management of 86 federally-funded housing units.

"These conditions occurred because the executive director ignored or failed to follow federal regulations and the authority’s consolidated annual contributions contract," said the HUD IG report, which was released Oct. 31, 2014.

The report also noted that the Rotan authority has a history of serious mismanagement stretching back to 2001.

"Since the authority continued to demonstrate poor performance, continued mismanagement, and a failure to properly administer its HUD programs and funds, the authority signed a recovery agreement with HUD on July 26, 2012," the report said.

The HUD IG recommended that HUD’s general counsel staff consider the evidence presented in the report and decide whether to "pursue remedies under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act and/or civil money penalties against the executive director." The executive director was not named in the report.

Hurricane Sandy

Learning to Love the Entirely Inadequate but Completely Indispensable Disaster Industry (WNYC - New York Public Radio)
WNYC
(10/31/2014 6:45 AM, Eve Troeh and Scott Gurian)
[AUDIO at source]. Disasters are causing more and more damage, and the federal government is spending more and more money to rebuild afterwards.

But before the construction crew can begin repairs, homeowners face months-long delays and poor customer service in the preliminary stages of the application process. Some homeowners even complain that the rebuilding process has become as traumatic as the storm itself.

The complaints are not confined to just one state or just one company. As part of our collaboration with NJ Spotlight and New Orleans Public Radio, we identified five ways to fix the disaster recovery system:

1. Cut The Red Tape. New Orleans attorney Jeffrey Thomas has a flow-chart detailing all the steps – public hearings, documentation, environmental checks, reports, etc. – required before spending money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development after Hurricane Katrina. It is 7 feet long. He and his colleagues tried to cut it down – but managed only to reduce it to 5 feet.

HUD, which manages the long-term rebuilding funds that benefit homeowners, maintains the regulations are needed to ensure compliance with federal laws and to reduce fraud. The agency has tried to reduce the bureaucracy, but with limited success. After Sandy, for example, New York City complained about having to check with Indian tribes that might have ancestral burial grounds in coastal areas before it proceeded to make basic repairs to homes that were already there. HUD relaxed the rule, but not until August 2013, seven months after Congress approved the $50 billion Sandy aid package.

2. More Oversight. If cities and states use outside contractors, they must watch over them more closely. That’s what the de Blasio administration decided after it took over New York City’s recovery operation earlier this year. Amy Peterson, the new director of housing recovery, said consultants are only going to do what the city tells them to do and won’t try to find big-picture fixes to bottlenecks.

3. Create A Post-Disaster Workforce. Local governments hire outside consulting companies because they don’t have enough staff to process paperwork on their own. But the private companies often end up hiring their front-line staff through temp agencies anyway, and spend little time training them.

“Now that we’re seeing, unfortunately, an increase in disasters, how do you bring in workers and train them for those opportunities, making sure there’s enough workers in the pipeline?” Said Robin Keegan, the director of community resiliency at one disaster recovery firm, GCR.

That’s the irony: part of the solution to the problems of the disaster industry might be to make the disaster industry a bigger and more permanent part of the economy.

4. States And Cities Need A Better Cookbook. Brad Gair, New York City’s former Sandy czar, said the federal government gives cities and states too much freedom to design their own housing recovery programs. The process of going back and forth to get those programs approved by HUD takes a long time.

“We’ve got to figure out how to build these programs at the federal level, have them off the shelf, ready to be implemented, turned on right after the disaster and not try to build a program from scratch on each, single disaster,” Gair said. “It just doesn’t work.”

200th Home Purchased as Part of Sandy Blue Acres Buyout Program (Atlantic Highlands Herald, NJ)
Atlantic Highlands Herald
(11/2/2014 4:02 PM, NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection)
TRENTON, NJ - New Jersey’s Blue Acres Program has purchased its 200thSuperstorm Sandy-damaged home as part of a $300 million statewide initiative to move property owners out of areas impacted by Sandy and other severe storms, Governor Chris Christie announced today.

The program has also surpassed another milestone – the 500th buyout offer made by the state to property owners, with more than 300 offers accepted.

“Just weeks after Sandy devastated many parts of New Jersey, homeowners in some of our hardest hit communities told me they wanted a way out from the constant threat of flooding,” Governor Christie said today in South River, a town severely damaged by Sandy’s storm surge. “We listened, and the Sandy Blue Acres buyout program has been the answer, giving homeowners and their families a chance to move away from all of the uncertainty, fear and expense of living in flood-prone areas. The program is giving them a chance to start over again.”

Additional federal funding to acquire other properties impacted by Superstorm Sandy will be provided through the a second round of federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery funds allocated to New Jersey by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

Sticking Points Remain in Reverse Mortgage Reforms (National Mortgage News)
National Mortgage News
(10/31/2014 2:07 PM, Bonnie Sinnock)
Wide-ranging efforts to reform Home Equity Conversion Mortgage lending and servicing practices are designed to close loopholes and resolve policy inconsistencies, but some obstacles remain unresolved and more work needs to be done.

Investors of HECM mortgage-backed securities find the product’s prepayment certainty attractive, and reforms recently enacted by the Federal Housing Administration address many key borrower and government finance concerns. But the continuation of uncertain and mutable foreclosure and accounting policies has created sticking points that, if left unchecked, could depress broader market participation by consumers and the secondary market alike.

For example, a recent rule change offers foreclosure protections to non-borrowing spouses on new reverse mortgage originations. But there have only been interim adjustments made to the policy for consumers whose loans predate the policy shift — meaning individuals who were not named on a property’s title when their spouse obtained a reverse mortgage are still more likely to get foreclosed on if their significant other passes away.

The FHA, which insures HECM loans and sets policies for the product, declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Lenders Face Stiffer Penalties With New Mortgage Disclosures (National Mortgage News)
National Mortgage News
(10/31/2014 4:49 PM, Brian Collins)
Lenders could face tougher enforcement and higher penalties if they make errors on the new mortgage disclosure forms that are slated to go in effect next August.

The basic disclosures that borrowers receive today are known as the Good Faith Estimate and the HUD-1 settlement statement that were created by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both disclosures are governed by the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which has relatively mild penalties compared to the Truth in Lending Act.

However, Congress directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to combine the RESPA and TILA disclosures and create a new "Closing Disclosure" that will replace the HUD-1. Starting Aug. 1, 2015, lenders must provide this new integrated Closing Disclosure to the borrower three days before closing.

"Most of the disclosure items, some of which had been subject to the RESPA regime, now are under TILA and, therefore, carry very significant potential liabilities for even minor errors," said Anne Canfield, the executive director for the Consumer Mortgage Coalition.

Lenders will also face higher risks because the CFPB places more emphasis on enforcement actions than HUD. And TILA opens the door for class action lawsuits and punitive damages, according to Rod Alba, regulatory counsel for the American Bankers Association.

Home Ownership

A Preference for the Lease Over the Mortgage (New York Times)
New York Times
(10/31/2014 11:22 AM, Floyd Norris)
The homeownership rate in the United States plunged during the Great Recession. Many families lost their homes as prices collapsed and unemployment rose.

Now, the economy is growing, and there are more jobs than ever. Home prices have risen, although they have not fully recovered.

But the homeownership rate continues to decline.

The Census Bureau reported this week that the rate fell to 64.3 percent in the third quarter, the lowest level since 1994. Since the second quarter of 2004, when the rate peaked at 69.4 percent, the number of homes owned by the people who live in them is virtually unchanged, but the number occupied by renters has risen by nearly 25 percent.

Just why that is — and whether it is a bad thing — is subject to debate.

Before the recession, it was a government goal, promoted by presidents of both parties, to get the ownership rate up. Homeowners were thought to care more, and thus maintain their homes better. They could profit from rising home prices, helping poorer people who bought homes improve their economic status. Changes in lending practices made it much easier for people to qualify for home, and soaring home prices made those who still rented appear to have passed up easy profits.

Freddie Mac: Homeowner demand for home equity loans doubles (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(10/31/2014 12:44 AM, Brena Swanson)
Homeowners are taping into their home equity at double the pace due to continual home price increases, pulling more borrowers out from underwater, Freddie Mac’s third-quarter refinance report said.

However, despite the surge in demand, the dollar volume remains very low at an estimated $8 billion.

The peak in cash-out refinance volume was $84 billion during the second quarter of 2006 ($97 billion in 2013 dollars).

According to Zillow’s latest home value index of $176,500, the rate of annual home-value appreciation peaked at 8.1% in April and has fallen in every month since. U.S. home values were up 6.5% year-over-year at the end of the third quarter.

"While the share of borrowers that cashed-out some equity has increased considerably over the past year, the refinance volume has also fallen sharply, resulting in a relatively small amount of equity cashed-out, to the tune of roughly $8 billion which is less than one-tenth of what we saw at the peak in mid-2006,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist.

Homeownership rate falls to the lowest since early 1995 (Manchester Union Leader, NH)
Manchester Union Leader
(11/01/2014 12:11 AM, Prashant Gopal)
The homeownership rate fell to the lowest in more than 19 years as the market shifted toward renting and tight credit blocked some potential buyers.

The share of Americans who own their homes was 64.4 percent in the third quarter, down from 64.7 percent in the previous three months, the Census Bureau said in a report this week. The rate was at the lowest level since the first quarter of 1995.

Entry-level buyers have been held back by stringent mortgage standards and slow wage growth. The share of first-time buyers was 29 percent in September for the third straight month, compared with about 40 percent historically, according to the National Association of Realtors said.

Younger adults choosing to rent, not to own (CBS News)
CBS News
(10/31/2014 8:22 PM, CBS)
[VIDEO at source]. Owning a home has long been the American dream. But a report this week from the Census Bureau says home ownership has fallen to a near 20-year low of just over 64 percent. For many Americans, owning a home has become a dream deferred.

Home ownership is down across the board, but it’s fallen most among Gen X-ers -- those between 35 and 44 -- dropping from nearly 67 percent before the recession to 59 percent today.

Ownership among millennials -- those under 35 -- fell as well, from 41 to 36 percent.

"It’s hard for them to believe that owning a home is the best way to build wealth anymore," said Realtytrac’s Daren Blomquist. "They’ve seen in some markets, home prices went down 30, 40, 50 percent during the housing bubble and the burst.

Drop in home ownership for Generation X (CBS News)
CBS News
(11/01/2014 7:31 AM, CBS News)
[VIDEO at source]. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that fewer than two-thirds of Americans own their own home, which is a key element of the American dream. As Jim Axelrod reports, age is a big part of the reason why.

Americans increasingly face post-foreclosure hell (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(11/01/2014 1:00 PM, Michelle Conlin)
NEW YORK - Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnisheeing their wages and seizing their assets.

By now, banks have usually sold the houses. But the proceeds of those sales were often not enough to cover the amount of the loan, plus penalties, legal bills and fees. The two big government-controlled housing finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other mortgage players, are increasingly pressing borrowers to pay whatever they still owe on mortgages they defaulted on years ago.

Using a legal tool known as a "deficiency judgment," lenders can ensure that borrowers are haunted by these zombie-like debts for years, and sometimes decades, to come. Before the housing bubble, banks often refrained from seeking deficiency judgments, which were seen as costly and an invitation for bad publicity. Some of the biggest banks still feel that way.

But the housing crisis saddled lenders with more than $1 trillion of foreclosed loans, leading to unprecedented losses. Now, at least some large lenders want their money back, and they figure it’s the perfect time to pursue borrowers: Many of those who went through foreclosure have gotten new jobs, paid off old debts and even, in some cases, bought new homes.

Advocates for the banks say that the former homeowners ought to pay what they owe. Consumer advocates counter that deficiency judgments blast those who have just recovered from financial collapse back into debt — and that the banks bear culpability because they made the unsustainable loans in the first place.

Embracing homeownership – the right way (Cincinnati Enquirer, OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
(11/1/2014 10:00 PM, Cincinnati Enquirer)
Should Americans be encouraged to own their homes?

For decades it wasn’t even a question: Owning a house was considered central to the American Dream. But as an overheated housing market gave way last decade to the foreclosure crisis, and millions of Americans found themselves stuck in houses that were worth less than they owed on them, suddenly a house didn’t look like such a good investment.

Since at least 2008, the pendulum has swung away from owning a home. But with continued low interest rates and programs like the recently announced NeighborhoodLIFT program – which is offering $15,000 down payments to qualified people who buy houses in Cincinnati and stay in them for five years – consumers and policymakers are again considering the economics of buying versus renting.

The bottom line: Homeownership has benefits for communities and individuals, but only under the right circumstances and with the right mortgages. And governments, local and federal, have an interest in avoiding big swings in the housing market and should implement policies that protect themselves from rapid increases and dramatic drops in housing values.

First-time NNY [NY] home buyers to benefit from relaxed mortgage rules (Watertown Daily Times, NY)
Watertown Daily Times
(11/01/2014 1:00 AM, Ted Booker)
Buying a home in the north country will become much easier, thanks to relaxed federal rules approved this month that won’t require banks to get hefty down payments from borrowers seeking mortgage loans.

Approved by a handful of federal agencies, the rules aim to stimulate the nation’s still-recovering housing market by loosening criteria that banks need to follow to offer mortgage loans. The Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are among the agencies involved in the rule changes, which will take effect next fall.

Regulators agreed to drop a strict lending requirement that held some would-be homebuyers back: a 20-percent down payment if a bank didn’t hold at least 5 percent of the mortgage securities tied to the loan to absorb the risk. New rules also include a less strict debt-to-income ratio. The rules will be reviewed by regulators to determine their impact on the economy four years later, and then every five years.

Realtors in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties are expected to sell more homes to first-time buyers thanks to the change, said Lance M. Evans, executive officer of the Jefferson-Lewis Board of Realtors.

HomeFree-USA to Host Strategic Leadership Forum in Baltimore [MD] (Reuters)
Reuters
(10/31/2014 6:42 PM, HomeFree-USA)
HomeFree-USA today announces it will host the second in a series of one-day Strategic Leadership Forums on Monday, November 3. The event in Baltimore will bring about 100 nonprofit community leaders together with lenders, servicers and local government officials to address the continuing foreclosure crisis in minority communities.

The Strategic Leadership Forum will be held at the Renaissance Baltimore Haborplace from 9:00am to 3:00pm, Monday, November 3. The first Forum was held in Chicago in October. The series will be completed in Miami in December.

Economist: Jobs key to selling more new homes (Daytona Beach News-Journal, FL)
Daytona Beach News-Journal
(10/31/2014 11:11 PM, Bob Koslow)
The housing market recovery has slowed a bit, and won’t expand locally without more jobs for young people, an economist told a gathering of builders Friday.

David Crowe, chief economist for the National Home Builders Association, didn’t surprise his audience, about 100 builders, subcontractors, bankers, real estate agents and government planners at a luncheon organized by the Volusia Building Industry Association. But he shared data that points to Volusia’s slower-than-average recovery.

“Younger people have higher unemployment rates and they are the first-time homebuyers,” Crowe said. “The housing market will not expand until we expand the first-time homebuyers.”

Emergency fixes for homeowners in new program [OH] (Dayton Daily News, OH)
Dayton Daily News
(11/01/2014 12:04 AM, Steve Bennish)
[VIDEO at source]. A new roof and gutters is keeping Alice Atkins, 64, along with her son and granddaughter, dry.

A new drain pipe works for Robert Hammond, 58, disabled from a stroke and lacking the means to fight basement flooding.

Relief efforts are expanding for the region’s low-income homeowners who need basic repairs to stay in their homes. Thousands of residents face that situation with leaking roofs, broken water heaters, dead furnaces or malfunctioning plumbing. They have no ready cash to pay for the repairs.

For decades, the Dayton Fund for Housing Rehabilitation was the area’s last resort lender and charity for critical repairs that keep neighborhoods stable and residents off the streets. The need overwhelmed funding every year.

Late last year, the Cincinnati-based nonprofit People Working Cooperatively Inc. absorbed the Fund as a subsidiary and is trying now to expand services. PWC operates in 23 counties in southwestern Ohio, southeastern Indiana and Northern Kentucky.

Guest: How the Seattle City Council could help underwater homeowners [WA] (Seattle Times, WA)
Seattle Times
(10/31/2014 10:40 PM, LeeAnn Hall and Will Pittz)
While the recession officially ended in 2009, there are still more than 9 million households across the country with homes worth less than the value of their mortgage. There are still neighborhoods in Seattle where more than 20 percent of homes are underwater.

How many more Seattle families need to lose their homes in the foreclosure crisis that continues year after year? There are solutions, but they need champions and leadership — both locally and nationally.

Advocates are pushing the Seattle City Council to pursue a local principal reduction program to reset the value of mortgages based on their current market value. That local action could help thousands of homeowners in Seattle, but it must include strong buy-in from the City Council and include mechanisms to encourage big banks to participate. Proposals are outlined in a recent report by Reset Seattle and the Alliance for a Just Society.

Members of the City Council are making progress. The council commissioned a short study on the feasibility of principal reduction in Seattle, and councilmembers have publicly expressed their intent to pursue a program similar to one in Oregon. This action comes too late for homeowners who have already lost their homes, but it could still help many families throughout the city with underwater mortgages.

Affordable Housing

USDA Announces $29 Million to Provide Housing for Farmworkers (Imperial Valley News, CA)
Imperial Valley News
(10/31/2014 9:17 PM, Anne Todd)
WASHINGTON, DC – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that USDA is investing $29 million to provide affordable housing for farm laborers and their families.

"Housing is often the first step on the road to more economic prosperity for farmworker families," Vilsack said. "These loans and grants will significantly improve the lives of farmworkers, who are vital to America’s agriculture sector. This program is one of many tools that USDA has to strengthen the rural economy, which will help bring a brighter future for children from farmworker families."

USDA is providing assistance through the Farm Labor Housing Loan and Grant program. Financing is available to qualified organizations to develop housing for domestic farm laborers. USDA also provides rental assistance to help very-low-income families afford the monthly rent.

Through today’s announcement, USDA is awarding $20.7 million in loans and $8.3 million in grants for 10 projects in six states. When completed, the properties will provide 320 farmworker families with new homes. Rental assistance will be offered for 315 of the new housing units.

Communities [NH] getting nearly $1.9M in housing grants (Connecticut Post, CT)
Connecticut Post
(11/1/2014 12:37 PM, Connecticut Post)
CONCORD, N.H. — Five New Hampshire communities have been approved to receive nearly $1.9 million in grants toward affordable housing projects and repairs.

The grants approved by the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority are going to Grafton County, the towns of Conway and Allenstown, and the cities of Claremont and Concord. They await final approval from the Executive Council.

One of the larger grants, for $500,000, goes to Allenstown to construct a new Suncook Boys & Girls Club. The new clubhouse will double the number of children served in the community. In July, the authority awarded $700,000 in investment tax credits toward the $1.6 million initiative.

Other grants will support energy efficient apartments, housing for seniors and those with developmental disabilities and water system replacement.

Malloy, Foley [CT] differ on ways to address need for affordable housing (New Haven Register, CT)
New Haven Register
(11/2/2014 4:43 PM, Jennifer Swift)
Two of every five families in Connecticut spend more than the recommended percent of their income on housing.

Further, the number of people looking to rent is increasing as the number of people buying homes declines, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

With the state increasing the amount of money it puts toward different affordable housing initiatives, affordable units created in the last four years have increased exponentially.

“In this year alone, we’ve made more than $100 million available to help municipalities address one of their most pressing needs — the lack of affordable housing options in their communities,” Democratic incumbent Gov. Dannel Malloy said in an Oct. 22 release that announced “investments of over $25 million in six affordable housing projects.” The result will be to “build and rehabilitate over 500 affordable apartments.”

Yet the number of towns meeting the state’s legal threshold for percent of overall affordable units has remained stagnant, according to the state Department of Housing.

Queens Chamber of Commerce endorses Astoria Cove project [NYC] (Boston Globe, MA)
Boston Globe
(10/31/2014 5:41 PM, Queens Chamber of Commerce)
The Queens Chamber of Commerce has announced its endorsement of the Astoria Cove development project. Astoria Cove will add 1.7 million square feet of residential space and 110,000 square feet of retail space along the Hallets Cove peninsula, an area now ringed by old industrial uses.

Recently the New York City Planning Commission unanimously approved the project. On numerous occasions the de Blasio Administration has also voiced its confidence in Astoria Cove—the first project to follow the mayor’s mandatory inclusionary housing guidelines.

"This is a game-changing moment for the city," said mayoral spokesman Wiley Norvell at a City Hall press conference. "For the first time, affordable housing will be delivered not to satisfy some tax credit or financial windfall, but just for the right to build on the land.” The project will enhance a currently underserved corner of Western Queens by adding: 1,723 apartments of which 345 will be affordable housing units, two acres of waterfront parkland and a multitude of sustainable green spaces, a proposed 456 seat school for grades K through 5, plus world-class landscape design.

Advocacy group asks courts to determine municipalities affordable housing obligation [NJ] (North Jersey.com)
North Jersey.com
(10/31/2014 2:25 PM, Michael Phillis)
After the Council on Affordable Housing failed to adopt new rules for the development of affordable housing by the state Supreme Court’s deadline, an advocacy group asked Friday that the judiciary take over the process.

Fair Share Housing Center, an advocacy group focused on affordable housing, made the request. The group wants courts, not a council under Governor Christie’s administration, to be responsible for determining a municipality’s affordable housing obligation. Trial courts would then litigate conflicts under the law if the court rules in Fair Share’s favor.

A change of venue for affordable housing law would be significant because Christie, who has loudly criticized affordable housing mandates, would have a downsized role in the rule making process. Instead, the court system that originally said affordable housing was a right would gain a new role in how it is implemented.

Fair Share asks courts to enforce housing law [NJ] (Courier Post, Camden, NJ)
Courier Post
(10/31/2014 11:29 PM, Courier Post (Camden South Jersey))
Affordable housing advocates in New Jersey have asked the state’s courts to take over enforcement of a law intended to ensure homes will be within the financial reach of low- and moderate-income residents.

In a court filing Friday, Fair Share Housing Center said Gov. Chris Christie’s administration has not done the job.

The issue has been the subject of litigation for decades, and Friday’s move did not come as a surprise. Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, which defends the state government in lawsuits, said he would not comment on the filing.

The state Supreme Court earlier this year gave the state Council on Affordable Housing until November to adopt and publish rules governing how many affordable homes each town is responsible for providing.

Curtain falls on Virginian; another blow to affordable housing in Lynchburg (Lynchburg News &Advance, VA)
Lynchburg News & Advance
(10/31/2014 11:32 PM, Justin Faulconer)
The Virginian, an apartment complex in downtown Lynchburg, has officially ended its run as an expansive low-income housing development.

On Friday the owner of the former hotel turned apartments, Virginia Building LP, closed its doors to renters, culminating a five-month effort by city housing officials and a group of organizations to find new homes for nearly 90 residents. Virginia Building LP, which has an address in Roanoke, has owned the circa-1913 building a few doors down from City Hall since 1988, according to city property records.

Richard Sayers, a Roanoke attorney and representative for Virginia Building LP, has said closing down the property, assessed at $2.1 million, is because of financial reasons.

LHRA officials provided the residents with Section 8 housing vouchers to redeem at other locations and rallied a host of landlords to consider taking in the residents who faced displacement. H. Cary, a former City Council member who serves on the LRHA board of directors, has de-scribed the sudden exit of a large number of city residents as a “housing disaster.” Some nonprofit leaders have said the issue, a “crisis” in affordable housing, points to the city’s need for more housing stock for low-income individuals.

Hits and misses: [VA] Affordable housing’s economic impact (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, VA)
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
(11/01/2014 8:00 AM, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)
Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order to promote construction of affordable housing drew little public fanfare this week, but the effects of the policy have the potential to ripple across the commonwealth in ways that will substantially improve Virginia’s quality of life and economy.

The order, which coincided with the annual Governor’s Housing Conference in Norfolk, emphasizes the role that construction of affordable housing plays in driving down homelessness, stabilizing families, providing jobs and helping to create the conditions that allow small businesses to thrive.

On the same day that McAuliffe announced the order, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced its latest estimate of the number of homeless people in America, taken from a count of people found on the streets and in shelters over 24 hours in January. That data showed a 2 percent drop compared to last year, and an 11 percent drop since 2007.

The difference begs for a more comprehensive approach to measuring the scope of the problem, a move that would help inform efforts such as the governor’s latest order to ensure that they’re implemented effectively.

Suburbs feel shorted on funds for affordable housing [MN] (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, MN)
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
(10/31/2014 11:36 PM, Jessie Van Berkel)
Job growth and the housing supply in Dakota County are not matching up. There is an uptick in jobs that pay around $12 or $14 an hour. Think retail, child care or certified nursing assistant positions. But the community lacks housing those workers can afford, county officials say.

Last week, Minnesota Housing approved $964,172 for two townhouse projects in Dakota County that will help fill the void. But it was just a sliver of the $162 million from a variety of sources that the housing agency awarded to 78 affordable housing projects across the state. The biggest sum Minnesota Housing has ever dished out will fund 4,000 housing units.

Suburbs across the Twin Cities received nearly 19 percent of the total.

The policies that dictate where the money goes favor projects like preservation of existing properties or supportive housing for the homeless, said Mark Ulfers, director of Dakota County’s Community Development Agency. Those issues are more common in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

"I think it’s disappointing," Ulfers said. "The policies are what drive the funding, and the policies come from the Met Council board and the Minnesota Housing board and the Minnesota Legislature. And they favor funding priorities that are not as prevalent in the suburban area."

Minnesota Housing also prioritizes projects that are near transit. Coordinating housing and transportation creates areas where people with a variety of incomes can live within easy access to work, school and amenities, states a Minnesota Housing document on transit-oriented development.

"It does mean that the suburbs have a lesser priority in that area than other areas that have more transit," Ulfers said.

Article made affordable housing a scapegoat in Ferguson [MO] (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(11/01/2014 12:00 AM, Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO, Beyond Housing)
Regarding "As low-income housing boomed, city pushed back" (Oct. 19): There is nothing simple about what happened in Ferguson, yet this story makes affordable housing a scapegoat for more complex problems. I disagree.

Affordable housing itself does not cause or create problems. It is the quality of the housing and the added services that help families be successful. We can’t ignore or write-off renters. After all, most of us will rent at least once in our lifetime.

Affordable housing can be a necessary step to help a parent get back on her feet or a senior stay in the community where he has always lived when he no longer can afford to keep his house. Beyond Housing has over 400 units of affordable housing, mostly detached single family homes, spread throughout St. Louis County, north and south. A majority of our homes were produced with tax credits. We take pride in making sure our homes are attractive. We are not perfect but we work hard to be members of the communities where we work. We work with our renters to help them achieve their dreams to get quality education, build credit to buy a home or find a stable environment for their children.

Finally, the story neglected to say that some communities actually want affordable housing. Over the 35-plus years we have been around, we have heard residents and community leaders again and again testify for affordable housing. We know it fills an important need; let’s not miss that part of the story.

Fair Housing

$975K HUD grant supports Vermonters’ access to housing (VT Digger)
VT Digger
(11/2/2014 11:33 AM, Press Release)
Vermont Legal Aid has received a three-year Fair Housing Initiatives Program Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue the Housing Discrimination Law Project’s work to ensure Vermonters’ access to housing and to challenge both individual and systemic discriminatory practices.

The $975,000 grant will be disbursed over three years to fund Vermont Legal Aid’s statewide systemic and complaint-based testing project, fair housing counseling, representation in enforcement actions, education, and land use planning and policy advocacy with state and local officials.

The Project’s most recent report on rental housing discrimination in Vermont, published in May 2014, found that discrimination was a factor in nearly half of the rental housing market tests conducted. The Project’s testing consistently shows high rates of discrimination in rental housing based on race, color, national origin, having minor children, and disability.

Queens [NYC] landlord sued (Crain’s New York Business)
Crain’s New York Business
(10/31/2014 9:22 AM, Amanda Fung)
A social services provider Fortune Society has filed a lawsuit against the landlord and manager of a rental building in Far Rockaway, Queens, claiming that they excluded rental applicants with criminal records from leasing apartments, according to The New York Times. The lawsuit was the latest in a nationwide effort to make it easier for people released from prison to re-enter into the community.

The lawsuit states that such a ban violates the deferal Fair Housing Act and New York state law. The owners and manager of the 900-plus-unit rental, Sandcastle Towers Housing Development Fund and Sarasota Gold, did not comment.

Section 8

Nearly 74,000 sign up for Baltimore’s [MD] Section 8 wait list (Baltimore Sun, MD)
Baltimore Sun
(10/31/2014 5:28 PM, Yvonne Wenger)
Sign ups for Baltimore’s Section 8 housing voucher wait list have ended until 2020 with nearly 74,000 applicants vying for a spot on the register.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City will use a lottery to randomly select 25,000 applicants for the list. Only 6,000 to 9,000 are expected to receive a voucher.

A nine-day, online only sign up period for the wait list lottery closed at midnight Thursday. It was the first time in a decade residents could sign up for the vouchers, which cover the portion of rent that exceeds 30 percent of a household’s income.

Residents will learn by March 1 whether they were selected for the wait list. Those who are selected for the list will then receive information on how to complete a full application.

To create the wait list, the housing authority will divide the applications into groups: Families with children, elderly, disabled individuals and other families, including single adults who earn about $45,000 a year or less. Spots on the register will be allocated in proportion to the number of applications that were submitted by members of each group.

About 1,000 to 1,500 vouchers become available each year through attrition.

The list isn’t expected to reopen again for another six years.

Section 8 transfer not so smooth [OH] (Hamilton Journal-News, OH)
Hamilton Journal-News
(11/01/2014 12:04 AM, Ed Richter)
A new chapter in Section 8 housing begins today in Middletown as Butler Metropolitan Housing Authority assumes oversight over the vast majority of housing vouchers in the city.

However, the hand-off from the soon to be defunct Middletown Public Housing Authority has left some landlords in the community with a lot of questions for BMHA.

Steve Bohannon, a local landlord, said he has only received one letter from BMHA in the past month that notified landlords that initial payments will be by check and not direct deposit.

“No one has said anything,” he said. “They haven’t given me anything, no paperwork at all.”

Middletown City Manager Doug Adkins told City Council that he spent most of the past week wrapping up the final details with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development offices in Washington, D.C. and in Cleveland to finalize the MPHA closure.

Adkins said as of Nov. 1, both agencies will have daily control of the housing vouchers, landlord and tenant issues, payments and daily operations. He said there will be a few items to resolve between HUD and MPHA after the transfer date. Adkins said the final MPHA 2014 financial reporting and the transfer of the hard, paper files to both housing authorities will take a couple of months.

The Warren County Metropolitan Housing Authority will have about 350 vouchers from the portion of the city that is in the Robin Springs development in Warren County. Kamela Jones, housing choice voucher manager, said the transfer has gone well.

“We have dealt with Robin Springs already, and we’re familiar with their management,” Jones said. “So far, we haven’t come across any problems and everyone is cooperating with each other.”

She said HUD has been upfront with information to WMHA, and Nelson and Associates, which was MPHA’s contracted manager, has done “a great job” in getting correspondence on the new people. Jones said the agency also has added two more employees, an inspector and a housing coordinator.

City [TX] gets more than 19,000 applications for housing assistance (KXAN-TV NBC 36 Austin)
KXAN-TV
(10/31/2014 12:37 PM, Patrick Tolbert)
Demand for Section 8 housing in Austin left the city with 19,174 applications for assistance during the eight day window to get on the waiting list.

“The opening of the Section 8 Waiting List reaffirmed what we know – Austin has a huge need for additional affordable housing,” said Housing Authority of the City of Austin President and CEO Michael Gerber. “We deeply appreciate the many community partners who helped HACA ensure that everyone in need of affordable housing choice had the opportunity to apply. While we will only be able to serve a fraction of those in need, HACA will work with other local, state and federal partners to find more resources to meet these critical needs.”

The first 24 hours saw more than 10,000 applications being submitted through the new online-only process. The HACA says it will take 45 days to review the applications. All non-duplicated applications will be entered into the lottery for one of the 2,500 spots for assistance.

Cheyenne [WY] Is A Destination For Those In Need Of Housing Help (Wyoming Public Radio, WY)
Wyoming Public Radio
(10/31/2014 8:08 PM, Miles Bryan)
[AUDIO at source]. In the last few years demand for public housing assistance across the country has skyrocketed, while congressional funding has stayed flat. Right now federal funds covers less than a fourth of families in the United States eligible for a Section 8 housing voucher. Waitlists for voucher in big cities are often years long, if not closed all together. As Wyoming Public Radio’s Miles Bryan reports that made small cities like Cheyenne more attractive to those seeking housing aid, because of shorter wait times.

Tuesday night is when Cheyenne’s Somali community gets together at the Free Evangelical Church to catch up and socialize. Its usually busy but tonight is packed: church volunteers have subbed out the regular english classes for a special lesson in blanket making,

Cheyenne’s Somali population has grown rapidly in the last couple of years. That’s surprising because Wyoming doesn’t have an official refugee resettlement program, and most jobs around here require fluent English. But Cheyenne has one really big draw: housing assistance.

Faiso Abdi moved to Cheyenne last year. She says she was happy living in Greeley Colorado, but she couldn’t even get on the waitlist for that city’s section 8 housing voucher program.

"The real problem is that people are desperate for the housing subsidy and they are willing to do almost anything to get one."

Cheyenne’s voucher wait list runs almost a year, but many bigger cities like Greeley have simply stopped accepting new applicants entirely. But here’s the thing: getting your housing voucher in Cheyenne doesn’t mean you have to use it there. Organizer Gretchen Carlson says what’s called “portability” is a big draw.

"There are quite a few of them that have already lived here one year and then have moved elsewhere. But they lived here for one year in order to get that voucher."

Homelessness

These five charts show the progress made in fighting homelessness (Washington Post, DC)
Washington Post
(10/31/2014 1:44 PM, Dina ElBoghdady)
The colder it gets, the easier it is to count the number of homeless people.

Bad weather tends to drive the homeless into shelters, where it’s easier to keep a tally, which is why the government’s annual count of the homeless population takes place in late January.

In 2013, the weather was so cold in January that some housing advocates expected the extreme chill would force more people than usual into the shelters, and artificially inflate the numbers.

“We were surprised when the numbers went down,” said Nan Roman, chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “It means that there’s progress. Our strategies are working better.”

A federal report released this week shows that 578,424 people were homeless this year, down 2 percent from last year and 10 percent from 2010 – when the Obama administration launched an initiative aimed at ending homelessness for particularly vulnerable groups.

Since then, the numbers have been dropping consistently year to year, with an especially significant decline among homeless veterans (33 percent.) Still, the administration has set ambitious goals, and some experts who track the homeless issue are questioning whether the target dates will be met.

The federal initiative, called Opening Doors, initially aimed to eliminate homelessness by 2015 for veterans and the “chronic homeless” – people who have been on the street or in shelters for at least a year, or have experienced four episodes or more of homelessness in the past three years. But the administration has pushed back its deadline for the chronic homeless to 2016 due to budgetary shortfalls. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development has asked for another $300 million to meet the new goal.

This week’s report, which is based on the counting done by homeless services providers and volunteers across the country, is considered the most definitive account of homelessness on a national basis. The counting takes place on a single day in late January, though the day varies by locality. Here are some highlights from that assessment, which was released by HUD:

-There are fewer homeless people, but about one-third of them are without shelter. Despite the gains made in combating homelessness, nearly 31 percent of those who are homeless are not sheltered. They are the 177,373 people that the system is not helping.

-Homelessness remains concentrated in high-population states with large urban centers. Half of the homeless population was in five states: California (20%), New York (14%), Florida (7%), Texas (5%), and Massachusetts (4%).

-Nearly 1 in 5 homeless people was located in New York City or Los Angeles. “If we ended homelessness in New York and LA, we’d go a long way in resolving the homelessness problem,” Roman said.

-More than 1 in 10 homeless adults was a veteran. Nearly 50,000 veterans are still homeless. But much progress has been made on that front. Veteran homelessness dropped by 10 percent between 2013 and 2014 alone, which translates to 5,846 fewer homeless people. There’s tremendous political and public will at the moment to help veterans, and a lot of federal dollars have been devoted to the effort. "Homelessness is not an intractable problem,” Laura Green Zeilinger, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness told reporters. “It’s a solvable problem.”

-More permanent, and less transitional housing. Housing advocates say that’s a good thing. In the past, homeless people had to clean up their acts before they were offered permanent housing. Now there’s an emphasis on providing housing first, with the idea being that it’s difficult for people to stabilize their lives if they don’t have a roof over their heads, said Alvaro Cortes, a principal associate at Abt Associates, the project director of HUD’s annual homelessness report.

“We’re confident that we’re not only saving lives, we’re saving money because folks are no longer caught in the cycle of shelters, emergency rooms and other public services that require taxpayer dollars,” HUD Secretary Julian Castro told reporters.

[Editor’s Note: See charts at source].

Homelessness Is Falling — But Not Fast Enough (Think Progress)
ThinkProgress
(10/31/2014 12:51 PM, Bryce Covert)
Homelessness fell by more than 2 percent at the beginning of this year compared to last, or 13,344 fewer people, according to the latest data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But in the annual point-in-time count of the country’s homeless population in January of 2014, there were still 578,424 homeless people. Just over 30 percent of those were unsheltered, living on the street or in parks, cars, or abandoned buildings, although the decline in homelessness was driven by a 10 percent drop in people living in these conditions.

The government launched its Opening Doors initiative aimed at ending homelessness in 2010, with the goal of ending and preventing chronic homelessness — when someone has at least four episodes over three years or has a disability and has been continuously homeless for more than a year — and veteran homelessness by 2015. It also has the goal of ending homelessness among families, youth, and children by 2020.

In combatting homelessness, the government credits the successes it has experienced with a focus on “housing first,” or getting homeless people into a home and then addressing other issues like mental illness, health problems, and addiction. That was also the tactic employed by Phoenix and Salt Lake City, the first two cities to end chronic homelessness among veterans.

But the country could wipe out homelessness among all populations now if it chose to. Mass homelessness first emerged in the 1980s alongside the evaporation of affordable housing: In 1970, there was a surplus of 300,000 affordable units, but by 2009 there was a 5.5 million shortage.

One proposed plan for filling in that gap would be to fund the National Housing Trust Fund, created in 2008 to build affordable housing but never funded, with money saved by modifying the mortgage interest tax deduction, which mostly benefits the wealthy. That could create more than 1 million affordable housing units over 10 years. Another would be to give rental assistance to everyone whose income is at or below 30 percent of area median income with a reformed voucher program. Today, just one in four eligible households actually gets rental assistance even as rents keep rising. The cost of increasing vouchers would be $22.5 billion, but it would effectively end homelessness.

The Real Monsters (Huffington Post)
Huffington Post
(10/31/2014 7:23 PM, Marian Wright Edelman)
Each year at Halloween, our neighborhoods are bustling as children go door to door dressed as zombies, vampires, skeletons or something else fantastic and scary. For many children Halloween is the rare occasion to indulge in a fun time of ghost stories and goblins and trick or treats. But at the end of the night they put away their costumes and make-believe in their closets and return to their normal lives.

Sadly, too many children do not have normal or safe or protected lives and their monsters are real. They do not have closets in many homeless shelters or on the streets or church steps where they sometimes live with homeless parents. They are not safe in drug- and violence-infested neighborhoods and suffer chronic hunger, especially on weekends and during long summer months when school is out.

It should not and does not have to be this way! It is shameful that children are the poorest group in America because of unjust political choices and skewed values that help the wealthiest and powerful at the expense of poor and voiceless children. As you decide which candidate will win your vote, consider this:

Nearly 1.3 million public school students were identified as homeless during the 2012-2013 school year, 100,000 more than the year before and an 87 percent increase since 2007;

Vet Homelessness Drops As 2015 Deadline For Ending Issue Nears: Report (Huffington Post)
Huffington Post
(10/31/2014 11:42 AM, Eleanor Goldberg)
The number of veterans living on the streets is on the decline -- a welcome update considering that the Department of Veterans Affairs’ deadline to end vet homelessness is fast approaching.

On a single night in January, 49,993 veterans were homeless, marking a 33 percent drop since 2010, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report released on Thursday. The results were tallied by HUD’s annual "point-in-time" count, which partners with local agencies and volunteers across the country to manually enumerate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night.

The Obama Administration and the VA have remained steadfast in their commitment to end vet homelessness by 2015.

The success so far has been largely attributed to the close collaboration between the VA and HUD and their supportive housing program, called HUD-VASH. Since 2008, the program has doled out more than 59,000 rental vouchers and an estimated 45,000 formerly homeless veterans currently live in homes of their own thanks to the initiative, according to HUD.

The concept of "housing first" -- giving homeless people shelter and then dealing with their economic and medical issues after -- has long been heralded by experts in the industry.

Two U.S. cities have already demonstrated that applying that approach can get every veteran off the streets.

Last December, Phoenix became the first city to end vet homelessness, and Salt Lake City followed suit a month later.

"[Veteran homelessness is] a stain on the soul of this nation," Michelle Obama said in July at a homelessness conference, according to the Associated Press. "[The] idea that anyone who has worn our country’s uniform spends their nights sleeping on the ground should horrify us."

Homelessness among U.S. veterans has been reduced by a third since 2010 (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, TX)
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
(10/31/2014 11:10 PM, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has reported a 33 percent drop in homelessness among U.S. Veterans since 2010. A joint program between HUD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs since 2008 has awarded rental vouchers to veterans. Getting American veterans off the street and into housing has been a fine accomplishment.

U.S. cities restrict sharing food with homeless people (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, UT)
Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News
(11/3/2014 5:45 AM, Lane Anderson)
Since January, 21 U.S. cities have placed restrictions on sharing food with homeless people, and 10 more cities have plans to do so.

According to a report released last week from the National Coalition for the Homeless, legislative action and community pressure is "criminalizing" feeding the hungry — and pushing the problem of hunger "out of sight."

“One of the most narrow-minded ideas when it comes to homelessness and food-sharing is that sharing food with people in need enables them to remain homeless,” the report said.

Food sharing is restricted by passing laws that require food permits to distribute food in public, such as on the street or in parks. Another method is stringent food-safety requirements.

The third, and perhaps most subtle method, according to NCH, is community restrictions set by homeowners and business owners who want to keep homeless "out of their backyard," and pressure food pantries and other services out of their neighborhoods, so that homeless aren’t "attracted" to their area.

Liza Horvath, Senior Advocate: Scammers can leave seniors homeless (San Jose Mercury News, CA)
San Jose Mercury News
(10/31/2014 3:34 PM, Liza Horvath)
Imagine, if you will, a crowd gathering around the Salvation Army food truck as it pulls into the lot. As you pass by you observe the group and make assumptions: They are homeless vagrants or possibly addicts who have surrendered to the drug or alcohol dependence that has (finally) succeeded in bringing them to their knees. Some may be uneducated illiterates who simply never learned to make it in a society that — if you know how to play it — will provide you with a fortune.

As you look more closely you notice that some in the group are quite elderly — no, most are elderly. And, to your horror, one of these disheveled, lost-looking souls hunkered down in the breadline is your mother.

No, this is not your personal nightmare. And while the previous paragraph is a made-up scenario, in looking to the not-too-distant future, it could very well become real for many of us.

A rapacious, marauding predator is taking hold in America and it is growing stronger, smarter, meaner and more aggressive each passing minute. The primary target of this destroyer is our senior population and it threatens to ruin our parents, siblings and friends. If left unchecked it will take everything they have earned and saved throughout a lifetime and dump them — homeless and destitute into the mean streets.

An unverified report from Adult Protective Services states that 55 percent of the cases it is currently working on involve a senior who is being scammed either online, by telephone or by mail. When our parents, siblings or friends reach a certain point in life they become susceptible to being taken advantage of, and I would submit that the point at which they become vulnerable is long before we suspect. It is easy to see that when Aunt Ruth’s popular strawberry jam shows up with ground beef instead of berries, she might be slipping a bit and could need some help. The problem is that a parent, friend or client can become a victim and still appear to be completely "fine" mentally.

The scammers are sophisticated and we must become vigilant in our protection of our parents, friends and siblings — and ourselves. Learn more about the methods used and be careful yourself — the streets are no place to live at any age.

Pope hails the poor, homeless as ‘unknown saints’ (Washington Post)
Washington Post
(11/01/2014 1:41 PM, Associated Press)
ROME — Pope Francis has paid tribute to what he calls the "unknown saints" — those who flee war, hunger and poverty, the jobless and the homeless.

Francis marked the Catholic Church’s Nov. 1 All Saints Day by celebrating Mass and giving a homily Saturday in Rome’s sprawling Verano cemetery.

He hailed those who are forced to flee their homes and villages to save their lives, risking hunger, illness and cold. He lamented that sometimes people regard these refugees, including hungry, ill children "as if they are of another species, not human."

Francis praised these suffering people as "unknown saints," sanctified through their distress.

Homeless Numbers in Massachusetts on the Rise (Boston.com, MA)
Boston.com
(10/31/2014 8:46 AM, Associated Press)
BOSTON (AP) — A federal report says the homeless population in Massachusetts increased faster than in any other state in the nation since 2007, even as overall homelessness in the country declined.

The report issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says the number of homeless residents in Massachusetts has jumped 40 percent since 2007, and 12 percent this year when compared to 2013.

Just 4 percent of Massachusetts residents considered homeless live on the streets because the numbers include people living in shelters and transitional housing.

The high rate of homelessness is blamed in part on the high cost of housing in the state.

Lyndia Downie, executive director of the Pine Street Inn shelter, tells The Boston Globe even some with jobs find it difficult to afford housing.

Mayor Walsh hopes to reopen Long Island Bridge [MA] in three years (Boston Globe, MA)
Boston Globe
(10/31/2014 11:28 PM, Nicole Dungca)
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Friday that the Long Island Bridge will reopen in about three years, rather than the five years initially estimated.

Walsh first announced the change to the timeline for the reconstruction of the closed bridge during an appearance on WGBH-FM, Boston Public Radio, but a spokeswoman later confirmed the new timetable, which includes about one year of planning and two years of construction.

“The mayor would like to see the Long Island bridge built as quickly as possible,” said Melina Schuler, a spokeswoman for Walsh. Schuler added that the new timeline is fluid, and could change.

The 63-year-old bridge was abruptly closed on Oct. 8, forcing the evacuation of Long Island and the programs housed there, including a homeless shelter and drug rehabilitation programs.

Reconstructing the 3,450-foot bridge will cost $80 million, and Schuler acknowledged Friday that it is not known where the money will come from. The city’s capital plan includes $35 million for the bridge.

Long Island was first purchased by the city of Boston in 1882 and quickly became a haven for some of the city’s neediest. Over the years, the island housed an almshouse, a home for unwed mothers and, most recently, the city’s largest homeless shelter, a number of drug rehabilitation programs, and Camp Harbor View, a summer camp for city children.

Feds say Mass. homeless population growing (Quincy Patriot Ledger, MA)
Quincy Patriot Ledger
(10/31/2014 4:33 AM, Chris Burrell)
The homeless population in Massachusetts grew by 2,208 people, the second-highest increase of any state in the country, according to a new federal report based on a one-day survey compiled in January.

Nationally, homelessness numbers continued to fall, but in Massachusetts, their ranks rose by more than 11 percent to 21,237 compared with January 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Both statewide and on the South Shore, homelessness is hitting two groups the hardest: families and young adults.

Joe Finn, who heads up the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance in Boston, called the 25 percent increase in homelessness among 18- to 24-year-olds a "disturbing" trend that could be partly blamed on the opiate addiction crisis.

Survey: NYC homelessness rose in 2014 (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal
(10/31/2014 8:14 AM, Associated Press)
NEW YORK — A new survey shows the number of homeless people in New York City has grown this year in almost every category: individuals, families and the chronically homeless.

The New York Times says the report was conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s based on a nationwide "point-in-time" survey conducted on a single night in January.

It found that while the number of homeless people living on the streets and in shelters fell across the country, it grew in New York City.

The survey found that nearly half of the city’s homeless — 41,000 people — were in families, all living in shelters.

It was conducted just days after Mayor Bill de Blasio took office. He proposed a plan to the City Council in May to reduce the homeless population.

Report Shows Increase in City’s [NY] Homeless Population (NY1-TV, NY)
NY1-TV
(10/31/2014 1:35 PM, NY1-TV)
[VIDEO at source]. Even as homelessness is down across the country, the city’s homeless population is on the rise.

A report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found the number of homeless people in the city has grown this year in almost every category, including individuals, families and the chronically homeless.

The report indicates that on a single night in January there were over 44,000 homeless New Yorkers, and the majority of them were families living in shelters.

Overall, the report found there was a general decline in the number of people living on the streets - most specifically among veterans. On the night that the survey was conducted, the report found over 500,000 people experiencing homelessness nationwide.

It sounds like a lot, but that’s a 10% decrease since January 2010. The survey was conducted just days after Mayor Bill de Blasio took office. During his campaign, the mayor proposed a plan to reduce the city’s homeless population.

More homeless in NYC this year (Oneida Dispatch, NY)
Oneida Dispatch
(11/01/2014 7:23 AM, AP)
NEW YORK - A new survey shows the number of homeless people in New York City has grown this year in almost every category: individuals, families and the chronically homeless.

The New York Times said the report was conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s based on a nationwide "point-in-time" survey conducted on a single night in January.

It found that while the number of homeless people living on the streets and in shelters fell across the country, it grew in New York City.

The survey found that nearly half of the city’s homeless — 41,000 people — were in families, all living in shelters.

It was conducted just days after Mayor Bill de Blasio took office. He proposed a plan to the City Council in May to reduce the homeless population.

How Homeless People [NYC] Use Technology: A Photo Essay On Street Poverty And Consumer Gadgets (Connecticut Post, CT)
Connecticut Post
(11/1/2014 3:37 PM, Steven Tweedie)
It could be easy to assume that those living on the streets of New York City don’t own any gadgets, but that’s not always the case.

Over the course of two weeks last year, we interviewed dozens of homeless people to find out what kind of consumer electronics they own — and more importantly, what they use them for.

From laptops and iPhones, to government-provided phones, it quickly became clear that many homeless people use gadgets to stay connected, search for jobs, and pursue their own creative interests.

[Editorial note: consult source link for photos and related commentary].

$2.25M deal reached in hot NYC jail cell death (Philly.com, PA)
Philly.com
(10/31/2014 2:56 PM, Colleen Long, AP)
The city has reached a $2.25 million settlement with the family of a mentally ill, homeless former U.S. Marine who died earlier this year in a 101-degree jail cell, the comptroller said Friday.

Jerome Murdough, 56, died in a mental observation unit on Rikers Island jail on Feb. 15, eight days after he was sent to the facility because he couldn’t afford to pay $2,500 bail on a trespassing arrest.

He was found slumped at the foot of his bed with a pool of vomit and blood on the floor and an internal body temperature of 103 degrees. Officials said he wasn’t checked on for at least four hours. His mother, Alma, filed initial papers to sue the city for $25 million over her son’s death. But Comptroller Scott Stringer said Friday his office took the unusual step of settling the case before a lawsuit was filed after a review of the facts of the case.

"A mother lost a son, the city lost a citizen," he said. "It is my hope that this settlement provides some small measure of closure for the family of Mr. Murdough. The expedited resolution of this case is in the best interest of all parties."

Homeless Shelter Will Miss Deadline to Move Out Half Its Tenants, City Says [NY] (DNAinfo New York)
DNAinfo.com
(10/31/2014 8:57 PM, Emily Frost)
A controversial 400-person homeless shelter that was supposed to move half its residents out by Saturday under a deal with elected officials will not meet its deadline — angering locals who have long fought to shutter the shelter.

Freedom House, located on West 95th Street, agreed to remove the 200 tenants by Nov. 1, after the Department of Homeless Services reached a deal with local and citywide politicians in the face of pressure from neighbors.

But as of Friday afternoon, a day before the deadline, 40 of the 200 people expected to move out will still be there after this weekend, said DHS press secretary Christopher Miller — news that surprised and angered the advocacy group fighting for the shelter’s shuttering.

"We are moving families as fast and as compassionately as we can," said Miller, who said the remaining families would move out "shortly," but did not give the exact timing. The homeless people getting relocated were headed to shelters in Manhattan and Brooklyn, he noted, without specifying exact locations.

Helping children from low-income families [DC] succeed in class (Washington Post, DC)
Washington Post
(10/31/2014 8:00 PM, Jenny Reed and Soumya Bhat)
Poverty makes it harder for children to succeed in school. And every day, tens of thousands of D.C. schoolchildren walk into a classroom with a heavy weight on their shoulders. That’s because children in poverty are more likely to be hungry or malnourished, exposed to trauma, stress or violence, affected by family or neighborhood turmoil or faced with severe health problems.

Addressing the effects of poverty, then, is key to unlocking opportunities and closing the achievement gap in the District.

The District offers a number of programs that help low-income students succeed in the classroom, but there are still large gaps. The number of homeless students is rising, but federal funding is low and falling. Here are some important things that can be done:

Help for homeless students: In some schools, as many as one-fourth of the students are homeless. The District should provide additional support for school-based staff coping with a sharp rise in homelessness, and the city should reassess supports for homeless students to identify gaps.

More resources for after-school and summer programs: The District should ensure that all low-income students have access to meaningful activities after school and in the summer, when low-income students lose ground.

Better school-based health services: The School Behavioral Health Program serves slightly more than one-third of schools and should be expanded, and the District should add needed social workers and psychologists.

Focus on parent and community engagement: The District is making progress to engage parents in their children’s education through privately funded parent-teacher home visits that give families information to support their children’s learning at home. The District should help more high-poverty schools participate

Homeless shelter [MD] Sarah’s Hope starts $8.5 million expansion to increase capacity (Baltimore Business Journal, MD)
Baltimore Business Journal
(10/31/2014 1:26 PM, Sarah Gantz)
Baltimore City and St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore on Friday broke ground on an $8.5 million renovation and expansion of a homeless shelter designed for families.

The Sandtown-Winchester shelter, Sarah’s Hope, is an important resource for families experiencing homelessness because housing that can accommodate a group is hard to come by in the city. The renovation will increase the shelter’s capacity to 130 people, up from 75. Work should be completed within a year.

"The impact is it will serve more families in the midst of a housing crisis," said Adrienne Breidenstine, executive director of Journey Home, Baltimore’s plan for ending homelessness. "The non tangible impact is it’s going to allow families to go through this crisis with a little more sense of dignity."

Number of homeless students at record high in W.Va. Schools (Charleston Gazette, WV)
Charleston Gazette
(11/2/2014 8:00 AM, Mackenzie Mays)
A record number of homeless students are attending West Virginia’s public schools. More than 8,300 students were labeled as homeless in the state last school year — an increase of about 9 percent since the year prior, according to the National Center for Homeless Education.

About 70 percent of those students are "doubling up," or living with grandparents or several family members in close quarters, while about 25 percent are living in shelters, and the rest are on the streets or living in motels.

Five years ago, the numbers were much lower, with only about 2,000 students qualifying as homeless in the state’s schools, according to Rebecca Derenge, the state’s homeless education coordinator.

Derenge assumes the latest numbers are even higher, though — pointing to an under-reporting problem in the state as a major issue.

"In West Virginia, it’s a cultural thing. They’re afraid that if they’re identified, the children might be removed from the home. There’s a stigma still associated with doubling up," she said. "Just by being defined as homeless, a child is at risk. For many reasons, their stability is impacted."

Identifying homeless students in the state is especially important because that 70 percent depends on schools for help, since many in that statistical group don’t qualify for assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

More than $300,000 in federal grants the state receives each year to provide shelters with tutors and after-school programs is possibly the most successful attempt at helping homeless students stay on track in school, Derenge said. That funding also provides students in need with everything from a filled backpack to a graduation gown or field trip costs.

Homeless numbers take a big drop in Virginia (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, VA)
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
(11/2/2014 11:58 PM, Gabriella Souza)
Homelessness in Virginia is declining, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Statistics show 7,020 Virginia residents are without permanent shelter, down from 9,080 in 2010 - a 23 percent decrease.

In South Hampton Roads, homelessness dropped over that same time in Portsmouth and Virginia Beach, while it increased in Norfolk. Numbers weren’t available for Chesapeake and Suffolk.

HUD gathers the figures from one night in January, when volunteers across the United States canvass areas in what is known as a "point-in-time" count. It’s a measure required for federal funding, although it doesn’t directly determine the amount, according to a news release. HUD awarded more than $6.8 million this year to South Hampton Roads cities and charitable organizations.

Fla.’s decline in homeless population leads U.S. (Florida Realtor)
Florida Realtor
(10/31/2014 3:28 PM, Florida Realtor)
In a one-year period from 2013 to 2014, homelessness decreased in 36 states, with the largest decrease – 6,320 fewer homeless people – in Florida. The annual count of homeless individuals takes place each January by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Second-place California had 4,600 fewer.

HUD’s report also compares homeless numbers over a seven-year period, and Florida ranks third nationwide, with a decrease of 6,527 homeless people between 2007 and 2014. California ranks first for that time period with 25,034 fewer; Texas ranked second with an 11,293 decline.

Nationally, the U.S. saw a 10 percent year-to-year decline in overall homelessness.

"There is still a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, but it’s clear our strategy is working, and we’re going to push forward till we end homelessness as we’ve come to know it," says HUD Secretary Julián Castro.

Miami officials try to end veteran homelessness (Tampa Tribune, FL)
Tampa Tribune
(11/2/2014 1:43 PM, Associated Press)
MIAMI — Time is ticking for local officials to identify and house homeless veterans by December of next year.

It’s part of a goal by U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials to end chronic homelessness by 2015.

The Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust will meet with schools, police departments and nonprofits this week to discuss strategies for the Port of Miami.

The organization estimates there are about 240 veterans living on the streets in Miami-Dade County.

Police shut down Stranahan Park [FL] homeless feeding site, cite activists for breaking new law (Sun-Sentinel, FL)
Sun-Sentinel
(11/2/2014 3:44 PM, Mike Clary)
Uniformed police shut down an effort to provide lunch to scores of homeless in Stranahan Park on Sunday, enforcing a law passed recently that puts new limits on outdoor feeding sites..

At least three people were cited for violating the new ordinance, including two members of the clergy and a 90-year-old advocate who has handed out food to the homeless for more than 20 years.

Arnold Abbott, who heads the group Love Thy Neighbor, said he had served only three or four of about 300 meals he had prepared when police ordered him to stop.

Abbott, the Rev. Mark Sims, of St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church in Coral Springs, and the Rev. Dwayne Black, pastor of The Sanctuary Church in Fort Lauderdale, were each cited for willfully violating a city ordinance. Police issued them notices to appear in court, where they could be asked to explain their actions.

HALO [WI] turns to private donations as government aid declines (Journal Times, WI)
Journal Times
(11/3/2014 5:37 AM, Aaron Knapp)
Getting grants

Although HALO receives a variety of grants from the federal government, the funding primarily originates from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Cookman said. He added that HUD has gradually been shifting its funds to other programs.

Reid pointed out that HALO also receives HUD funding for programs other than the homeless shelter.

In addition, the number of shelters like HALO has grown, which means that the funding for these shelters that is left over must be divided among more organizations, according to Brenda Thomas, HALO community programs manager.

“The pie is getting cut smaller and smaller,” she said.

A HUD spokesman explained that HUD typically gives funds to numerous state and local agencies to distribute, but noted that there has been a greater funding emphasis placed on permanent housing solutions rather than emergency housing like shelters.

A local funding distributor, Continuum of Care for the City and County of Racine, has seen an increase of funds available to organizations like HALO in the past few years, according to Gai Lorenzen, president of the continuum and managing attorney at the local Legal Action of WI.

Federal report: Homelessness down slightly in WI (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, WI)
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram
(10/31/2014 4:48 PM, Associated Press)
The number of homeless people has declined slightly in Wisconsin, according to a federal report.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report released to Congress on Thursday comes from a one-night count by local homeless advocacy agencies. The agency’s 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report for Wisconsin says the number of homeless people declined nearly 1 percent this year compared to 2013 and dropped about 4.5 percent from 2010.

There were 6,055 homeless people in Wisconsin during the January count, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. That’s a 0.8 percent decrease from the 6,104 homeless people counted last year.

A brighter spot might be the number of homeless veterans in Wisconsin, which declined 10.5 percent from last year and 33 percent since 2010.

The number of homeless families with children has also decreased, according to the report. There has been a 15 percent drop since 2010, as well as a 53 percent decrease in the number of families found without any kind of shelter.

On a national scale, the one-night count found 578,424 homeless people, a 2.3 percent decrease from last year, the report said.

"As a nation, we are successfully reducing homelessness in this country, especially for those who have been living on our streets as a way of life," HUD Secretary Julián Castro said.

Although the federal report brings good news, Porchlight Executive Director Steve Schooler said there’s been an increase in homelessness Dane County from 2012 to 2014, according to city survey data. But the number of homeless people without overnight shelter decreased slightly last winter, he said.

Schooler said he’s hopeful that downward trend will recur again this winter.

Federal Report: Wisconsin homelessness down by 1 percent (WKBT-TV CBS 8 La Crosse, WI)
WKBT-TV
(10/31/2014 6:46 PM, Brittany Schmidt)
A new federal report shows the number of homeless people in Wisconsin is down about one-percent since last year.

Every year, local homeless advocate agencies do a one-night count of homeless people in the area. Those numbers are given to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for its annual report.

One advocate said there are reasons for the decline but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a need anymore.

“There are multiple issues that keep people in homelessness” said Julie Nelson, the public relations director for Salvation Army.

However, a federal report suggests the efforts of local and state agencies actively fighting homelessness are working.

In La Crosse, the Salvation Army served 742 people between January and October of last year. During the same time this year, that number is down to 736 people, which is about a 1 percent decrease as well.

The new warming center in La Crosse is gearing up to help the homeless this winter. It’s located on Third Street in downtown La Crosse and will be open seven days a week, including holidays. Not only will people be able to wash their clothes and take a shower, but they’ll also be able to take part in programs offered at the facility.

Homeless veterans [WI] get a day of rest, social service assistance (WKOW-TV 27 ABC, WI)
WKOW-TV 27 ABC
(11/1/2014 6:14 PM, Kristen Barbaresi)
[VIDEO at source]. MADISON - New numbers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development show a 10.5 percent decline in the number of homeless veterans, but many former members of the armed forces are still struggling. So Saturday area veteran services joined together to provide a day of rest for all homeless and at-risk veterans.

James Harris joined the United States Marine Corps in 1976. He served four years in the corps and two years in the active reserves. He was discharged as a disabled veteran with a hand injury and PTSD.

"Acclimating back to civilian life was a problem," Harris said.

Harris ended up homeless for a number of years, living in his car and staying in area shelters.

"The jobs weren’t there, the education, the retraining wasn’t there, but things are changing," Harris said.

On Saturday, local veteran services came together to help vets, like Harris, at the Madison Area Stand Down Event. Homeless or at-risk veterans and their families got assistance with everything from haircuts, to warm clothing to dental care.

And it’s not just temporary solutions. The Stand Down event provided social services and housing resources, like HUD-VASH, which helped Harris find an apartment two years ago. He’s also employed now.

Streamlining homelessness [IN]: ‘Single point of entry’ (Lafayette Journal and Courier, IN)
Lafayette Journal and Courier
(11/1/2014 8:28 PM, Mikel Livingston)
Kenneth Thompson knows that change is coming.

Dining at Mental Health America’s homeless day shelter earlier this month, the 56-year-old homeless man — who’s battling Stage IV colon cancer — reflected on the shelter’s dwindling funding, the main culprit behind its upcoming closure.

Mental Health America rocked Greater Lafayette’s social service landscape in May by announcing that the day shelter — which offers meals, showers and other services to the homeless population — will close in June 2015.

Perhaps there’s an upside to the startling announcement. Trying to prevent loss of services, leaders scrambled to team up to launch what could be the largest restructuring of the local homeless service system in Lafayette’s history.

"It will be a huge change," said Jennifer Flora, executive director of Mental Health America. "I have not seen any kind of restructuring of homeless services in this magnitude, ever."

The goal is to establish a "single point of entry" — essentially an agency that would serve as the first contact for all homeless clients in the city. No longer would they be bounced around from one agency to another when they seek help. Instead, they’d have just one phone number, one address to call upon to enter the homeless service system.

A group led by Lafayette Transitional Housing Center and United Way is in the exploratory phase of establishing a single point of entry program and a possible 24-hour "engagement center." Details of what the center would look like and a timeline for its completion are unknown.

Paul Toro, a professor at Wayne State University who studies homelessness and poverty, said Greater Lafayette’s move toward a single point of entry is part of a national trend.

Increasingly, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is pushing communities to embrace the concept. Louisville, Kentucky; Dayton, Ohio, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, already have.

Homelessness On the Decline in Arkansas (KSFX/KOLR-TV FOX 27 Ozarks First, MO)
KSFX/KOLR-TV
(10/31/2014 8:10 PM, KSFX/KOLR-TV FOX 27 Ozarks First)
Homelessness is down in the Natural State, according to an annual report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The new numbers show homelessness was cut by 23% since 2013 in Arkansas. According to the study, in 2014, over 500,000 people in the U.S. experience homelessness on a single night. In Arkansas that number boils down to close to 3,000.

Event in downtown KC [MO] to draw attention to homelessness (Kansas City Star, MO)
Kansas City Star
(10/31/2014 6:02 AM, Lewis Diuguid)
Beginning at 6 p.m. Nov. 7 and running to 6 a.m. the next day, students will gather at Barney Allis Plaza across from Bartle Hall to experience being homeless on a cold night outside. Students will help raise money for Hope Faith Ministries at 705 Virginia Ave.

Hope Faith Ministries is a day center providing services for people who are homeless, including more than 800 meals a day.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday estimated the homeless population in the United States at 578,424. “HUD’s annual ‘point-in-time’ estimates seek to measure the scope of homelessness on a single night in January,” a prepared news release said.

Missouri had 7,282 homeless persons in the point in time count; Kansas had 2,783. Some key findings of the HUD report were:

The 578,424 people who were homeless represented an overall 10 percent reduction from January 2010. Most homeless persons (401,051 or 70 percent) were in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs while 177,373 persons were unsheltered.

Veteran homelessness fell by 33 percent (or 24,837 persons) since January 2010. On a single night in January 2014, 49,993 veterans were homeless.

Chris Gabriel: Let’s end homelessness for veterans [LA] (Shreveport Times, LA)
Shreveport Times
(11/1/2014 5:24 PM, Chris Gabriel)
If you are like most Americans when you think of veterans, you envision the brave men and women who put themselves in harms way to protect our freedoms.

Our freedom to vote, to free speech, to assemble peacefully ... our American way of life. For those that survive, their return often is marked by parades or bands greeting them at the airport. Then they are expected to go back to their former lives and pick up where they left off.

Some are successful, but for many the scars of war make it impossible. Many turn to alcohol, drugs or other detriments to ease the pain of these burdens. The emotional trauma from the constant high alerts and the killing of human beings can lead to post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) or other psychological disorders. This is compounded by a lack of family support and social support networks.

All of these ills lead to a veteran population that accounts for 12 percent of the nation’s homeless. Homeless veterans are on average younger than the total veteran population. Approximately 9 percent are between the ages 18-30 and 41 percent between 31-50. With more than 20 years of combat in the Middle East and the threat of a dangerous and heavily armed ISIS, the numbers are expected to increase.

In August 2014, Mayor Cedric Glover accepted the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness issued by first lady Michelle Obama this spring. Specifically, the call to action is for mayors to commit to end veterans homelessness by 2015.

Shreveport also is one of the first communities signed on for Zero: 2016, a campaign to end veteran’s homelessness by 2015 and chronic homelessness by 2016. Two projects are really important in achieving this goal.

Over the past two years, we have reduced overall homelessness numbers by 27 percent, veterans’ homelessness by 61 percent and chronic homelessness by 44 percent. With the help of stronger HUD policies and the support of our entire community, there is no doubt we will achieve Zero: 2016.

Garland [TX] police officer dedicated to helping homeless (Dallas News, TX)
Dallas News
(10/31/2014 11:15 AM, Hannah Declerk)
A typical work day for Sheriff begins early, sometimes at 3 a.m., when she said is the best time to find and interact with homeless people.

When she started her job with the task force, her first role was to pinpoint locations that show signs of a homeless encampment.

“[Homeless campsites are] right under our noses, yet it is hard to spot if you are not looking,” Sheriff said.

Mona Woodard, a member of the coalition and an employee of the city’s Housing and Community Services Department, said the city counted about 141 people Jan. 23 during its annual homeless census.

On the appointed night, volunteers and staff from nonprofit agencies physically count people whose living situation qualifies them to be homeless. The count includes those staying on the streets, camping, sleeping in a shelter or living in a car.

The amount of Housing and Urban Development’s Emergency Solutions grant funding awarded each year is based on how many homeless people are counted, Woodard said.

Judge rules against Frisco [TX] HOA, allowing City House to operate while civil case is pending (Dallas Morning News, TX)
Dallas Morning News
(10/31/2014 3:05 PM, Valerie Wigglesworth)
A district judge’s ruling on Friday effectively allows the nonprofit City House to operate its transitional living program for homeless young adults in a home in a deed-restricted neighborhood in Frisco.

District Judge Jill Willis ruled after a hearing on the arguments that a Frisco homeowners association failed to meet its burden for injunctive relief. The board for the PR2 Homeowners Association had sought to keep City House from expanding its operation in the neighborhood while the civil case is pending. No trial date has been set.

Chad Robinson, who represents the HOA board for the Plantation Resort 2 community, declined to comment after the ruling, saying he needed to consult with his clients. He had argued during Friday’s hearing that the HOA’s deed restrictions required that the homes be used for single-family residential purposes only.

“This case is about the law,” he said. “Just because they are a just cause doesn’t mean they don’t have to follow the law.”

Frisco Homeowners Association [TX] Can’t Kick Out Homeless Teens, Judge Rules (Dallas Observer, TX)
Dallas Observer
(10/31/2014 3:13 PM, Amy Silverstein)
Strict rules apply to any homeowners not using their houses for family-related purposes, as a Collin County nonprofit learned this year when they started sheltering homeless teens in Plantation Resort 2.

City House been providing shelter for homeless teens and kids in two houses in Plano without any push back from neighbors, the group says. So earlier this year, City House expanded its program into Frisco, purchasing a home in Plantation Resort 2 with a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through the program, two 18-year-old women and one of their babies are living at the house. And they’ll get to stay there after the homeowners association unsuccessfully tried to kick the women and baby out through the courts this morning.

To be fair, the two women and baby were allowed to move into the house under a compromise that the homeowners association and City House agreed to. That agreement came after the HOA filed a lawsuit against City House in August alleging that providing shelter to homeless teens violates its covenants. "No activity, whether for profit or not, shall be conducted which is not related to single-family residential purposes," the HOA’s attorneys argued at time.

About a month ago, the two sides worked out a temporary deal, says City House spokesman Rob Scichili. PR2 allowed the two 18-year-old women and the baby to move in while the parties tried to work things out with a court mediator. But the temporary compromise expired today, and PR2 went to District Judge Jill Willis to ask for immediate relief while their civil suit against City House is pending. "If the judge rules in the case of the HOA, we would have to get out right away," Scichili said before today’s hearing. (Had that happened, the women and child could have stayed at one of the Plano houses).

Judge Willis ruled in favor of City House this morning, allowing the two women to stay there for the time being. It’s not clear what the HOA is planning next; their attorney hasn’t returned a voicemail seeking comment.

Progress on homelessness: Utah’s “Housing First” earns praise (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, UT)
Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News
(11/3/2014 5:55 AM, Editorial)
For nearly a decade, a coalition of government and nonprofit agencies in Utah has worked quietly and steadily to solve one of society’s most vexing problems, and the results of that effort are now getting national attention. Several media organizations have reported on the surprising and inspiring success of Utah’s campaign to end chronic homelessness.

The state’s unique strategy to provide housing at the front end of its approach to dealing with homeless families and individuals has achieved a level of success that has prompted media outlets like the New Yorker Magazine, MSNBC and others to take praiseworthy note. The publicity is recognition of a remarkable achievement, but it also serves to spread word to other communities that may seek to replicate what’s happened here.

The state’s “Housing First” initiative works to provide stable domicile for homeless people as the first stage of intervention, allowing them to ease into rehabilitative programs that pave the way to life permanently off the streets. The approach reverses a traditional path that offered subsidized housing only after underlying behavioral issues were addressed. When launched in 2005, it seemed counterintuitive, and some thought it a waste of public money; but, as the New Yorker pointed out, “Housing First isn’t just cost-effective. It’s more effective, period.”

The measures of that effectiveness are impressive. Since 2005, chronic homelessness — defined as being without residence for a year, or for at least four times in three years — is down 72 percent. The overall number of homeless is about the same as it was in 2005. The number spiked following the 2008 recession, but in the last year, it has declined by nearly 10 percent, and because of the new paradigm in place, it is likely that most of those temporarily homeless will find residence within a year.

New Olympia [WA] homeless shelter gives priority to the ill and elderly (Seattle Times)
Seattle Times
(11/3/2014 12:45 AM, Amelia Dickson)
Olympia’s newest homeless shelter opened over the weekend, offering beds to people based on their level of need, with priority for the ill and the elderly.

After two years of planning, Olympia’s newest homeless shelter has finally become a reality, opening its doors for the first time Saturday night.

The Interfaith Works Overnight Emergency Shelter, located in the basement of First Christian Church, caters to homeless, single adults. Unlike traditional first-come, first-served shelters, Interfaith offers beds to people based on their level of need, prioritizing ill or elderly people, said program director Meg Martin.

The agency has evaluated 135 people, examining factors such as physical health, age and mental health. Those evaluated have been ranked according to their vulnerability, Martin said. The most vulnerable will get first dibs on the beds.

“A lot of times in the first-come, first-served model, the beds are all taken before the most vulnerable people show up,” Martin said. “We’re trying to prevent that from happening.”

New housing serves San Fernando Valley’s [CA] most vulnerable homeless (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA)
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
(11/2/2014 7:46 PM, Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News)
Called the Trudy & Norman Louis Apartments, the 45-unit building is one of two opened by L.A. Family Housing in the San Fernando Valley that provides housing to the chronically homeless and the most vulnerable among them. They are the men and women who are most likely to die on the streets. The tenants, mostly single, receive on-site supportive services to help with mental issues, alcohol and drug addiction or chronic illnesses. In return, they pay 30 percent of their monthly government checks and adhere to rules typical of any other housing complex.

Although tenants moved in over the summer, a formal grand opening will be held Monday at 11:30 a.m. at 7639 Day St.

“We made a concerted outreach effort in the community before we did anything,” said Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president and CEO of L.A. Family Housing, based in North Hollywood. Klasky-Gamer said staff from the agency first came to Sunland-Tujunga to let the homeless know that various services were available to them. While in the community, she said she discovered that the area had its own kind of homelessness, especially in the Tujunga Wash.

‘Rural homelessness’

For decades, men and women and even families have lived along the Tujunga Wash, a rural area at the edge of the Angeles National Forest. Some who live there are part of a cycle of homelessness that has drawn complaints about lawlessness. Others are couples or locals with pets who have no other housing options.

The imperiled health of homeless people (Oakland Tribune, CA)
Oakland Tribune
(10/31/2014 4:00 PM, Kate Scannell)
"The bottom line," she says, "is that I’m dying."

Michele’s words are not merely philosophical speculation about our universal human condition. Rather, she speaks from her painfully acute personal circumstances that are shaped by her advanced cancer and her inability to access life-sustaining treatment -- treatment that remains beyond her reach because she is homeless.

Her cancer specialists have recommended a bone-marrow transplant because it’s likely to extend her life for months, even years.

"I’d like to have that chance to live longer," Michele says. "But the problem is that I don’t qualify for a transplant because I don’t have a stable place to live."

In other words, Michele is falling through the cracks of our highfalutin, high-tech health care system for want of a roof. That’s because it’s routinely required that prospective transplant recipients have a stable place of residence where they can recuperate and receive intensive caregiver support. Still, what do you do in that predicament if you’re homeless — with no place, literally, to live?

On any one night in the USA, more than 600,000 people are homeless. And given the higher rates of morbidity and premature mortality within homeless populations, you might imagine that our health care system would’ve developed more effective ways to reach homeless persons who are trapped in poverty or circumstances of debilitating illness.

At the moment, however, there’s no comprehensive safety net for Michele. Deanie Hubbell, who works with Michele as a volunteer at Oakland’s Women’s Cancer Resource Center, reminds us: "Going through a cancer diagnosis and treatment course is challenging in the best of circumstances. But for those who are homeless, without a support network or resources, it can be deadly."

20% of Nation’s Homeless Are in California (24/7 Wall Street)
24/7 Wall Street
(10/31/2014 7:08 AM, Douglas A. McIntyre)
The Department of Housing and Urban Development put out a sobering report about the status of homeless people in the United States. Although the count of the homeless dropped 10% from 2013, according to the 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, some states still have large numbers of homeless individuals, led by California.

The authors of the report point out:

In January 2014, 578,424 people were homeless on a given night. Most (69 percent) were staying in residential programs for homeless people, and the rest (31 percent) were found in unsheltered locations.

Nearly one-quarter of all homeless people were children under the age of 18 (23 percent or 135,701). Ten percent (or 58,601) were between the ages of 18 and 24, and 66 percent (or 384,122) were 25 years or older.

Homelessness declined by 2 percent (or 13,344 people) between 2013 and 2014 and by 11 percent (or 72,718) since 2007.

The 11% fall is almost certainly due to the recession.

The state concentration makes sense because it matches state population:

California accounted for 20 percent of the nation’s homeless population in 2014.

Half of the homeless population in the United States was in five states: CA (20% or 113,952 people), NY (14% or 80,590 people), FL (7% or 41,542 people), TX (5% or 28,495 people), and MA (4% or 21,237 people).

PR Campaign Would Discourage Homeless from Moving to Hawaii (Honolulu Civil Beat, HI)
Honolulu Civil Beat
(11/3/2014 5:49 AM, Sophie Cocke)
The Institute for Human Services is embarking on a $1.3 million effort that includes plans to fly 120 homeless people back to the mainland.

One of the state’s major homeless shelters is working to get the message out that Hawaii is not a hospitable place if you are homeless, particularly in Waikiki, the state’s major tourist hub.

The Institute for Human Services plans to embark on a public relations campaign to discourage homeless people from the mainland from moving to Hawaii. IHS also plans to fly 120 homeless people living in Waikiki back to the mainland — all part of a larger $1.3 million effort to reduce the number of homeless people in the state’s major tourist hub.

The 120 people would be identified through a vetting process to ensure they are stable and have a plan in place for when they return to their home states, according to the IHS.

The majority of the $1.3 million will go toward intensive outreach services to connect Waikiki’s homeless to shelters, housing, employment and medical services.

IHS is still working to raise $400,000 from the private sector to fund the effort after receiving $100,000 from the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association last week. IHS is providing $824,000.

The ultimate goal is to clear the homeless out of Waikiki, where businesses have complained that they are hurting tourism.

Hawaii’s homeless population grows, nation’s falls (Garden Island Newspaper, HI)
Garden Island Newspaper
(10/31/2014 3:14 PM, AP)
HONOLULU — The number of homeless people in Hawaii has climbed 18 percent since 2010, while nationwide the number dropped steadily.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the numbers were released Thursday by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This year’s annual count found 6,918 people living on the streets and in shelters across Hawaii on a single night in January. But nationally the figures fell more than 9 percent since 2010.

Hawaii’s sheltered population grew by 8 percent, and the unsheltered population grew 35 percent since 2010. The number of veterans counted as homeless also grew substantially.

Experts say Hawaii’s high cost of living, soaring rents and a shortage of affordable housing are contributing to the problem. They also say they’re doing a better job finding homeless people to count.

Project breaks ground to build homes for less than $100K [Guam] (Pacific Daily News, GU)
Pacific Daily News
(10/31/2014 1:44 PM, Jerick Sablan)
Residents may soon see firsthand how homes can be built for less than $100,000.

The Calvo administration hopes that making homes more affordable will mean fewer homeless people and fewer living in substandard houses.

The ground was broken yesterday in Dededo for Sagan Linahyan, a project to build five different model homes that will each cost less than $100,000.

Lt. Gov. Ray Tenorio said the project will help many Guam residents achieve the dream of owning a home.

The groundbreaking comes as the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro announced that the number of homeless people on Guam has decreased by 17 percent since 2010.

HUD’s annual estimates seek to measure the scope of homelessness on a single night in January.

State and local communities throughout the U.S. reported a 15 percent decline in the number of homeless families with children since 2010, as well as a 53 percent reduction of the number of families found be to unsheltered.

"It’s clear our strategy is working and we’re going to push forward till we end homelessness as we’ve come to know it," Castro said.

Public and Indian Housing (PIH)

Ex-Maine worker convicted of illegally collecting benefits (Portland Press Herald, ME)
Portland Press Herald
(10/31/2014 8:14 PM, Betty Adams)
A Winthrop woman who worked for the state was convicted Friday of theft by deception for illegally collecting state benefits for her family over a four-year period.

Crystal Hodsdon, 33, was employed during that time, first as an eligibility examiner and then as a disability claims examiner in the South Paris office of the Department of Health & Human Services. Her attorney said that job ended after the investigation started.

The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Darcy Mitchell, said the state paid out $109,003 in benefits to Hodson on behalf of her family during that time.

As a disability claims examiner, she earned more than $40,000 a year, according to records published on maineopengov.org.

Hodsdon was convicted by Justice Daniel Billings at the close of a bench trial in Kennebec County Superior Court. Hodsdon also was acquitted of a misdemeanor count of theft by deception. That accused of her illegally accepting benefits Jan. 19 to Feb. 16, 2010, from the Low Income Housing Assistance Program through the Maine State Housing Authority.

Thornton Street [MA] Project Ribbon Cutting Ceremony 10/30/14 (YouTube, Revere TV, MA)
YouTube
(10/31/2014 6:37 PM, RTV)
[VIDEO at source]. RevereTV covers the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Thornton Street Project, a project funded by the Revere Housing Authority and the Department of Housing and Community Development.

Housing Authority [CT] flies into turbulence with Florida trip (Connecticut Post, CT)
Connecticut Post
(11/1/2014 5:17 PM, Brian Lockhart)
BRIDGEPORT -- The head of the city board that oversees 5,400 low income housing units said flying job candidates, including a Shelton man, to Florida for interviews might have been a bad -- but well-intentioned, idea.

"It could have been a misjudgment," said Housing Authority Commission Chairwoman Dulce Nieves. "It wasn’t anything that was done maliciously. ... I thought we could kill a few birds with one stone."

There is no indication Mayor Bill Finch, who appoints the commissioners, will use the controversy to shake up that board beyond his recent replacement of a member whose term expired last December.

Hearst Connecticut Media last Sunday reported on the five Housing Authority commissioners’ $11,000-plus mid- July trip to Florida for professional training at a national conference.

Nieves and a few of her colleagues invited four finalists for the job of running the authority to Tampa for interviews. That group included Troy White, a Shelton resident within driving distance of Bridgeport, whose travel expenses totalled $989.

Documents given Hearst also showed the authority paid $586 to fly out Stanley Lowe, of Ohio. Lowe was offered the executive director’s chair, but the job fell through after an Ohio newspaper reported he was under investigation by his former employer.

Runner-up George Lee Byers, of Indiana, was hired in October and has said he footed his own travel bills.

The Tampa interviews have been questioned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds a substantial part of the authority’s $30 million budget.

HUD has already been working with the authority to address management and financial issues uncovered by recent federal audits.

35-Year NYPD Veteran James Secreto To Take Over As Chief Of Housing [NYC] In Reshuffling (CBS New York, NY)
CBS New York
(10/31/2014 8:12 PM, CBS New York)
NEW YORK — NYPD Assistant Chief James Secreto, a 35-year-veteran of the department, will take over as chief of housing effective Monday.

Secreto will be in charge of the Housing Bureau, which patrols New York City Housing Authority buildings around the five boroughs. There are more than 400,000 residents, employees and guests in the NYCHA system, the NYPD noted.

"Throughout his 35-year career, Chief Secreto has proved to be an excellent leader who is devoted to all communities within New York City," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said in a news release. "As Chief of Housing he will continue to foster relationships throughout the many diverse neighborhoods the Department serves, as well as continue to keep the residents of New York City Housing Authority safe."

Secreto joined the NYPD in November 1979, and began his career in the 25th Precinct in East Harlem, police said. He was promoted to sergeant in 1984, lieutenant in 1989, captain in 1996, deputy inspector in 1998, inspector in 2000, deputy chief in 2004, and assistant chief in 2007.

He has served in various precincts and bureaus around the city. Most recently, Secreto was the commanding officer of the Patrol Bureau Manhattan North, police said.

NYCHA residents demand answers after mailboxes remain broken, vandalized for three years (WPIX-TV PIX 11, NY)
WPIX-TV PIX 11
(11/2/2014 9:05 AM, Magee Hickey)
[VIDEO at source]. Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn – You pay your rent and you expect to have your mail delivered, but not if you live in the Louis Armstrong Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant.

For three years, that’s right, three long years these vandalized mailboxes haven’t been repaired.

Residents showed PIX11 the ticket numbers and work orders from the New York City Housing Authority to prove it.

"This is an injustice," said resident Yvonne Lemon. "We pay our rent. We want our mail and we will just keep fighting."

Even the mail carriers who try to deliver the mail to 373, 380 and 385 Lexington Ave. posted signs asking NYCHA to please fix the mailboxes.

A statement from NYCHA: "We understand residents are inconvenienced and frustrated by this recurring vandalism problem we’ve been working on for some time with the Post Office and law enforcement. We appreciate our residents’ patience."

But these residents don’t want to be patient any longer.

Wefer: HUD is likely going to deem the HHA as a ‘troubled housing authority’ (YouTube, Hudson County View, NJ)
YouTube
(10/31/2014 6:37 PM, Hudson County View)
[VIDEO at source]. Hoboken Housing Authority Chairwoman Dana Wefer gave Hudson County View an update on the HHA earlier this week, explaining what initiatives have taken place since Acting Executive Director Robert DiVincent took over in August.

Johnstown Housing Authority [PA] faces challenges with evictions, chief says (Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, PA)
Johnstown Tribune-Democrat
(11/1/2014 11:36 PM, Randy Griffith)
Cortney Elizabeth Todaro was already facing eviction when sheriff’s deputies showed up with Cambria County Drug Task Force and a bench warrant Oct. 23 only to find Torrence Edison jumping out of a Coopersdale Homes apartment window and over a river wall.

The incident illustrates some of the issues Johnstown Housing Authority has with keeping troublemakers away from its properties, Executive Director Daniel Kanuch said.

Federal housing regulations and Johnstown Housing Authority policy require eviction for drug use and criminal behavior. Residents also can be evicted for allowing people not listed on the original application to live in a unit.

Kanuch’s monthly report to the housing authority board includes the number of evictions and the reasons: nonpayment of rent, drugs or other criminal activity.

But it’s not automatic, Kanuch stressed. After being notified by the housing authority, residents have 15 days to vacate before it is turned over to the district judge. Last week, the housing authority filed in district courts against 15 tenants, including Todaro.

Even then, it is not a slam dunk, Kanuch said. The judge is required to schedule a hearing in each case.

"It’s a court case," he said. "It can go either way. We hope we have enough evidence based on the police report."

Housing authority [MD] to be applauded for helping people stand on their own (Hagerstown Herald-Mail, MD)
Hagerstown Herald-Mail
(10/31/2014 3:23 PM, Hagerstown Herald-Mail)
The best government assistance is temporary government assistance. Except in extreme cases, the idea is not for citizens to become dependent on government programs; instead, these programs are designed to be a stepping stone to help those down on their luck return to the economic mainstream.

That’s why we are especially impressed with the Hagerstown Housing Authority, which has secured a $150,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that will help citizens get out of, not into, public housing.

“It’s probably the best program we have,” said Ted Shankle, director of the Hagerstown Housing Authority. “It’s the only program we really have where people can move up and move out. And that’s the whole purpose of public housing is that it’s supposed to be a step along the way.”

Nearly 100 people have been able to get into nongovernment-subsidized housing of their own because of the program since 2002, when officials began keeping track of their clients’ progress.

Few, we believe, would really prefer full dependence on the taxpayers instead of being a self-supporting member of their communities. We appreciate that the local housing authority is helping those who can to take pride in making it on their own.

Fiscal outlook improves for Housing Authority of Joliet [IL] (Herald-News, IL)
Herald-News
(10/31/2014 12:47 AM, Lauren Leone-Cross)
A minor setback

Plans to redevelop the Des Plaines Garden Homes have suffered a minor setback.

Simelton said HAJ officials heard from the Illinois Housing Development Authority last week that the agency’s application for about $16 million in low-income housing tax credits was denied for a second time.

The agency plans to reapply in December, he said. He fully expects the state to approve the application, noting it’s common for the process to take a few tries.

One concern IHDA had with the last application was that they want HAJ to help pay for remediation costs for some low-level contaminants found on adjacent property, he said.

“IHDA wants us to have some skin in the game,” Simelton said. “They want us to foot some of that bill.”

If the project is approved, buildings containing 122 low-income residences would be razed and replaced with 76 mixed-income homes. The remaining 46 residences eventually could be transferred to HAJ’s Liberty Meadows facility, where the authority has land available for additional construction.

Money to demolish the complex and build new privatized housing would come from IHDA through private investors. Rent subsidies for the new homes would come through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program.

Franklin [TN] Housing Authority moves forward with apartments (Nashville Tennessean, TN)
Nashville Tennessean
(10/30/2014 6:47 PM, Kevin Walters)
The next phase of the multiyear overhaul of Franklin’s stock of government housing could kick off in early 2015 when a deal is expected to close that could start construction of a $14 million, 64-unit development along Strahl Street.

Before work commences, however, the Franklin Housing Authority wants to change a 47-year-old agreement governing how much it pays the city when it comes in the group’s annual in-lieu-of-taxes payment.

Franklin Housing Authority Executive Director Derwin Jackson hopes to start construction next year on the new apartments that would serve low- to moderate-income families in Franklin. The apartments are being developed in partnership between the Franklin Housing Authority and the New Jersey-based Michaels Group development firm.

Ahead of starting work on the new apartments, Jackson has told city leaders he wants to change the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement between the city and the Franklin Housing Authority that’s been in place since 1967. In exchange for not levying any property taxes on the FHA properties throughout Franklin, the FHA made an annual payment to the city. In 2013, the FHA paid $23,447.10 to the city, records show.

Franklin aldermen will vote on the new payment agreement at their Nov. 11 meeting.

Official: Bedbug treatment common at Royal View Manor [IA] (Des Moines Register, IA)
Des Moines Register
(11/01/2014 12:18 AM, Joel Aschbrenner)
More than 100 apartments have been treated for bedbugs in the past year at Royal View Manor, the public housing complex at the center of a lawsuit, according to a city official.

A class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday in Polk County District Court alleges that the city’s public housing agency failed to eradicate the insects or warn residents about the infestation at the 200-unit apartment tower for elderly and disabled low-income residents.

In an interview Friday with the Register, Des Moines Housing Services Director Doug Romig said the agency meets or exceeds all U.S. Housing and Urban Development guidelines. Each apartment is inspected four times a year for bedbugs using a scent-detecting dog, and the city spends about $185,000 to $200,000 annually paying a pest control company to eradicate the bedbugs using heaters and pesticides.

The Des Moines Municipal Housing Agency has also held four informational meetings with residents of Royal View Manor, 1101 Crocker St., in the past two years to discuss ways to avoid and detect bedbug infestations.

"I don’t know what more we can do," Romig said. "We can eradicate them in the unit, but if someone comes in that tenant’s apartment and they have bedbugs, then it’s going to get infested and we’re going to have to treat it again."

In all, 135 apartments at Royal View Manor have been treated for bedbugs in the past year: 31 in the fall, 24 in the spring, 36 in the summer and 44 in the winter, Romig said.

Case Closed: No voter fraud found after allegations in Weslaco [TX] (KGBT 4, TX)
KGBT 4
(10/31/2014 9:37 PM, Ashly Custer)
Reports of alleged voter fraud are swirling around Weslaco after video surfaced of an older man being escorted out of his apartment by two women.

However, Weslaco police confirmed to Action 4 News after a thorough investigation that the case has been closed and no voter fraud was committed.

"We do not feel that there was a crime that was committed as far as voter fraud based on the statements that were provided to us by the victim and witnesses, we feel that this was reported as a concern," said Weslaco Police Officer David Barbosa.

Ten days ago, Abigail Cepeda, a health provider, filed a complaint with the Weslaco Police Department stating two women from another health provider, Milagros Home Health, were soliciting elderly and disabled tenants at the Alta Vista Apartments.

She reported to police that the women had voter registration forms in hand.

Action 4 News called the Director of the Weslaco Housing Authority and he said that his office has not been directly involved with the Weslaco Police Department’s investigation.

However, hearing that this incident occurred at their apartment complex is concerning. It’s why they have forwarded the concern to the Office of the Inspector General so that US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) may follow up.

Public housing rent to rise for some Saturday [TX] (KTXS-TV 12 Abilene, TX)
KTXS-TV
(10/31/2014 8:32 PM, Christian Collins)
Robert Deegan, Riviera, Earl Willams and Vogel apartments are 4 public housing properties where some residents will see an increase in rent on November 1st.

Current residents renewing their leases will now have to pay 80% of the fair market value, which relates to the average price of other rented properties in the area.

New applicants will see the new rates up front.

“This really came about because congress has been trying to save money with the budget” said Gene Reed, Executive Director for the Abilene Housing Authority. “This was one of the budget cut items included in the 2014 bill.”

“The concept is that some of those higher, low income families are able to pay more in rent,” said Reed. “Then the federal government has to subsidize less.”

Reed says this will affect 82 out of 213 residents managed by the Abilene Housing Authority.

Sustainability

Breaking Ground On Bronx River House [NYC] (Bronx Times, NY)
Bronx Times
(11/01/2014 7:59 PM, Peter Milosheff)
NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP, today joined NYC DDC Commissioner Dr. Feniosky Peña-Mora, NYC DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd’s Senior Advisor Marianna Koval, Congressman José E. Serrano, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., State Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr., Assembly Member Marcos Crespo, Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, and Bronx River Administrator Linda R. Cox to break ground on the Bronx River House at Starlight Park.

"The Bronx River House, which is environmentally-friendly in its design, will further link community involvement with the Bronx River." said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. "Amazing changes have been made to the restoration of the Bronx River in just a little over a decade. The new River House here at Starlight Park will provide new public amenities while serving as a headquarters for our partners at the Bronx River Alliance. Special thanks to all our partners at the State and City levels of government for partnering with us on this project."

"This innovative building will be a great addition to Starlight Park and aid the staff of the Bronx River Greenway Alliance with the restoration of the Bronx River, said DDC Commissioner Dr. Feniosky Peña-Mora. The building will have a minimal impact on the surrounding environment with a geothermal system to heat and cool the building and was designed with a vegetative wall which will provide shade for the building in the summer to keep it cool while also allowing sunlight in during the winter to heat the building."

This $14.5 million project was made possible through a partnership of federal, state, and local agencies. $12 million was provided through the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and the Municipal Water Finance Authority in connection with the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Facility. Council Member Palma provided $500,000 in funding, The City Council Bronx Delegation provided $500,000 and Borough President Diaz allocated $500,000. There were additional grants of $500,000 from New York State, $280,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and $268,000 from NYC the Small Business Administration.

Community Planning and Development (CPD)

State [NY] to fund new housing projects for CNY flood victims (Syracuse Post-Standard, NY)
Syracuse Post-Standard
(10/31/2014 11:03 AM, Elizabeth Doran)
Four two-story residential buildings which will contain 40 affordable housing units will be built in the city of Oneida thanks to state funding earmarked for upstate disaster-relief housing.

A total of $10.6 million in funding for the Madison County project along with a similar one in Broome County has been announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The project is designed to help families find affordable housing in neighborhoods devastated by flooding after the severe storms in 2011 and 2013.

The Oneida Workforce Housing project, as it is being called, also includes the construction of a community building, computer lab and outdoor pavilion and 60 on-site parking spaces. The project also calls for bike paths that are part of the Oneida Rail Trail System and sidewalks which will tie into existing city sidewalks.

The new housing at 106 N. Warner St. in Oneida is located within a half-mile of the flood-impacted neighborhood known as "The Flats."

Colonie Town Board [NY] approves housing program budget (Spotlight Newspapers, NY)
Spotlight Newspapers
(10/31/2014 4:28 PM, Emily Drew)
At the Colonie Town Board meeting on Thursday, Oct. 23, a public hearing was held to approve the budget and plan for Colonie’s subsidized housing program, a town program with a $1.95 million budget that aims to provide safe and sanitary housing to the elderly, disabled and families with very low incomes.

#The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program falls under the supervision of the Town’s Community Development Department and has been run by Joseph E. Mastrianni, Inc., since 1979. The funding for the Community Development Department comes from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds the Voucher Program, along with programs under Community Development’s Block Grant.

This year, the Voucher Program’s budget was $1.95 million, down $50,000 from last year. It allows for 365 housing vouchers with 329 families currently receiving assistance and a waiting list of 590 applicants, 287 of which are Colonie residents.

Section 8 ties closely in with programs run by Community Development. Jim Mastrianni said at the Town Board meeting that he has seen voucher recipients become part of the Community Development’s First Time Homebuyer Program. The program provides a $14,000 subsidy to participants to purchase a first home in Colonie that goes toward part of the monthly mortgage for 10 years. In order to apply for the program, the household’s current income cannot exceed 80 percent of the area median income.

Montclair [NJ] groups receive $323K in grant funding (NorthJersey.com)
NorthJersey.com
(11/2/2014 6:36 PM, Andrew Segedin)
A dozen Montclair entities received a total of $323,000 in Community Development Block Grant and Emergency Solution Grant money, according to an Essex County release.

CDBG and ESG grant money is funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is administered by the Essex County Division of Housing and Community Development, according to the county.

Receiving $105,500, the Interfaith Hospitality Network was Montclair’s largest recipient of grant dollars. Executive Director Emma Justice and Director of Social Services Brenda Myrnick told The Montclair Times that the funds will go toward IHN’s shelter operations and rapid re-housing activities.

Shelter operations, according to Myrnick, range from afterschool programs and rental assistance to providing Thanksgiving baskets. Justice said that operation funds are also used to help children go to summer camp who would otherwise not be able to afford to go.

Rapid re-housing mirrors the township’s Section 8 housing program, Myrnick said. After building relationships with local landlords, IHN pays for the apartment security deposits for members of the IHN rental program and homeless members of the community.

Understanding, respect key as Delaware diversity grows (Wilmington News Journal, DE)
Wilmington News Journal
(11/2/2014 10:38 PM, Beth Miller)
In 1970, a resident of New Castle County had about a 1-in-4 chance of encountering someone of another ethnicity, according to that index. The index doesn’t show city-level data or the impact of urban renewal and "white flight" from Wilmington.

Using 2010 Census data, the index says Delaware residents have more than a 50-50 chance of meeting someone of a different ethnicity. By 2060 that will rise to a 70 percent chance statewide, a 74 percent chance in New Castle County.

There are still areas where the races are almost completely separated – tracts where the white population comprises more than 95 percent, tracts where the black population has that much representation.

And though Delaware’s black community and other ethnic groups may be gaining in population numbers, those numbers offer no evidence of simultaneous gains in housing, income, educational achievement, or political power. In many ways, those areas remain rife with inequities.

Agreement between Roanoke [VA] Rescue Mission, Council of Community Services pays mission for client info [VA] (WBDJ7 Roanoke News, VA)
WBDJ7 Roanoke News
(10/31/2014 10:42 PM, Chris Hurst)
A new agreement between the Roanoke Rescue Mission and non-profit planning organization Council of Community Services has thousands of dollars coming to the mission. In return, it gives important information on its homeless population and the deal could change the dynamic of efforts to reduce the number of people without a home.

"The same report we generate every single morning and send to seven different agencies for seven different reasons we were willing to send to the Council of Community Services," says Rescue Mission CEO Joy Sylvester-Johnson. "But they needed it in a new format." The mission’s data is valuable because it houses about four times as many people as any other homelessness agency in the Roanoke Valley.

The council facilitates a large federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development called Continuum of Care. Currently the block of money for the CoC is $750,000 a year and is shared by many different homelessness agencies, but not the mission, which does not receive government funds.

Agreements bring thousands into Roanoke Rescue Mission [VA] (WBDJ7 Roanoke News, VA)
WBDJ7 Roanoke News
(10/31/2014 7:42 PM, WBDJ7 Roanoke News)
[VIDEO at source]. A new agreement between the Roanoke Rescue Mission and non-profit planning organization Council of Community Services has thousands of dollars coming to the mission.

Officials, residents discuss housing issues [NC] (Salisbury Post, NC)
Salisbury Post
(10/31/2014 11:13 PM, David Purtell)
The crowd was small, but the discussion was lively during a community meeting about neighborhood development Thursday evening at City Hall.

The group of about 15 residents and city officials touched on the need for heavier code enforcement and how to best use federal funds the city receives for projects to improve housing and infrastructure.

Most of the people at the meeting said Salisbury’s biggest housing problem is vacant homes with absentee landlords. The houses are left unkept and deteriorate over time.

Information gathered from the meeting goes into the city’s Housing and Community Development Plan, which the city has to present to the federal Housing and Urban Development Department in order to receive grant funds.

Trey Cleaton, a senior planner with the city, said Salisbury has been getting the grant funds for over 15 years. But due to cuts at the federal level, the amount of money HUD gives out each year has been decreasing. Salisbury received around $275,000 in funding this past year.

The HUD grants come in two forms: Community Development Block Grants and HOME Program Grants. Development block grants go toward improving infrastructure and existing housing while HOME grants focus on housing rehab and new construction. The funds primarily have to be used in neighborhoods with low to moderate household incomes.

County [OH] land bank able to sell lands without competitive bidding (Akron West Side Leader, OH)
Akron West Side Leader
(10/31/2014 4:02 PM, Ariel Hakim)
During the Oct. 27 meeting, Summit County Council approved legislation to allow the county’s land bank, the Summit County Land Reutilization Corp., to sell or lease lands owned by the county without going through the competitive bidding process.

A second reading also was given to legislation to submit a five-year plan for using Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership funds to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which was the subject of much discussion during a public hearing last week. No one broached the subject during this Monday’s meeting, and no action was taken.

In other business, Council adopted legislation unanimously agreed to by committee, including to execute a five-year agreement with the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority to perform environmental reviews on properties that agency is purchasing, rehabilitating, selling or demolishing;

Are Single Family Teardowns a Sign of Suburban Gentrification? (Planetizen)
Planetizen
(11/2/2014 3:11 PM, James Brasuell)
Luxury condos are often identified as the culprit in urban gentrification, but could it be that teardowns of single family homes that give way to much larger single family homes is a driver of suburban gentrification?

Mary Ellen Podmolik reports on the research of Suzanne Lanyi Charles, an assistant professor of architecture at Boston’s Northeastern University. Charles "single-family home redevelopment — better known as teardowns — in suburban Cook County from 2000 to 2010," for evidence that the mansionization of Chicago’s suburbs was a driver of gentrification.

Podmolik describes the research as a work in progress, with a large question asking to be answered: "So are the suburbs going the way of some neighborhoods, getting big, pretty houses at the expense of more moderate abodes and pushing out residents?"

Charles is still unsure the answer to the question, as evidenced by this quote from the article: "I’m not entirely convinced this is gentrification…If you look that the new house is three times as expensive, you’d think the household coming in would have a considerably higher income. By one definition, that’s a form of gentrification. But I’ve heard examples in Norridge of people who grew up in Norridge and wanted to stay there."

City [IN] buying land near Pittman Square Park for fire station (Gary Post-Tribune, IN)
Gary Post-Tribune
(11/3/2014 12:45 AM, Carole Carlson)
GARY — The city is putting together a funding plan to build a new fire station in Glen Park at the site of the former Pittman Square Elementary School.

The school district is selling the property to the city for $1. The school board approved a memorandum of understanding for the sale on Tuesday.

Pittman Square school was demolished about 10 years ago. It closed in 2001 because of a large mold infestation. The property sits north of Pittman Square Park at 303 E. 51st Ave.

The area has been without a fire station since 2012 when the red brick Station 5 at 4101 Washington St. closed when asbestos was discovered inside.

The station initially leased a nearby Merrillville location on 57th Avenue and then moved to the Calumet Township Trustee’s multi-purpose center at 1900 W. 41st Ave.

Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson said the city is awaiting word from federal officials on the status of a U.S. Housing and Urban Development loan, which would serve as the project’s funding source.

“Once we obtain that information, we will be in a better position to share a timeline for the build.”

HUD to fund new Gary [IN] fire station, West Side fixes (Northwest Indiana Times, IN)
Northwest Indiana Times
(11/1/2014 10:00 PM, Joseph S. Pete)
A $6 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will finance some much-needed projects in Gary.

The federal funds will pay for the rehabilitation of the Hudson Campbell Fitness Center downtown, renovation of the auditorium and athletic facilities at West Side High School, and the construction of a new fire station in the University Park area.

"We were simply thrilled to receive news of the loan guarantee," Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said. "HUD has been an extremely supportive partner that understands what we are trying to do to revitalize the city. This loan will allow us to make some significant progress on projects that our residents have been asking for."

Community development block grants provide communities with a source of financing for economic development, housing rehabilitation and other large-scale projects.

HANO looks to develop unused lots [LA] (Lakeland Ledger, FL)
Lakeland Ledger
(10/31/2014 9:27 PM, Lakeland Ledger)
The city’s public housing agency is looking for partners to work with on redeveloping about 230 abandoned lots throughout the city.

The Housing Authority of New Orleans issued a call Friday for interested developers to step forward. The agency had planned to sell off the vacant and abandoned lots to private entities. But new leadership at HANO has reversed course and wants to keep the properties, both to create more affordable housing and to turn a profit.

The idea is to turn the properties into new homes and businesses. The lots being looked at for redevelopment are scattered across the city and range in size from 1,300 square feet to 158,000 square feet.

Flower Mound [TX] to reopen applications for home rehab program (Dallas Morning News, TX)
Dallas Morning News
(10/31/2014 3:31 PM, Adam Schrader)
The town of Flower Mound will reopen the application process Monday for the residential rehabilitation program.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the program provides financial assistance to low- and moderate-income homeowners with the rehabilitation of their single-family, owner-occupied houses.

Applicants must meet HUD income requirements, have an eligible property for repairs, and have repairs that are feasible for rehabilitation. Those eligible may receive a program loan of up to $60,000. The town will forgive loans over the course of five years.

Thornton [CO] seeks input on using federal grant money over next 5 years (Denver Post, CO)
Denver Post
(10/30/2014 12:01 AM, Megan Mitchell)
Thornton is launching a new loan program that provides between $5,000 and $20,000 worth of household repairs to low-income residents,

The Thornton home repair loan program is funded through federally designated community development block grants. It’s just one of the new housing and urban development projects that the city is working on to put the annual grant dollars to work over the next five years.

The new program includes a 0 percent interest loan that homeowners have 10 years to pay back, as well as counseling services provided by Brothers Redevelopment, a local nonprofit that does the actual construction work.

"It’s for major repairs that people run into," said Nicole Jeffers, Thornton’s neighborhood services manager. "Residents work directly with (U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development) certified counselors who are trained to walk somebody though either a mortgage or a home loan. It’s like having a guide."

The city has received an average of $600,000 in community development block grants every year since it became eligible for direct funding in 2010.

Now that it’s time for a new five-year plan, the city asked residents to identify their ideas for how to spend the community development block grants into 2020.

Jeffers said some of the high-priority projects included supporting new affordable housing, providing financial assistance for people who are buying a home, flood and drainage improvements, and improved services for seniors, the disabled, and the homeless.

"There’s a great need for low-income housing across the metro area," said Jennifer Petty, grants and procurement manager for the Adams County Housing Authority. "We’re looking at a couple new construction projects in Thornton for low-income housing."

Mattawa [WA] farmworker apartments get big federal boost (Yakima Herald-Republic, WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic
(10/31/2014 5:49 PM, Ross Courtney)
A farm worker housing development with room for 256 people has received a shot in the arm from a federal program.

The Grant County Housing Authority will receive a $2 million loan and $1 million grant to help expand the Esperanza Migrant Farmworker Housing apartments in Mattawa, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office announced Friday.

The apartment complex was one of 10 housing projects to receive a total of $29 million in loans and grants from Rural Development, an agency news release said.

Mattawa, in western Grant County, has seen enormous growth with the development of orchard and vineyards over the last 25 years. Housing for seasonal workers is always one the city’s most critical needs, said Silvia Barrajas, a city councilwoman.

Teardowns transforming Bellevue [WA] neighborhoods (Seattle Times, WA)
Seattle Times
(11/2/2014 9:47 PM, Lynn Thompson)
Old suburban ramblers in Bellevue are giving way to new luxury homes as increasingly affluent young professionals seek close-in locations and good schools.

On a rainy morning on the northwest edge of Bellevue, a backhoe chews up a 1950s rambler in room-sized chunks. Over the next three hours, the carport that had been converted to a third bedroom, the large picture window overlooking the quiet residential street, even the updated kitchen with granite countertops, break apart into splinters and bursts of drywall dust. In its place on the large wooded lot, a builder plans a new luxury home more than three times the size of the rambler, with a sale price of more than $2 million.

Builders and city officials in Bellevue say the trend of tearing down modest, midcentury houses and replacing them with larger, more expensive ones has accelerated over the past two years, as the economy has rebounded and increasingly affluent professionals seek neighborhoods close to city centers with good schools and shorter commutes.

But the gradual makeover of entire suburban blocks where a generation of baby boomers came of age alarms some longtime residents. They, and some new arrivals, worry about the changing character of their neighborhoods, rising property values, and the area’s affordability for a new generation of young families.

Merced [CA] may reprogram HUD cash (Merced Sun-Star, CA)
Merced Sun-Star
(11/2/2014 11:16 PM, Thaddeus Miller)
Merced City Council will look at making amendments to funding aimed at low- to moderate-income housing as well as agreements with a housing rehabilitation program, during its regular meeting Monday.

More than $900,000 in Community Development Block Grant money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development could be shifted around, after members of the public get an opportunity to speak. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Merced Civic Center, 678 W. 18th St.

The funding is related to housing rehabilitation as well as a water main project.

City staff chose the proposed water main replacement because of the age and poor quality of a particular water line that fits into HUD’s requirements, according to city records.

The total water main project cost is estimated at less than $600,000, records said. The water main replacement project was not included in the original 2014 HUD plan.

Another $500,000 is being considered as part of an agreement with Habitat for Humanity. The money would be programmed into rehabilitating 25 Merced homes, according to city records.

National News

Underwriting the Next Housing Crisis (New York Times)
New York Times
(10/31/2014 10:38 PM, Peter J. Wallison)
Seven years after the housing bubble burst, federal regulators backed away this month from the tougher mortgage-underwriting standards that the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 had directed them to develop. New standards were supposed to raise the quality of the “prime” mortgages that get packaged and sold to investors; instead, they will have the opposite effect.

Responding to the law, federal regulators proposed tough new standards in 2011, but after bipartisan outcries from Congress and fierce lobbying by interested parties, including community activists, the Obama administration and the real estate and banking industries — all eager to increase home sales — the standards have been watered down. The regulators had wanted a down payment of 20 percent, a good credit record and a maximum debt-to-income ratio of 36 percent. But under pressure, they dropped the down payment and good-credit requirements and agreed to a debt-to-income limit as high as 43 percent.

The regulators believe that lower underwriting standards promote homeownership and make mortgages and homes more affordable. The facts, however, show that the opposite is true.

If the government got out of the way, would sound underwriting standards come back? History suggests yes. Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government-backed, they were shareholder-owned, profit-making firms. They adopted strong underwriting standards to avoid the credit risk of subprime and other high-risk mortgages. But after Congress enacted affordable-housing goals, administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in 1992, underwriting standards declined.

Fannie, Freddie to take on more credit risk (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(10/31/2014 11:04 AM, Trey Garrison)
Capital Economics: Weighing up the FHFA’s mortgage proposals

Proposals to lower the minimum down-payment on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-backed mortgages at the same time as reducing banks’ exposure to put-back risk may help accelerate the modest loosening in mortgage credit conditions that is in train.

But, notes Capital Economics in a client note, the changes will mean Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take on substantially more credit risk, which will do nothing for the long- term aim of reducing their role in the provision of mortgage credit. ?

“There were few specifics in FHFA Director Mel Watt’s speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association last week, but the most eye-catching proposal was to lower down-payments on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-backed loans to between 3%-5%. Current requirements vary, but successful applications normally need down-payments of 20%, which is a constraint on lending volumes,” says Paul Diggle, property economist for Capital Economics.

Federal rules are deterring banks from approving more home loans (Fresno Bee, CA)
Fresno Bee
(11/01/2014 8:00 AM, Tim Logan)
By most measures, the housing market should be roaring.

Prices are leveling off. Borrowing is cheap. Even the job market is recovering. And yet home sales are on pace to fall this year for the first time since 2010.

The torturous experience of home buyers such as Kalmele and Aaron Brown may help explain why. The couple, with solid jobs, pre-qualified for a mortgage a year ago and quickly found their "dream house." Just like that, they had a contract.

Then came the hard part. Getting bank approval took endless rounds of paperwork and intense scrutiny from underwriters. To bolster their application, they paid off an old student loan and beefed up their savings. They missed their initial closing date and nearly lost the house to another buyer.

The Browns eventually got their loan, closing on the house in February for $350,000. But their four-month ordeal highlights how federal rules put in place after the 2008 mortgage collapse are scaring banks away from all but the safest borrowers – and gumming up the process for everyone.

Federal regulators last week took their biggest steps yet to grease the wheels for borrowers, lowering down payment requirements on federally insured mortgages to 3.5 percent and issuing new rules for what qualifies as a safe loan. Regulators also promised clearer rules for when banks might be forced to buy back defaulted loans after selling them to investors.

It’s a bid to strike the right balance on lending rules, the nation’s top housing official told mortgage bankers, and breathe a little more life into the housing market.

"It’s in our entire nation’s best interest to help more responsible Americans succeed in the housing market by expanding access to credit," said Julian Castro, secretary of Housing and Urban Development. "Some believe that a few years ago, it was too easy to get a home loan. Now, it’s too hard."

Mortgage Applications Drop 6% in Latest MBA Survey (Reverse Mortgage Today)
Reverse Mortgage Today
(11/2/2014 8:09 PM, Jason Oliva)
The past week saw mortgage applications fall more than 6% compared to the previous seven day span, according to data from a recent Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) survey.

Applications decreased 6.6% from one week earlier, notes MBA’s latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 24.

Refinances fared slightly worse in the past week, declining 7% while MBA’s Purchase Index only decreased 5% from the prior week. Unadjusted, the Purchase Index was 15% lower than the same week one year ago, however, the seasonally adjusted purchase index and conventional purchase index were the lowest since February.

The average loan size for refinance applications decreased to $263,600 in the most recent week from a survey high of $306,400 recorded the previous week. This decline was driven largely by a 41% drop in refi applications for loans greater than $729,000, which surged almost 130% the week before, said MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni.

JPMorgan Tapped by Fannie Mae for New Risk-Sharing Bonds (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg
(10/31/2014 8:19 AM, Jody Shenn)
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM:US)’s sale of a new type of mortgage-linked bonds is the best glimpse yet into a possible future of the $9.4 trillion U.S. home-loan market.

The $47 million of securities raised cash from investors this week that can be used to offset some of Fannie Mae’s losses on its mortgage guarantees. The transferring of risk from almost $1 billion of loans packaged into separate Fannie Mae (FNMA:US) bonds resembles a model envisioned by bipartisan legislation passed by a Senate committee this year and endorsed by the Obama administration.

While government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have sold about $11 billion of their own risk-sharing notes since introducing them last year, the JPMorgan securities give a larger role to private capital. Unlike the case with the mortgage giants’ own offerings, Fannie Mae won’t need to wait for homeowner defaults to reach a threshold before getting payments to cover losses, according to Fitch Ratings.

Say Hello to the Next Banking Crisis (U.S. News & World Report)
U.S. News & World Report
(10/31/2014 11:47 AM, David Brodwin)
Regulators gutted a key rule that would have prevented future banking woes.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said philosopher George Santayana. This week, seven major U.S. regulatory agencies agreed to forget one of the most important lessons from the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008. This can’t help but end badly.

One of the most important lessons from the mortgage crisis is that banks should keep some skin in the game when they originate and sell loans. Otherwise, banks have an incentive to write loans carelessly, pocket as much money as they can, and sell the loans to investors before borrowers begin to miss payments. It’s bad enough when the bank sells the loans to private investors (who should know better, but apparently don’t). But it’s so much worse the bank sells the loan to government agencies; eventually the taxpayers pick up the tab when the loan goes bad.

To give banks a strong motivation not to lend money to people who can’t pay it back, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act called for banks to retain some of the risk in the loans they originate. Specifically, banks are supposed to retain 5 percent risk. For example, if a bank loans $200,000 to a home buyer, the bank is supposed to keep 5 percent of that loan (or $10,000) when it sells that loan to another investor. So if the loan goes bad, the bank loses $10,000 while the investor loses the rest. 5 percent may not seem like much, but it’s enough to make banks think twice.

Credit positive in HFA risk retention exemption (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(11/3/2014 12:04 AM, Trey Garrison)
Housing advocates want more from FHFA and how colleges affect housing

Moody’s Investors Service notes the approval of the final rule of the Dodd-Frank Act exempting housing finance agencies from the minimum 5% risk-retention requirement is a credit positive for HFAs, as it allows them to retain full mortgage financing flexibility.

This is also a reversal from the initial proposal, where HFS would have had to engage in risk sharing with investors, they emphasize.

“With this final exemption, HFAs are not handicapped by the risk-retention requirement and can continue using their current mortgage financing tools unimpeded. The HFA exemption also reflects the federal government’s support for HFAs, where lending programs help meet the affordable housing needs of first-time homebuyers. The US Treasury has long viewed HFAs as an integral part of affordable housing initiatives. The final rule cites HFAs’ strong track record of responsible lending and the public benefits of their programs as the basis for the exemption,” the analyst agency reports.

Moody’s declaration of “credit positive” or “credit negative” does not connote a rating or outlook change.It is indicative of the impact of a distinct event or development as one of many credit factors affecting the issuer.

HousingWire has exhaustively covered the issue of how student debt is affecting the mortgage and housing market, but now Clear Capital has a look for clients at how colleges and universities themselves are affecting housing.

“Colleges and universities are having an effect on housing across the country. Metros with noteworthy university influence are at the top of their class, with home price trends far outperforming national rates of growth since 2004,” Clear Capital says. “A sample of ten metros, each having a university presence, shows an average growth of 32% since 2004.”

Given how national home prices have only now climbed back up to 2004 price levels following nearly three years of recovery, these college towns have performed remarkably well. Their immunity to the boom-bust-bubble cycle proves these markets are unique in their sustained housing demand.

Homebuilders forecast a robust 2015 (The Hill)
The Hill
(10/31/2014 12:06 AM, Vicki Needham)
Homebuilders are feeling more upbeat about the housing market heading into next year.

Single-family housing production is expected to pick up pace in 2015 while multi-family building will hold its own amid an abundance of renters, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) fall construction forecast.

"Single-family builders are feeling good. They are not overly confident, but confident enough to keep moving forward," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.

The optimism stems from a combination of the growing economy, low mortgage rates and pent-up demand. In fact, expectations are for the single-family sector to finish out the year much stronger than it began, setting the stage for strong growth next year.

"This is mostly due to significant pent-up demand and steady job and economic growth that will allow trade-up buyers who have delayed home purchases due to job insecurity to enter the marketplace," Crowe said.

Why more liberal cities have less affordable housing (Washington Post)
Washington Post
(11/2/2014 11:29 AM, Ilya Somin)
Derek Thompson of The Atlantic has an interesting article covering some of the reasons why, despite their ideological commitment to helping the disadvantaged, more liberal cities tend to have less affordable housing:

In general, richer cities have less affordable housing.

But there’s a second reason why San Francisco’s problem is emblematic of a national story. Liberal cities seem to have the worst affordability crises, according to Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko.

In a recent article, Kolko divided the largest cities into 32 “red” metros where Romney got more votes than Obama in 2012 (e.g. Houston), 40 “light-blue” markets where Obama won by fewer than 20 points (e.g. Austin), and 28 “dark-blue” metros where Obama won by more than 20 points (e.g. L.A., SF, NYC). Although all three housing groups faced similar declines in the recession and similar bounce-backs in the recovery, affordability remains a bigger problem in the bluest cities.

“Even after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability,” Kolko said.

Kolko’s theory isn’t an outlier. There is a deep literature tying liberal residents to illiberal housing policies that create affordability crunches for the middle class. In 2010, UCLA economist Matthew Kahn published a study of California cities, which found that liberal metros issued fewer new housing permits. The correlation held over time: As California cities became more liberal, he said, they built fewer homes.

The high cost of housing in liberal cities is in large part caused by highly restrictive zoning rules, which in recent years have caused many African-Americans and others to move away from major northeastern cities to areas with less restrictive zoning and lower housing prices in the south and southwest.

Why do liberal cities enact policies that often making housing unaffordable for the poor and much of the middle class? The cynical explanation is that “limousine liberal” voters only pretend to care about affordable housing for the poor and the middle class, but in reality adopt zoning restrictions to keep home prices up and prevent the riffraff from living near them. Such motives may be present in some cases. But, on most issues, there is little correlation between political views and measures of narrow self-interest. It is therefore likely that most voters in liberal cities do genuinely care about affordable housing and the interests of the poor.

The virus that plagues our body politic is not selfish voting, but ignorant voting. Like their conservative counterparts, most liberal voters don’t think carefully about the possible negative side effects of their preferred policies. Just as most of them do not realize that rent control diminishes the stock of housing, they also may not realize that zoning restrictions diminish it, and thereby increase housing costs.

Conservative voters have their own characteristic patterns of economic ignorance. Both sides tend to ignore or even blatantly misinterpret evidence that cuts against their preferred views – especially if the evidence or the reasoning behind it is counterintuitive. To a considerable extent, the high cost of housing in liberal cities is yet another negative effect of widespread political ignorance.

Is Your House Red or Blue? (Bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg.com
(10/31/2014 5:49 PM, Megan McArdle)
It is often remarked that blue cities, full of people who purport to care about affordable housing and reducing inequality, have some of the highest rates of inequality as well as the highest housing prices in the nation. Along comes Trulia with a graph that demonstrates this phenomenon dramatically. The online real estate site compared home prices in local housing markets to the percentage by which President Barack Obama won or lost the popular vote in the 2012 election:

Inequality also seems to be correlated with blue-stateness. It’s harder to get data on inequality by city, but if you look at state-level data, you see that the top three for inequality are New York, Washington, D.C., and Connecticut ... and of the states that rank lower than the U.S. average for all three major measures of inequality, red or purple states predominate, while less than a third are bright blue.

Why would this be? I suspect that immigration plays a role in inequality; if you open your doors to a large number of low-skilled workers who don’t speak the local language, they will drive up your rates of poverty and inequality, even if there’s no change in the relative income of the people who were there before. On a national level, this factor probably doesn’t drive a huge amount of the change in inequality over the last few decades. But on a local level, I suspect it does.

A sizable number of blue cities also have vast fortunes made possible by the globalization of everything: finance, entertainment, technology. The concentration of those industries in blue cities drives up income inequality; it also drives up the price of the houses those kinds of people live in.

6 housing boomtowns that haven’t come back (USA Today)
USA Today
(11/01/2014 7:33 AM, Howard R. Gold)
They were the boomtowns of the Great Housing Bubble, Sun Belt meccas for thousands of families wanting to live the American Dream on easy credit and little money down.

But then came the housing bust and the Great Recession, wrecking more than just their dreams. In some hard-hit cities, more than half of the homes were worth less than the balances on their mortgages.

Now, eight to nine years after the peak, some former boomtowns have begun to recover. Unemployment is falling and home prices are posting double-digit percentage increases.

But in other areas, despite housing prices well off their lows, recovery remains elusive. These former boomtowns are now zombie cities, the housing bubble’s walking dead.

They’re concentrated in California and Florida, where property prices were bid up the most. Often they relied too heavily on one industry: home construction itself.

The six "zombie cities" include four in California’s Central Valley and two in the Sunshine State.

Located between I-5 to the west and Yosemite National Park and Death Valley to the east, Modesto, Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield were the ultimate housing boomtowns.

Among former Florida boomtowns, Lakeland, located between Tampa and Orlando, had little to fall back on when home construction crashed. Melbourne, on Florida’s East Coast, has been hit hard by the end of the space shuttle program, added Snaith of UCF.

All six former boomtowns face a long, arduous climb back.

Here’s why falling home prices is not good news (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(10/31/2014 2:54 PM, Lynn Effinger)
As someone who has been in and around the housing and mortgage servicing industries for as long as I have, I am always on the lookout for articles and other information that discuss the condition of the economy in general and the housing market in particular. Not being shy to enter a debate on these subjects, I was interested to read a recent article published in Scotsman’s Guide, “As home values moderate, fears of bubble deflate”-- Catchy, if not inaccurate.

The reason this article caught my eye is that in it, Zillow (Z) economists are quoted as saying the recent slowdown in home prices might actually be good for homebuyers, steering the market away from a bubble. Interesting, given that the recent announcement by the Federal Open Market Committee that they had ended bond purchases, effectively ends quantitative easing, which means interest rates will no doubt soon be rising. Many economists and housing analysts agree that a rise in interest rates will negatively impact the economy, particularly with respect to the housing sector. This will hardly be good for homebuyers.

In the Scotsman Guide article, Zillow Chief Economist, Stan Humphries, is quoted as saying, “We always knew these market conditions [rapidly rising prices] couldn’t last, and it’s good to see us now on a more natural and sustained glide path down toward more normal market conditions of roughly 3 percent annual appreciation.”

But Mr. Humphries’ comment presupposes that prices will only decline so much, and doesn’t take into consideration that in some markets prices just might decrease into negative territory. This very potential was proffered by a recent home value analysis by Clear Capital warning that home prices might decrease enough to head into negative territory, which would put some homeowners underwater once again. This is certainly not a “good thing.”

Decreasing sales of bank-owned, distressed properties is an indication that many investors, especially institutional investors who played a key role in helping to artificially push home prices upward, are leaving the market. This means that ordinary homebuyers would need to actively participate in the housing market. This will be complicated if, as other analysts and I believe, that interest rates will begin to rise early in 2015.

US real estate market is still upbeat on equity (The Real Deal, NY)
The Real Deal
(10/31/2014 1:43 PM, Kenneth Harvey)
It’s official: The equity boom, which has added an estimated $1.6 trillion to the personal net wealth of American homeowners in the past year, has slowed dramatically. It’s not over by any means. It has just lost some of its previous pep.

In the latest quarterly data from the Federal Reserve, which tracks residential real estate, home equity holdings across the country rose by $177 billion.

That sounds massive but it’s actually down significantly from the previous quarter, when equity soared by $452 billion — nudging half a trillion.

So what’s going on and how does this affect you? First, some basics. Your equity is the difference between the current resale value of your home and the mortgage debt you’ve got on it. If your house would sell this weekend for $300,000 and your mortgage balance is $150,000, you’ve got $150,000 in equity, not counting transaction costs. This is wealth stored away in your own private real estate savings account.

You can sit on it, borrow against it to finance home improvements or college tuitions, and you can factor it into your retirement plans. According to the Federal Reserve, home equity holdings in the latest quarter hit $10.84 trillion. That’s up from $6.4 trillion as recently as 2011. These are big, brain-numbing numbers no doubt, but equity is a crucially important subject for millions of people who are counting on it.

Black Knight: At least 7.4M mortgages should refinance (HousingWire)
HousingWire
(11/3/2014 5:37 AM, Trey Garrison)
Negative equity share drops under 8%; HELOC problems loom

Recent, record-low reductions in the average 30-year mortgage interest rate have expanded the population of borrowers who could benefit from refinancing by nearly 25%, according to the latest mortgage monitor from Black Knight Financial Services.

“Before the most recent reductions in the average 30-year mortgage interest rate, approximately six million borrowers met broad-based ‘refinancibility’ criteria,” said Trey Barnes, Black Knight’s senior vice president of Loan Data Products. “These criteria assume loan-to-value ratios of 80% or below, good credit, non-delinquent loan status and current interest rates high enough that borrowers have an incentive to refinance. In light of where rates are today, and looking at borrowers with current notes at 4.5% and above, that population has now swelled to 7.4 million – almost a 25% increase.

“This is a relatively conservative assessment though, as those with current rates of 4.25 to 4.5% could arguably benefit from refinancing as well. That group adds another 1.7 million borrowers to the population,” Barnes said. “On a related note, we also examined how the equity situation in America has changed since we last looked. Due in no small part to 28 consecutive months of home price appreciation since 2012, we’ve seen the share of borrowers with negative equity drop down to just below eight% as of July, down from a level of 33% at the end of 2011, and to its lowest point since 2007.”

One subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t enough? (Bakersfield Californian)
Bakersfield Californian
(11/2/2014 1:10 PM, Opinion)
Are we really this imprudent? Mel Watt, currently head of the Federal Housing Finance Authority, recently announced plans -- in a speech at a Las Vegas casino, of all places -- to allow mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which he regulates, to purchase loans with down payments as low as 3 percent.

The goal is to enable more borrowers with bad credit or low income to buy homes, which may be good for banks and the housing industry in the short term, but would be an unmitigated disaster for the American people.

And it’s one we already lived through a few short years ago. It’s been dubbed "the Great Recession." We know exactly what bad lending policies led us up to the brink of that precipice, and, yet, here we go again.

We’ve accepted as a culture that it was greedy bankers who sparked the crisis, and they were certainly happy to join the party. However, it was just this type of deliberately loose standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged at the time by the George W. Bush White House, that actually lit the fuse by promoting and buying high-risk loans from banks because the government was on a political crusade to encourage homeownership, even for those who fundamentally could not afford it.

Watt is a longtime Democratic congressman appointed to the FHFA by President Barack Obama in January, and he is clearly more interested in pursuing ideological goals than keeping lending policy stable and sensible.

Chinese buyers trending into Greenwich [CT] real estate (Connecticut Post, CT)
Connecticut Post
(10/31/2014 11:07 PM, Maggie Gordon)
An influx of Chinese buyers in the Greenwich luxury real estate market is pushing local real estate agencies to expand their reach in an effort to compete on a global basis.

Sotheby’s International Realty announced in late October that the firm officially opened a new office in Beijing, marking the second office for the company there. It’s part of what Sotheby’s spokeswoman Kristina Helb called "a continued effort to appeal to foreign buyers," and a push to "market Connecticut listings to wealthy Chinese buyers looking to purchase or invest overseas."

And there’s quite the demand, according to the National Association of Realtors. A survey published by the group this summer reports that the amount of real estate Chinese buyers are snapping up across America is increasing dramatically. In the 12 months leading up to March 2013, Chinese buyers purchased $12.8 billion in

real estate across the country; a year later, the figure was up to $22 billion, accounting for 24 percent of money
flowing into the nation from international sales.

Williamsburg [VA] area home prices on an upward trend (Newport News Daily Press, VA)
Newport News Daily Press
(10/31/2014 4:59 PM, Steve Vaughan)
The local real estate market has picked up so far this year and the Williamsburg Area Association of Realtors hopes a new web portal it just created will boost the trend.

Linda Kinsman, executive director of the association, said the trend here mirrors the nation. "Markets across the nation seem to be back on the recovery track after a brief pause," she said. "One of the more encouraging aspects of this renewed recovery is that new construction of single-family homes reached six-year highs in August, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and is reflective of the activity occurring in the Williamsburg market."

Association president Andrew Nelson, of Coldwell Banker Traditions, was a little more cautious, saying the Williamsburg area remains a "buyer’s market."

"Very much so. Buyers are still able to pick and choose," he said, adding that despite some encouraging numbers the market "remains a bit slack."

According to the association’s data, July saw a 21.6 percent increase in the single-family attached median sales price compared to the same time last year.

Year-to-date through September, sales prices have risen 3.1 percent to $231,500. That’s compared to $224,500 a year ago. New, pending (under contract) and closed sales are holding steady from 2013. "Activity in James City County continues steady with a 2.4 percent increase in new listings, and 10.3 percent increase in closed
sales and a healthy inventory of eight months," Kinsman said.

Miami [FL] No. 1 in all-cash home purchases (The Real Deal - South Florida)
The Real Deal - South Florida
(10/31/2014 12:37 AM, Jennifer White Karp)
Miami is the top city for all-cash home purchases, according to a report today on Cribsuite.com, which cited the latest Confidence Index from the National Association of Realtors.

More than 64 percent of home sales in the Miami metro area were bought in all-cash transactions during the second quarter of this year. That figure tops all major metro areas in the county.

As is typical of areas where all-cash home purchases are prevalent, the housing market in the Miami metro area has been relatively distressed.

More than 10 percent of property sales in the area in July were short sales — among the higher rates in the U.S. The median list price for this region was $225,000.

Gulf Coast housing market shows improvement [MS] (Jackson Clarion-Ledger, MS)
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
(10/31/2014 11:35 PM, Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
A better economy in 2014 has resulted in an increase in home sales, job gains and people moving to the Mississippi Gulf Coast area.

“I think it’s growing at a slow, secure appreciation rate. It’s moving upward, but it’s moving slow, which I think is healthy for the market,” Joe Rogers, executive director of Gulf Coast Association of Realtors and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Multiple Listing Service, told the Sun Herald.

Rogers said the MLS reported 2,883 house sales from January through September, about a 6.7 percent increase from the same period last year. If the trend continues through the remaining quarter, the housing market will have achieved four years of steady growth, he said.

S.A. emerges as Texas’ ‘gateway to power’ (San Antonio Express-News, TX)
MySanAntonio
(11/1/2014 10:20 PM, John W. Gonzalez)
SAN ANTONIO — This could go down in history as that time San Antonio finally achieved political stardom.

The vote-rich city played its most prominent role ever in a Texas election, with statewide candidates treating it as a second home and several local politicians achieving national renown.

Tuesday’s midterm balloting will seal the city’s place in political lore, ending an election cycle in which many key moments unfolded in the Alamo City.

It was at Holt Cat that Gov. Rick Perry announced he was not seeking re-election.

Three days later, testing the gubernatorial waters after her famous filibuster, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, rallied hundreds of abortion rights supporters at Sunset Station, the first of her many campaign stops here. The following Sunday afternoon at sweltering La Villita, Attorney General Greg Abbott launched his quest to replace Perry.

At that event, the Bexar GOP’s then-chairman, Curt Nelson, prophetically noted: "San Antonio is going to be a major presence in 2014."

And throw into the mix the headline-grabbing year for the Castro brothers. Then-Mayor Julián Castro drew GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick to the city in April to debate immigration, while his twin, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, became a national spokesman for his party and its position on immigration reform and border security.

The national spotlight returned to San Antonio in July, when the mayor accepted President Barack Obama’s nomination to serve as secretary of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Suddenly, San Antonio had another son in the Cabinet, and even more attention was lavished on the city when Ivy Taylor ascended from her City Council seat to serve as Mayor Castro’s interim replacement — making history as the
city’s first African-American mayor.

Bank [CO] made few mortgage loans to Hispanics (Charlotte Observer, NC)
Charlotte Observer
(11/2/2014 2:28 PM, Associated Press)
DENVER - A former board member says a bank formed to help Latinos has done very little mortgage lending to that community.

The Denver Post reports Solera National Bank approved nearly $257 million for home purchases or refinancing existing mortgages through 2013, but most have been to non-Latinos.

Former board member Basil Sabbah says the goal of the bank was to increase the number of loans to Latinos, but that did not happen.

Solera’s current CEO Robert Fenton says the bank stopped offering residential mortgages and the bank was not in the residential mortgage business long enough to draw conclusions.



Texas housing market on track for second-best year ever (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(11/3/2014 6:01 AM, Sandra Baker)
Economists with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University are forecasting that 2014 will end as the second-best year ever for the Texas housing market.

“Last year was the second-best year ever in the state of Texas for home sales volume,” research economist Jim Gaines said in a report from the center. “It was second only to 2006, which was at the height of the housing boom and all the easy financing. And 2013 wasn’t that far off from that. This is going to become the new second-best year ever. We are having a really terrific year.”

At the end of September, 217,690 homes had been sold in Texas, a 1 percent gain from the same period in 2013, the report said.

“We’re getting exactly what we thought we were going to get, and that’s a slowdown in the rate of increase,” Gaines said. “Last year sales went up about 16 percent. It was a big, big jump. This year it’s a little jump. Home prices are doing a very similar kind of thing. There’s been a step-up in prices the last five years, and we’re still seeing that step up. But the rise of the step isn’t quite as high.”

Hispanic-focused Solera Bank [CO] made few loans to Front Range Hispanics (Denver Post)
Denver Post
(11/2/2014 11:29 AM, David Migoya)
Solera National Bank was formed specifically with Latinos in mind — a dedication it still trumpets seven years after it was created — yet the bank has done very little mortgage lending to that community, federal data shows.

The bulk of the bank’s home loans through 2013 — nearly $257 million for home purchases or refinancing existing mortgages — have been to non-Latinos, and a large share of those dollars went to areas far from Solera’s Lakewood headquarters, including mortgages in Hawaii and Alabama, according to data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

Even while the bank’s board was largely comprised of prominent Latinos from the Denver area, Latinos made up few of the bank’s mortgage clients — although about 40 percent of its depositors are Latino.

Only two of those board members responded to Denver Post efforts to reach them by e-mail or telephone, with one referring questions back to the bank.

"The hope was to change that," former board member Basil Sabbah said of the few Latinos given loans. "But I can’t say why that didn’t happen."

Last year when Solera launched a heavy push into mortgage lending, a move that eventually drew the ire of its largest shareholder and a proxy battle that changed control of the bank’s board, the bulk of the loans were to non-Latinos and largely to outlying parts of Colorado.

Solera made 997 loans in 2013, the most recent data available, of which less than 6 percent were to Latinos. Of the 997 mortgages, 84 percent of them were made outside of the bank’s core six-county Denver metro
community.

As housing market recovers, roadblocks remain [CA] (The Business Journal, CA)
The Business Journal
(10/31/2014 5:06 PM, Hannah Esqueda)
Despite median home prices and sales of homes in the Central Valley increasing since the recession, industry experts warn that many obstacles still remain for homebuyers.

Concerns over job security and market stability are some of the main reasons we are becoming a nation of renters, said Selma Happ, senior economist with the California Association of Realtors. Happ was the keynote speaker during the 2014 Fresno Housing Market Symposium at Fresno State last week.

“Those under 40 are the least likely to have recovered from the recession,” Happ said.

The market was once driven by this younger generation but not anymore, and more individuals are postponing buying a home.

This trend has helped to put the breaks on the growth of the housing market that had seen record growth until last summer. And while the Fresno market has seen new interest because of the high-speed rail project, Fresno’s younger generation is still unlikely to stop renting anytime soon.

Scott Burns: Jumping from bubble to boom [CA] (Dallas Morning News, TX)
Dallas Morning News
(11/1/2014 8:08 PM, Scott Burns)
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — According to Trulia, homes in Palm Springs enjoyed average appreciation of 43 percent last year. It now has a $317,000 median sales price and an average selling price per square foot of $227. But there’s no immediate sense of a real estate bubble here.
www.helb.co.ke loan disbursement
If anything, you get a sense of scarcity. Listings are few, and houses sell fast. This makes Palm Springs like much of the country: a sellers’ market, but more so. Before everything was a bubble, we called this supply and demand.

Maybe it’s just a confluence of age and fashion. What we have here is a boomer flood. All are looking for the home of their dreams, their literal place in the sun.

Welcome to the New Old Money. Where once it meant inherited money, today it’s the money some retirees have. National Association of Realtors data tells us that some of the fastest-appreciating areas are places we associate with old folks.

Homes in the Naples-Marco Island area of Florida appreciated 16.8 percent over the year ending in June. Las Vegas and Paradise, Nev., rose 14.2 percent over the same period. And the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area of Florida rose 12.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the median existing home price appreciation for the country was a mere 4.4 percent.
- helb breaking news
Headlines

The Washington Post
(11/1/20147:00 AM)
Ferguson officer unlikely to face civil rights case
Felons freed during probe of FBI agent
Local TV stations cash in amid deluge of political ads
The small-town downtown
Deadly explosion of spaceship stuns industry

(11/2/20147:00 AM)
Republicans appear set to take control of Senate, but hope remains for Democrats
Pentagon’s plan for overseas spy service curtailed amid concerns
Parents work to get into the equation with Common Core
A father’s scars: For Creigh Deeds, tragedy leaves unending questions
In Maryland, race for governor has turned unexpectedly tight
- helb facebook
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
In Alabama, race again at heart of voting rights debate — but with twist
U.S.-backed Syria rebels routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda
Cruz aims to take on Obama if GOP wins Senate; won’t vow support for McConnell
A flurry of campaigning across the nation as Election Day nears
A is for abacus, O is for outhouse seat: Educator donates collection to Smithsonian

The New York Times
(11/1/20147:00 AM)
Repeal of Health Law, Once Central to G.O.P., Is Side Issue in Campaigns
Turkish Leader, Using Conflicts, Cements Power
Syrian’s Photos Spur Outrage, but Not Action
G.O.P. Ads Chase Voters at Home and on the Go
Better Staffing Seen as Crucial to Ebola Treatment in Africa
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Crashes in New Setback for Commercial Spaceflight
- helb loan balance
(11/2/20147:00 AM)
Putin’s Friend Profits in Purge of Schoolbooks
Braving Ebola
Both Parties See Campaign Tilting to Republicans
Handling of Sexual Harassment Case Poses Larger Questions at Yale
Braced for a Shift in Congress, Obama Is Setting a New Agenda
- helb subsequent application 2016/2017
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
Senate Control May Be Decided by Runoff Votes in Louisiana and Georgia
A Flood of Late Spending on Midterm Elections, From Murky Sources
Multimedia Feature: Bracing for the Falls of an Aging Nation
Iraqis Prepare ISIS Offensive, With U.S. Help
Heartache for New York’s Catholics as Church Closings Are Announced
One Day in an Elevator With Obama, Then Out of a Job
Arm Bump Precedes Late Burst in Men’s Race


- helb contacts
The Wall Street Journal
(11/1/2014 and 11/2/20147:00 AM)
Japan Takes Massive Stimulus Actions
Global Stocks Rally
Senate Control Comes Down to Eight Races
U.S. Ebola Survivors Tread Lonely Journeys
Runners Know a Stitch Hurts Time, But Its Cause Remains a Mystery

(11/3/20147:00 AM)
Voters Favor GOP by Slim Margin for Control of Congress
Big Oil Feels Need to Get Smaller
Convert to Islam Tests Boundaries of Germany’s Terror Laws
NTSB Cites Improper Pilot Command in Virgin Galactic Disaster

ABC News
(11/2/20143:30 PM)
Inside the Hangar Where Eric Frein Was Captured
Arrests in LA-Area Halloween Crash That Killed 3 Teens
DNC Head Predicts Democrats Will Hold Senate Because of Strong Ground Game
- helb deadline
NBC News
(11/2/20143:30 PM)
Death With Dignity Advocate Brittany Maynard Dies in Oregon
SpaceShipTwo ‘Feather’ Tail System Deployed Prematurely: NTSB
Climate Change Dangers Are ‘Higher Than Ever’: U.N. Report

CBS News
(11/2/20143:30 PM)
Death with dignity advocate Brittany Maynard ends her life
Space plane’s braking devices deployed early: NTSB
Campaigning for ISIS in the West

Washington Schedule

President
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
The White House
See source link. Schedule not yet available.
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Vice President
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
The White House
See source link. Schedule not yet available.

Senate
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
Senate
Senate is not in session.

House of Representatives
(11/3/20147:00 AM)
House of Representatives
House is not in session.

{End of Report}


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