New Issue of Shelterforce Magazine

Posted by on May 20, 2005

[posted from Comm-Org listserv]

From: David Holtzman

NEW ISSUE OF SHELTERFORCE MAGAZINE

Organizing People Through Civic Engagement
In many cities struggling to come back after years of decay, it takes much more than building housing and installing street lamps to start a revival. It also takes people. But residents who have been kept out of civic activities for decades by fear and racial tension need to be encouraged to get involved. Community developers in Lawrence, Mass. are showing how it can be done.
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/140/LCW.html

Priming the Market to Bring Back the Neighborhood
Hundreds of American cities have high rates of poverty and unemployment and large amounts of vacant and abandoned properties. They also have very few municipal resources to meet all of their day-to-day challenges. In most of these cities housing dollars are spent in areas of greatest need, but some contend a better use of these limited funds would be to stimulate the market by targeting neighborhoods with fewer needs. Can this market-based solution to urban distress work?
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/140/brink.html

Laying the Blame
Racial segregation has many causes, but in January a federal court decided that one cause of segregation in Baltimore was the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the latest of a series of rulings spanning decades, HUD has been told clearly it must correct its public housing policies that have led to extreme concentrations of poverty in Baltimore?s inner city along with racial segregation. Can HUD undo its past?
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/140/court.html

Advocates Show Need for Healthy Homes
Environmental justice and tenant advocates aren?t waiting for legislators to write tougher policies to protect people from lead paint, mold and other hazards in their homes. They are getting together to document these problems ? and winning policy changes as a result.
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/140/healthyhomes.html

Important reading in the new issue of Shelterforce, the Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building

David Holtzman
Associate Editor
Shelterforce Magazine
460 Bloomfield Avenue, Suite 211
Montclair, NJ 07042-3552
973-509-2888
973-509-8005 fax
http://www.nhi.org