Kaid Benfield, Director of Sustainable Communities for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently posted a piece entitled The case for building on a city's historic assests on Switchboard, the NRDC's staff blog.

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The "robosigning" controversy that came to light in 2010 caused foreclosure practices across the nation to come under close scrutiny, and millions of foreclosures to be halted. Ultimately, 14 mortgage servicers entered into consent orders, which required reviews by third-party consultants of their loan files for errors in servicing and foreclosure practices.

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The MacArthur Foundation today released the results of their national How Housing Matters Survey conducted by Hart Research Associates. 1,433 adults were surveyed via telephone and asked about their perceptions regarding the current housing market and attitudes about renting vs. homeownership.

Key findings include:

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The January 24, 2013 issue of the MacArthur Foundation's Housing Matters SmartBrief features a report conducted by AARP indicating that middle-income households age 50 or older spent a larger percentage of their incomes on mortgages in 2009 than they did a decade earlier.

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An editorial in Monday's New York Times focuses on the Mount Laurel Doctrine – the 1983 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of exclusionary zoning as a means of preventing construction of affordable housing in wealthy communities.

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A recent Editorial in The New York Times cites the lack of affordable housing as "one of America's most vexing problems," and urges that "more must be done to create affordable housing." Specifically, the piece suggests the new Congress should put money into the National Housing Trust Fund.

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This week, Ethan Handelman, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy for the National Housing Conference (NHC), outlined several important actions for housing that have come from the recent 'fiscal cliff' discussion. The American Taxpayer Relief Act (also known as HR 8) includes:

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A recent editorial in the New York Times calls for better investment in programs that will help lower income families afford housing, particularly those who are renting. The editorial cites the increase in the number of families across the country who are paying more than half their income on housing, along with the $2.5 billion reduction in federal financing of affordable housing programs from 2010 to 2012.

"With nearly nine million households teetering on the verge of homelessness, the country clearly needs more support for affordable housing, not less," the editorial notes.

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A Rhode Island development has been named a finalist in Affordable Housing Finance (AHF) magazine's 8th Annual Readers' Choice Awards in the Special-Needs category.

OpenDoors Housing LLC, located in Providence, is a rehabilitated historic building designed to provide 19 permanent supportive homes for ex-offenders who are at risk of becoming homeless upon leaving prison.

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HousingWorks RI is pleased to announce the relocation of our operations from The Rhode Island Foundation to the Providence campus of Roger Williams University (RWU). The move creates synergy between the strategic objectives of the University and the research, policy, and communications work of HousingWorks RI.

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