Bloomberg, May 6, 2024, Massachusetts Eyes Mansion Tax To Fund Affordable Housing Governor Maura Healey’s $4 billion housing bond bill, the state’s biggest-ever investment in its residential stock, includes a provision allowing cities to impose a transfer fee of 0.5% to 2% on property sales exceeding $1 million. The revenue generated would go toward affordable housing projects.

The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2024, Texas Ban On ‘Woke’ Banks Opens Door For Smaller Firms The clash over environmental, social and corporate-governance investing follows state restrictions passed in 2021 on government business with financial firms perceived as taking a stand against firearms or fossil fuels. Wall Street heavyweights such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo have

CNBC, May 1, 2024, Why Hundreds Of US Banks May Be At Risk Of Failure Consulting firm Klaros Group analyzed about 4,000 U.S. banks and found 282 banks face the dual threat of commercial real estate loans and potential losses tied to higher interest rates. The majority of those banks are smaller lenders with less than

The Hill, May 1, 2024, Affordable Housing Crisis Looms Large In Election A White House report released in March found that although incomes have doubled since 2000, housing prices have tripled, meaning the housing prices rose 50 percent faster than income over the past two decades. The median home price recently hit $383,725, a record high that’s

Vox, April 30, 2024, After Decades Of Inaction, States Are Finally Stepping Up On Housing Over the last five years, Republican and Democratic legislators and governors in a slew of states have looked to update zoning codes, transform residential planning processes, and improve home-building and design requirements. Some states that have stepped up include Oregon, Florida, Montana, and California,

WSIU News, April 29, 2024, Pritzker Administration Announces Illinois’ Largest Annual Award For Permanent Supportive Housing The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) has announced more than $123 million in state and federal resources have been awarded by the agency to finance permanent supportive housing throughout Illinois. Awarded under Round X of IHDA’s Permanent Supportive Housing

Axios, April 29, 2024, Young Americans’ Wealth Has Soared Since The Pandemic Household wealth for those under 40 in the U.S. is up 49% from its pre-pandemic level, according to a new analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Why it matters: Young households haven’t seen wealth growth like this since the Federal Reserve first started

Black Enterprise, April 29, 2024, Study Racial Segregation Public Schools Widespread The report on the state of public school education in America was commissioned to mark the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that officially ended segregating schools by race. However, the system of segregation by other means was never addressed, and as the study makes clear,

MishTalk, April 28, 2024, Biden Embraces A Wealth Tax to Address Racial Wealth Inequality The Budget would tax long-term capital gains and dividends at ordinary rates for taxpayers with more than $1 million in income, curtailing a tax expenditure the benefits of which accrue disproportionately to White families. It would also treat transfers of appreciated

Axios, April 27, 2024, Home Values Are Down Across Austin Nearly every ZIP code in the Austin area saw typical home values decline compared to a year ago, per Zillow data shared with Axios. The big picture: Austin’s housing market, once the country’s hottest, is now “running in reverse,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

CBS News, April 29, 2024, Oregon Medicaid Patients Get Air Conditioning, Mini Fridges As Climate Change Drives Health Concerns At least 20 states, including California, Massachusetts and Washington, already direct billions of Medicaid dollars into programs such as helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for people with diabetes, according to KFF. Oregon is the

Bloomberg, April 29, 2024, Here’s How Immigration Will Boost The US Economy, From Strong Hiring To More Housing Growth in employment has continually surprised to the upside in recent years, running at a pace formerly deemed as unsustainable. Economists have coalesced around population growth as a key explanation after a recent Congressional Budget Office report estimated

Shelterforce, April 26, 2024, Criminalizing Homelessness Supreme Court Case Gives Us A Chance To Change The Narrative Many housing organizations have been sounding the alarm for decades that homelessness is a housing issue, that housing should be a human right, that housing must come first in our efforts to help those who are unsheltered, and that the

Shelterforce, April 25, 2024, Are Insurance Problems On The Horizon For Community Development Groups? Woodruff was alarmed and puzzled. The Community Opportunity Alliance doesn’t own or manage real estate, and is not a developer. Nor had it given Travelers any reason to question their business relationship. While insurer-initiated nonrenewals are not uncommon, they usually follow a

New York Post, April 25, 2024, Queens Hotel Begins Its Transformation Into Affordable Housing The 350-room JFK Hilton is well on its way to becoming perhaps the only byproduct of a program intended to convert hotels into permanent residences for low-income and formerly homeless New Yorkers, according to Gothamist.  The property — located next to the