On Our Radar

The New York Times, March 4, 2024, This Couple Won Their Dream Apartment Through The N.Y.C. Housing Lottery That’s when NYC Housing Connect, a city-run online portal for connecting renters with low and middle incomes with affordable housing through open lotteries, came through on both fronts. In the fall of 2021, they were picked in […]

Axios, February 29, 2024, Old Photos Used To Preserve NYC Latino And Caribbean Stories NuevaYorkinos, a project to preserve New York’s Latino and Caribbean American history through community-submitted photos and videos, is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Why it matters: Latinos in historically Hispanic neighborhoods like Bushwick, Sunset Park and Washington Heights who have been increasingly pushed out

The New York Times, March 1, 2024, Developers Got Backing For Affordable Housing. Then The Neighborhood Found Out. When developers set out to build 60 subsidized apartments in an affluent corner of Florence, S.C., the chairman of the County Council waxed enthusiastic. Affordable housing “would serve a great need,” he wrote, and its proximity to

The Lever, March 1, 2024, The Fed Is Behind The Credit Card Merger Capital One’s recently announced attempt to buy the credit card company Discover hits at all of these elements of the business. While the merger looks like a credit card bank buying another credit card bank — and it’s certainly that — it is more

The New York Times, March 1, 2024, High Mortgage Rates Leave Biden Searching For Housing Relief Mr. Biden’s forthcoming budget request will call on Congress to pass a raft of initiatives to build more affordable housing and help certain Americans afford to purchase a home. The president is also expected to address housing affordability for

The American Prospect, March 1, 2024, A Public Option For Credit Card Shopping With that kind of discrepancy, you would think that bigger card issuers would lose market share to those who offer better terms. But that brings us to this week’s CFPB action against credit card comparison-shopping websites. Credit Karma, NerdWallet, LendingTree, Bankrate, and others all offer shopping tools that

Bloomberg, February 29, 2024, Why A White House Plan To Fund Office-To-Housing Conversions Isn’t Working In October, the Biden administration directed USDOT to make $35 billion in financing available for transit-oriented development projects to help speed the transformation of underutilized office space into much-needed housing. The funds, typically used to finance rail infrastructure, could now be tapped

Reuters, February 28, 2024, Why US Housing Inflation Relief May Be Short-Lived US Federal Reserve officials say they are confident housing inflation will finally cool in coming months, a key and long-awaited component of their effort to control overall price increases and secure their turn to interest rate cuts. Housing markets vary widely across the

The Hill, February 28, 2024, San Francisco Issues Apology To Black Residents For Decades Of Discrimination The board of supervisors for the city in a unanimous vote approved a resolution offering the apology. “This historic resolution apologizes on behalf of San Francisco to the African American community and their descendants for decades of systemic and

CNN, February 25, 2024, How Shipping Containers In Atlanta Became Tiny Homes For The Homeless Tucked into downtown Atlanta, The Melody, named after an Atlanta native who died after a struggle with chronic homelessness, is the city’s latest project providing housing for the unhoused. Made from metal shipping containers, the new tiny homes have anything

WBUR, February 23, 2024, Boston Housing Authority Helps Section 8 Tenants Become First-Time Buyers  pair of programs that seek to pivot Section 8 tenants into new homeowners are gaining traction, according to Boston Housing Authority officials who hope more qualified residents will tap into the opportunities this year. One program includes a $75,000 grant that

The New York Times, February 23, 2024, A New ‘Holy Grail’ In The Housing Crisis: Statewide Rent Caps Deemed a priority by the Democratic leaders who control the State Legislature, the bill has cleared the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate. If it is enacted, Washington would become the third state in

The New York Times, February 26, 2024, Rents Are Falling. So Why Isn’t That Showing Up In Inflation Data Overall inflation has eased substantially over the past year. But housing has proved a tenacious — and surprising — exception. The cost of shelter was up 6 percent in January from a year earlier, and rose

Axios Nashville, February 22, 2024, Proposal Would Amend Metro Nashville Charter To Protect Affordable Housing At Fairgrounds A new proposal would change the Metro charter by swapping out auto racing for affordable housing on the list of required programming at the fairgrounds property. Why it matters: The proposal tests the popularity of auto racing at the

WBUR, February 21, 2024, 20 Landlords, Property Companies Sued For Discrimination By Housing Watchdog A nonprofit housing watchdog group is suing 20 Boston-area property companies and real estate brokers for allegedly discriminating against low-income tenants. The lawsuit, brought by the Lawyers for Civil Rights and Handley Farah & Anderson on behalf of the group Housing