Fair Housing Month Round-Up #6
- The latest post on the From Poverty to Opportunity Campaign blog is entitled, “Poverty is rising, but so is momentum to end it.” Well said. Make sure to read their just-released Illinois Report on Poverty (.pdf available on their blog). While you’re there, make sure to endorse the campaign.
- Today was the first-ever national “Fair Housing Education Day”.
- The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, the Asian Real Estate Association of America, and the National Association of Real Estate Brokers found that “declining market policies have a disparate impact on minority and low-income neighborhoods”. MoveSmart.org board member and co-founder and Oak Park Regional Housing Center executive director Rob Breymaier has been working hard on this issue, trying to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to change their current policies requiring additional down payments from homeowners in “declining” zip codes.
- USA Today has a disturbing illustration of the impact of foreclosures on a neighborhood in Denver. Reading about percentages and statistics is one thing, actually seeing the impact of foreclosures on a map is quite another (via Google Maps Mania).
- EquityBlog, written by the staff of PolicyLink, posted about MoveSmart.org, calling what we’re trying to do “pretty cool”. Thanks EquityBlog!
- The Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brookings Institution released an interactive website about the intersection of housing and transportation. Not surprisingly, many affordable suburban destinations become unaffordable when housing and transportation are considered in combination. MoveSmart.org will feature a calculator based on this data that will encourage housing seekers to include gas/bus/train costs in their housing choices.
- Housing Action Illinois and the National Low Income Housing Coalition released their report “Out of Reach 2007-2008″ documenting the divide between wages and the cost of housing this month. The Chicago Tribune hits the highlights from the report.
