Shutdown Stalls Home Loans | What is A ‘Downtown?’ | Homeless Teens Legally Protected

Homeless in California, (credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images)

1. Be our guest: the road to ending homelessness starts with a plan to provide affordable housing.  The nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners says New York’s next mayor should support a plan that invests in and builds affordable housing, and provides funding and services to keep families from becoming homeless. [NY Daily News – 10/06/13]
2. California passes law protecting homeless teens. California officials are no longer required to report homeless teens to law enforcement thanks to a bill that was signed into law on Wednesday. The bill, AB 652, aims to change a pattern of homeless teens avoiding shelters, schools and healthcare out of fear they will be reported to child services and forced to return to unsupportive homes. The law will go into effect January 1. [The Huffington Post – 10/04/13]
3. Thousands of NYC residents still living in foreclosed homes. Thousands of metro-area residents are still living in their foreclosed homes, even after ownership has reverted to the bank. In its first look at the phenomenon, foreclosure research firm RealtyTrac estimates that more than half of the 4,475 metro New York bank-owned properties are still occupied by the people who used to own them. [NY Post – 10/05/13]
4. Decade of dedication to an urban garden. The program, known as Garden and Greening, started out as a flower-garden contest that was intended to beautify housing projects. But over the years, it has nurtured generations of urban gardeners like Ms. Spivey who grow their own supply of fruits and vegetables, often in low-income areas where fresh produce is costly or hard to find. Last year, more than 2,000 people took part in the program. [The New York Times – 10/04/13]
5. Former shelter is creating a storm in a Bronx community.  A Harlem-based organization hopes to house indigent veterans in a Pelham Bay building that recently served as a shelter for displaced mental patients, and leery neighbors insist the plan is a hoax. [NY Daily News – 10/05/13]
6. The problem with defining ‘downtown.’ The Census’ blunt definition of ‘downtown,’ though, inevitably produced some grousing about over-and under-counts of local populations. It measured ‘downtown,’ for lack of a better universal definition, as everything within a 2-mile radius of the local city hall.” [The Atlantic Cities – 10/07/13]
7. Rail link between Ozone Park and Rego Park could be restored. Queens residents who have lobbied to see trains again chugging along the defunct Rockaway Beach Rail line got a shot of hope last week when the MTA listed its reactivation as a possibility for future expansion. [NY Daily News – 10/06/13]
8. Shutdown will stall home loans for thousands. Beginning next week, thousands of home buyers will be unable to get approvals for their mortgages because of the government shutdown, potentially undercutting the nation’s resurgent housing market. [The Washington Post – 10/04/13]
9. Housing prices heading up, while pay still down. The Great Housing Market collapse that all those gloomy housing bears were growling about—in which prices in Greater Boston would fall another 30 to 50 percent - is like a joke right now. Boston-area home prices are on a double-digit tear, driven in part by all our knowledge industry workers. [The Boston Globe – 10/06/13]
10. Detroiters living amid ruins resist moving as city reorganizes. Detroit, which filed the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy on July 18, has almost 150,000 vacant parcels and 700,000 people on 139 square miles (360 square kilometers) after losing more than half its population since the 1950s. Planners envision farms and other nonresidential uses for empty land, and creating population-dense areas where it’s easier to offer services. Yet residents such as Wafer have kept gracious homes, put down roots and don’t want to move. [Bloomberg – 10/07/13]