housing

Spiraling Rents Squeeze the Nation’s Working Poor

Oct 23, 2013
Increasing rents and stagnating or decreasing household income have pushed more families into homelessness, even as overall homeless rates have declined. At the same time, the number of families paying more than half of their income for housing has increased 5.5 percent to 6.5 million.

The Landscape of Wall Street’s Creative Destruction

Aug 2, 2013
It’s May 2012 and we’re in Woodlawn, a largely African American neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. The goal of the HIT Squad, short for Housing Identification and Target, is to map blighted, bank-owned homes with overdue property taxes and neighbors angry enough about the destruction of their neighborhood to consider supporting a plan to repossess on the repossessors.

Detroit’s Pensions Under Attack

Jul 22, 2013
The bankrupt city is looking to cut its already underfunded retirement benefits; given the current economic climate, perhaps it's time for the affordable housing options that were used in the last century to make a comeback; meanwhile, Pope Francis' new banker, hired to clean up the Vatican's messy accounts, comes with sex scandals of his own. These discoveries and more after the jump.
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The Big Economic Stall

Apr 7, 2013
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is that we’re in the fifth year of a supposed economic recovery from the second-worst economic downturn of the past century, and we’re still not nearly back on track. Instead, we’ve had the most anemic recovery in history.

Americans Could Learn From Israel’s Tent City

Aug 8, 2011
Economic frustrations, particularly the high cost of rent, have breathed new life into the Israeli left. Residents of a tent city in Tel Aviv, constructed to protest financial woes, put Israel's conservative prime minister on the defense, forcing him to announce a committee Sunday to look into reforms.

Plummeting Prices Deepen Crisis in U.S. Housing Market

May 31, 2011
According to at least some sources, certain sectors of the American economy are showing signs of life, but the housing market sure isn't one of them, especially considering the news expected to surface Tuesday that prices have now dipped below the previous lowest point recorded since this recession kicked in three years ago. The recession's earlier bottom for housing prices occurred in 2009.