Affordable Housing Institute : US

Periodically, in the ad slots on my Red Line subway ride to work, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts runs posters of Deadbeat Dads, men who are months and years behind on their child support payments.  Always unshaven in the mug shots, they stare bad, haggard or defiant.
 
 
One thinks, how incredibly low, to welsh on an […]

I’ve previously posted about the societal cost of clandestine occupancy — people who use homes as a shield for illegal activities.

When a whole neighborhood becomes a haven of clandestine occupancy, not only does it threaten its own denizens, it imperils all around it.

A window in the pediatric ward of […]

A couple of weeks back, so quietly you might have missed it [You certainly did! — ed. I said it was quiet, didn’t I? — Ed.], the President took his (and therefore the Federal government’s) position on the rebuilding of New New Orleans. 
 
He punted.
 

“Put that problem in somebody else’s territory.”
 
He issued Executive Order 13389 […]

[Continued from Part 1]
 
Kelo came about as a result of a brilliantly orchestrated multi-year strategy by a small advocacy group, the Institute For Justice.  For fifteen years they’ve worked on takings matters, first in regulatory takings — First English, Nollan, Palazzolo, and Tahoe-Sierra – with efforts that have largely failed.
 
They’ve cherry-picked plaintiffs with great […]

Last Thursday evening, Jerold S. Kayden, co-chair of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Department of Urban Planning and Design, after an introduction by Professor Rick Peiser (head of the GSD’s Real Estate Academic Initiative), gave a fascinating and cogently argued hour-plus talk on eminent domain for economic development (ED4ED) as seen through the lens […]