Category: Homeless

Halfway out or halfway in?

15 February, 2013 (12:01) | Amsterdam, Apartments, Cities, Global news, Homeless, Innovations, Prisons, Rental, Speculation |

By:David A. Smith   Though Guardian (December 4, 2012) features reporter Patrick Barkham‘s personal disdain for Amsterdam’s new halfway housing so distorts his reporting that he labors mightily to adduce or manipulate the evidence, even the facts he cites refute his prejudices, which makes for interesting reading:   Amsterdam’s anti-social tenants will be housed in [...]

Month in Review, November, 2012: Part 2, Here at home

11 January, 2013 (10:00) | Argentina, Camden, China, Euro, Foreclosure, Global news, Haiti, Homeless, Month in review, Municipal bankruptcy, Non-Profits, NYCHA, Paris, Public housing, Spain, US News |

[Previous Month in Reviews available here: Oct 12, Sep 12, Aug 12, Jul 12, Jun 12, May 12]   By:David A. Smith   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   As we saw in yesterday’s Part 1, affordable housing and urban troubles abound globally, but we need look no further than our front stoop to find [...]

Month in Review, November, 2012: Part 1, Around the world

10 January, 2013 (10:00) | Argentina, Camden, China, Euro, Foreclosure, Global news, Haiti, Homeless, Month in review, Municipal bankruptcy, Non-Profits, NYCHA, Paris, Public housing, Spain, US News |

[Previous Month in Reviews available here: Oct 12, Sep 12, Aug 12, Jul 12, Jun 12, May 12]   By:David A. Smith   I promise to stop using my blackberry!   Housing is both global and local; both abstract and intensely human – and in November, our posts covered all four corners of housing’s world. [...]

Whatever it is, we’re against it

14 July, 2011 (11:27) | Apartments, Homeless, Housing, New York City, NIMBY, Rental, Shelters, Supportive housing, Tenure |

By: David A. Smith   In righteous communities, no one is ever against social programs in principle.  No, not at all – they’re entirely for it in principle.  It’s just that – well, when it’s in our neighborhood, there’s always something wrong with what you have proposed.    Whatever it is, I’m against it!   [...]

Romanticizing the poor

28 August, 2009 (10:05) | Homeless, Providence, Slums |

Leave it to snarky Gawker to explode another of those urban-homesteading myths so favored by a certain kind of press, and a certain type of author:   Today’s New York Times Page One recession-porn dispatch is so unrelentingly hackneyed that William Shatner ought to read it aloud to bongos.     Who you calling hack-kneed?   [...]