United States of America

Life in the Red

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In In the media

The usual explanations for reckless borrowing focus on people’s character, or social norms that promote free spending and instant gratification. But recent research has shown that scarcity by itself is enough to cause this kind of financial self-sabotage.
“When we put people in situations of scarcity in experiments, they get into poverty traps,” said Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. “They borrow at high interest rates that hurt them, in ways they knew to avoid when there was less scarcity.”

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The Champagne of Housing Rights: France’s Enforceable Right to Housing and Lessons for U.S. Advocates

Published in Monday January 14th, 2013

In the October edition of the Northeastern University Law Journal, Eric S. Tars, Julia Lum and E. Kieran Paul wrote an article about the right to housing in France and its lessons that can be applied at the United States of America. Nowadays, the US faces a serious homelessness crisis and the authors emphasize the need to address this issue.

Progress on Mortgage Regulations

Published in Friday January 11th, 2013 In Opinion

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued long-awaited rules on mortgage lending that should help protect home buyers and the global financial system from a repeat of the subprime disaster. But the rules, which were announced on Thursday and go into effect next year, include some features that could hurt lower-income borrowers.
Predatory lending was a leading cause of the housing bubble, the spike in foreclosures and the failure of large financial institutions. It saddled borrowers with too much debt and left investors with big losses. Congress created the consumer bureau in large part to make sure all that never happened again.

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Bank Deal Ends Flawed Reviews of Foreclosures in the US

Published in Friday January 11th, 2013 In In the media

Federal banking regulators are trumpeting an $8.5 billion settlement this week with 10 banks as quick justice for aggrieved homeowners, but the deal is actually a way to quietly paper over a deeply flawed review of foreclosed loans across America, according to current and former regulators and consultants.
To avoid criticism as the review stalled and consultants collected more than $1 billion in fees, the regulators, led by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, abandoned the effort after examining a sliver of nearly four million loans in foreclosure, the regulators and consultants said.

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Still Waiting for Sandy Relief

Published in Thursday January 3rd, 2013 In Opinion

Republicans haven’t made it easy for the Northeast to get the $60.4 billion in aid it needs to recover from Hurricane Sandy. They have objected to the amount — which is considerably less than the $82 billion requested by the region’s governors — and tried to slash it. They have demanded that $3.4 billion of the aid for flood control be offset by spending cuts in other programs. And in the Senate, as on virtually all bills, they filibustered the aid package proposed by President Obama.

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Jobless homeowners can apply for mortgage relief in California, US

Published in Wednesday January 2nd, 2013 In In the media

Jobless benefits could end for almost 30,000 San Diegans at the start of the New Year if President Obama and Congress don’t act. But some of those residents, if they move quickly, could qualify for mortgage aid from the state. Keep Your Home California is a $2 billion program that helps keep struggling homeowners in their properties. It catches them up on mortgage payments, helps them relocate after completing short sales and cuts their principal balances.
State officials have urged certain out-of-work borrowers to apply for a slice of the program that offers up to $3,000 a month in mortgage aid for a maximum of nine months. Since unemployment benefits could end in the New Year, borrowers must apply before this month ends, said Di Richardson, the program’s director.

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When Low-Income Tenants Face Eviction

Published in Wednesday December 12th, 2012 In Opinion

In “Tipping the Scales in Housing Court” (Op-Ed, Nov. 30), Matthew Desmond makes a compelling case for assisting low-income tenants facing eviction by providing them with lawyers. It’s sound social policy and a strong showing of decent morality. The issue of evictions is embedded within the context of a broader goal: ensuring and increasing housing stability.

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Obama’s Storm-Aid Bid to Be About $50 Billion

Published in Thursday December 6th, 2012 In In the media

President Obama plans to ask Congress for about $50 billion in emergency funds to help rebuild the states that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, challenging deficit-minded lawmakers while worrying regional leaders, who complained Wednesday that it was not enough.

The White House will send the proposal to Capitol Hill this week, and while the final sum is still in flux, it should be between $45 billion and $55 billion, according to officials briefed on deliberations over it.

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How the Coastline Became a Place to Put the Poor

Published in Thursday December 6th, 2012 In Opinion

In retrospect, after the storm, it looked like a perverse stroke of urban planning. Many of New York City’s most vulnerable people had been housed in its most vulnerable places: public housing projects along the water, in areas like the Rockaways, Coney Island, Red Hook and Alphabet City.
How is it possible that the same winding, 538-mile coastline that has recently been colonized by condominium developers chasing wealthy New Yorkers, themselves chasing waterfront views, had been, for decades, a catch basin for many of the city’s poorest residents? The answer is a combination of accident, grand vision and political expedience.

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The Affordable Housing Crisis in the US

Published in Thursday December 6th, 2012 In In the media

December 04, 2012 New York Times Editorial The precious few federal programs that provide rental assistance to the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable families are already underfinanced. These programs provide decent housing for about only a quarter of the low-income families who qualify for them. And with nearly nine million households teetering on the verge of […]

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