Issues Page

Our country has been told that a gargantuan government rescue of the private sector is necessary because the collapse of major financial institutions would lead to unthinkable outcomes for society. Almost as if by magic, our nation's leaders conjure up vast sums to respond to this crisis. Yet when advocates point out that our nation is facing an altogether different kind of crisis, one of soaring hunger and homelessness, and that a large-scale bailout is needed to prevent social service providers nationwide from buckling under the increasing load, we are told that the money these agencies need just doesn't exist.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation. Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening. The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

States, counties, and cities with high home-foreclosure rates - now poised to reap a windfall in federal aid to help them cope with the crisis - are busy laying plans for what, exactly, they will do with the money. So far, their blueprints are as varied as the places themselves. Some plan to use the money for demolition, some for rehabbing abandoned properties. Some even envision using the one-time bonanza to try to prevent future foreclosures. The money, $4 billion in all, is part of a larger housing rescue package that Congress approved and President Bush signed late last month. It will go to America's hardest hit communities - and even some that aren't so hard hit.

A $550 million trust fund, created under the nation's new housing law, is the first concentrated effort to establish affordable housing for renters in the lowest income brackets since the formation of Section 8 housing in 1974, experts say. Section 8 is a federal housing program that subsidizes housing costs for low income renters. Under the new trust, at least 75 percent of the money will go to extremely low income families, those that live below 30 percent of the median income of a state or below the national poverty line. According to the housing coalition at least 90 percent of the funds must be used to create, preserve, rehabilitate and operate rental housing units. The other 10 percent will be available for first time home owner activities, including assistance with down payments and closing costs.

At the end of May, the doors closed at Renaissance Village, the FEMA trailer park outside of Baton Rouge that had been home to hundreds of families, its end hastened by an official acknowledgment of unhealthy levels of formaldehyde in the trailers. Those who were left at the park at the end, most of whom were among the neediest of the evacuees, began moving out on their own. In light of the early promise that the recovery from the hurricane would provide the chance to address New Orleans’s social ills, the farewell to the trailer park might have been an opportunity for a fresh start, with families fortified by more than three years of government support and charity programs. But when the park closed earlier than expected, government planners said they were left unprepared.

If you were to ask Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd -- the principal architects of the massive housing bill signed Wednesday by President Bush -- which of its many features pleases them most, the answer would surprise you. It is not the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the embattled mortgage giants, or the aid the bill provides for thousands of homeowners struggling to afford their subprime loans in a faltering real estate market. Instead, it is the section creating the National Housing Trust Fund, a creative way of meeting the chronic shortage of affordable low-income rental apartments -- a huge problem in cities and rural areas across the country.

The giant housing rescue plan President Bush signed Wednesday might help stanch the bleeding in the housing market, but experts on both sides of the political divide worry that it is, at best, only an emergency step. In addition to $300 billion in government guarantees to aid homeowners threatened by foreclosure, the administration got extraordinary new powers to backstop mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after their stocks plunged earlier this month.

The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation's streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent- from 175,914 to 123,833- from 2005 to 2007, Bush administration officials said on Tuesday. Officials also attribute much of the decline to a policy shift promoted by Congress and the administration that has focused federal and local resources on finding stable housing for homeless people suffering from drug addiction, mental illness or physical disabilities, long deemed the hardest to help in the homeless population. Under the strategy, known as "housing first," local officials have over the last eight years increasingly placed the chronically homeless into permanent shelter- apartments, halfway houses or rooms- and provided them with services for drug addiction, mental illness and health problems.

President Bush this morning signed into law the most sweeping housing legislation in decades, aimed at calming rocky financial markets and giving mortgage relief to up to 400,000 homeowners. In an unannounced White House ceremony attended by senior administration aides shortly after 7 a.m., Bush gave his imprimatur to a law he had long vowed to veto because of objections to some aspects of the legislation. The bill signing follows months of often contentious negotiations between congressional Democrats and the White House over how best to stabilize housing markets amid plummeting home values and a damaged credit system.

The child-welfare system is "broken." This harsh indictment has been a constant drumbeat in L.A.-area headlines for years. In the last few months, the tragedy of a 5-year-old subjected to horrifying mistreatment grabbed the public's attention. The pendulum started to swing, and demands mounted to address the crisis. But there are underlying challenges facing struggling families and overwhelmed child-welfare professionals that headlines and an ever-swinging pendulum don't and can't address. Consider just one part of the system: foster care. Los Angeles is home to nearly 30,000 foster youth. We collectively commit to watch over these children when we bring them into foster care, yet too many struggle mightily with the most basic of needs.

With the nation embroiled in a housing crisis, one would expect the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be playing a central role. But HUD is a marginal player. Although its Federal Housing Administration division has agreed to underwrite new mortgages, it is merely following the leadership of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. This is no accident. HUD's sidelined role is a product of its anachronistic approach to both housing and cities. It might be best to simply close the agency and create a new cabinet-level commitment to urban development.

Sweeping legislation that offers help for every group battered by the mortgage foreclosure crisis will be voted on in coming days. The bill also includes something for almost everyone to hate. But Congress and President Bush should act quickly to make it law because it should give the nation some needed reassurance and the tools to help stabilize home values. The legislation promises a steady flow of affordable money to encourage banks to offer new mortgages, which are essential to any recovery. And it provides lenders that are willing to take a loss on mortgages they hold a way to avoid financial disaster.

The House approved on Wednesday and President Bush dropped his opposition to a far-reaching housing package designed to reinvigorate the real estate market and economy, shore up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and assist struggling property owners. The bill could become law as early as next week. The bill would: Allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to $300 billion in refinanced mortgages. Sen. Chris Dodd, Senate Banking Committee chairman, said, "This is the most important piece of housing legislation in a generation."

The U.S. government estimates that more than 400,000 people around the country sleep in homeless shelters each night, with many more on the streets, under bridges and in parked cars. Advocacy groups say that some 3.5 million Americans will find themselves homeless at some point in a year. As home foreclosures passed the 2 million mark last year, organizations offering emergency accommodation say they are fielding more calls from families facing homelessness as they struggle to keep up with mortgages, rent and bills. Specific figures are not available, but advocacy groups say many people who have lost their homes are particularly motivated to cast their votes this time around, because they feel they have more at stake.

More homes are being rebuilt in the areas that were hardest hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago, a sign that the region continues to make strides, a new study shows. A survey of 2,435 homes in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes showed 62% of homes had either been rebuilt or are in the process of being renovated, according to the University of New Orleans study. Last year, 35% of the homes in those areas had significant reconstruction. "The rebuilding has really accelerated over the last 14 months," he said. "It's very encouraging."

Louisiana is set to receive $73 million in desperately needed federal aid to help house some of the region's lowest-income families, including ill and disabled people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Landing the money is only the first challenge. Now begins the delicate and difficult work of setting up permanent housing arrangements for homeless people, many of whom have psychiatric or medical problems that require ongoing counseling and other services. Homeless-services agencies that work in New Orleans are rightly worried. In a city where rents have skyrocketed and housing is in short supply, they fear that developers who were required to set aside units for the most vulnerable citizens may shy away from tenants with histories of mental illness or homelessness.

High levels of formaldehyde found in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees on the Gulf Coast probably resulted from cheap wood and poor ventilation in designs used by manufacturers under permissive government standards, federal scientists reported yesterday. An analysis by researchers for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that four Katrina trailers emitted the toxic chemical at levels four to 11 times as high as those found in typical U.S. homes.

In 1978 Anna Koop and Dorothy Day, tireless leaders for the human rights and dignity of people with little else for which to claim a foothold in our society, opened the Catholic Worker House in Denver. Inside, one is struck by the quality of life for these families and individuals who share meals and break bread, do the chores and care for themselves alongside the catholic worker staff. They receive no state or municipal revenue. Their motto is that, “if you need a place to stay and there is room, that they welcome you, no questions asked. There is no waiting list for applying and no application for admission. If there is a space, you sign a chore schedule and agree to be about the effort of changing your life. There is no pressure and there are no other requirements religious or otherwise.

With more families on the cusp of having nowhere to live, thousands of both former homeowners and renters are winding up in shelters or turning to charities for food or other aid to get by. Nearly 61% of local and state homeless coalitions say they've seen a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a study released in April by the National Coalition for the Homeless. Those facing homelessness include the working poor, who were among those hardest hit by the collapse in subprime mortgages. But others are middle-class families who scarcely expected to find themselves unable to afford their homes.