Housing

I came across this mind blowing article in The Bulletin newspaper about a new high-end real estate project on Rittenhouse Square. One thing that is particularly surprising is 300 people showed up for the unveiling including Dwight Evans, Chaka Fattah, Lynne Abraham, and Michael Nutter. What a strage array of folks for the opening of a condo building. What kind of interests are really involved here? Where is the money coming from? As one of the new purchasers quoted in the article "The general rules don't apply in this case". Fascinating!

When 200 residents of the Lindley Court Apartments in Logan lost their homes with two hours’ notice on Saturday, June 21st, the building' fire alarm system didn’t work, raw sewage festered in the basement, putrid garbage piled up atop overflowing dumpsters, and there was no water because the copper pipes had been stolen.

This edited interview will air on WXPN 88.5 on Monday, 3 March 2008 at 8pm. The text below is a transcript of the edited interview. Or click here to listen.Interview 1 "The house on H_ Street is place where I grew up at with my mother and my father; we spent many years there. In fact I was like approximately about 9 years old when we moved in the house…I was 62 when I was put out the house so I've lived most of my life there. They took it under eminent domain. Eminent domain is something that most people do not know anything about and I was one of those people. I came home one evening and it was like a flyer in my door and I picked it up and I looked at it and it says ah, These redevelopment proposals call for the new construction of residential properties in a development known as Millcreek. We would like to meet with you to discuss the relocation process. You may be entitled to relocation benefits under the Federal Uniform Relocation Act. The meeting was to be held at Martha Washington School at 44th and Aspen on May the 29th at 6:30 pm. Well it turned out to be very bad because we wanted to know about our homes and they were telling us about how many jobs this would create and how nice it would be for the people in the area because they needed jobs and we're saying to them we don't want to know about jobs we want to know about our homes. What are you talking about? The next thing I know the police was there and they put us out.

Asfolks in New Orleans are fighting to keep public housing alive, and as we here of the attacks on protesters by police today in New Orleans during a city council meeting,here is some info on what the fight is really about.

Erika

Click on any link below.

Save New Orleans public housing

New Orleans Indymedia

A New York Times report on a conference about New York City and whether gentrification will kill what the city has been known for. The comment section is quite lively. New York Calling

Community organizations and public housing residents from across the nation, along with Miami Workers Center and Power U Center for Social Change, stormed the Housing Agency of New Orleans (HANO) office at around 12:30 PM today. The organizations we are acting in solidarity with displaced residents of New Orleans public housing.

HANO, under federal HUD leadership, has fenced off four public housing projects and will not let people return to their homes even though the units were not damaged by the storm two years ago.

The Reinvestment Fund has published their Ford-funded study of predatory lending in Philadelphia, Lost Values, available at:

Lost Values

This study contains a wealth of data from property and foreclosure records, interviews and other primary sources. Parts of it were previously available only in an abbreviated Powerpoint version. The illustrations are gorgeous.

This article takes about the city trying to prevent blight in the suburbs of Cleveland.It tells of sub-prime mortgages that low income folks are unable to pay back and the city's foreclosure prevention program. Many interviewed in the story tell of confusion and frustration of losing homes they have lived in much of their lives or homes they bought and expected to live out the rest of their lives in, similar to stories we have heard here in Philly.

By ERIK ECKHOLM

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation' hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic.

The Newsweek article below tells us the story of rising housing prices in the major cities around the world and sites those who say the international housing market in the super wealthy center cities of the world looks nowhere near coming to an end. Though the authors set the piece in Manhattan, they tell readers that the international housing boom is not limited to traditionally wealthy countries. The fastest growing housing markets are in rapidly urbanizing places like Shanghai and Mumbai, where "prime-real-estate prices shot up by 90 percent in 2006".

URGENT URGENT URGENT

You are invited to a meeting to build opposition to a dangerous bill recently introduced by Darrell Clarke (060902) that affects all communities in the city. There will be a hearing on February 7th, unless we act now. (We also need to oppose a companion bill, #060901.)

WHO's Invited: Community activists of all political persuasions from around the city

WHERE: Songhai City Cultural Center, 3117 Master Street, 215-769-3333

WHEN: Thursday, January 25, 2007, from 6:00 PM thru 7:30 PM