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Housing and Homelessness (RSS)

Friday, November 14, 2008 6:31 AM

Casting a Wide Net

"Strategies for Rebuilding Cleveland: What Can Be Learned From Other Cities" by Robert L. Smith of The Plain Dealer is a fine example of how to find solutions where readers might least expect them. Here's what Smith found in Schenectady: Like a flower
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Friday, October 31, 2008 5:46 AM

Where Housing Still Bubbles

The Plain Dealer is doing a fine job exposing corruption in Cuyahoga County. Their latest report, "CMHA Paid Top Dollar for Houses Even As Property Values Crashed," was written by Stan Donaldson. The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Agency used taxpayer
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 5:27 AM

Inside the Housing Bubble

“Building Flawed American Dreams,” by David Streitfeld and Gretchen Morgenson in The New York Times, provides an insider’s perspective on the housing bubble. SAN ANTONIO — A grandson of Mexican immigrants and a former mayor of this town, Henry G. Cisneros
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Thursday, September 25, 2008 5:02 AM

Roots of the Banking Crisis

In an exceptional Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, "Loans Came Easily, Then Fell Apart," Cary Spivak and Daniel Bice report that low-income, inner-city residents were sucked into the housing bubble. For example: While earning a salary of $21,000 a year,
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Monday, August 18, 2008 6:07 AM

Mortgage Fraud

On August 12 we featured a Miami Herald investigation into Medicare fraud in South Florida. Today we'd like to highlight another Miami Herald series, "Borrowers Betrayed," on how Florida became the national leader in mortgage fraud. The series, written
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Friday, June 27, 2008 6:11 AM

Mortgage Mess

Black Americans are much more likely than whites to get stuck paying high interest rates for their mortgages than whites, according to a comprehensive investigation by Aliza Appelbaum and Alden K. Loury of The Chicago Reporter. Their "An Equal Opportunity
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Thursday, June 19, 2008 6:52 AM

Government Screw-Ups

I've seen a couple of great examples recently of television networks serving as watchdogs when the government acts with complete insensitivity toward some of its most vulnerable citizens. Brian Ross and Vic Walter of ABC News, in conjunction with Audrey
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Friday, April 04, 2008 8:00 AM

Winning Pictures

The National Press Photographers Association has finished its 2008 competition, and the winners show us the best of photojournalism on the Web. John Moore of Getty Images captured first place in the still photo category for a portfolio showing the causes
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Friday, February 29, 2008 8:30 AM

Bad Deeds

The Chicago Tribune has been producing outstanding articles on mortgage fraud. Their latest, "This House Was a Steal" by Susan Chandler, begins with a memorable scene: The new buyers of a rundown graystone on the South Side showed up Jan. 9 to look at
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Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:00 AM

Homeless in San Francisco

Reporter Amanda Witherell and intern Bryan Cohen of the San Franisco Bay Guardian spent a week living undercover in the city's shelters to learn what it's like for the homeless to navigate a confusing system. Witherell's amazing "Shelter Shuffle" is
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:30 AM

Uneasy in the Big Easy

Along with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the alternative Gambit Weekly has been doing a terrific job of describing its city's plight following Hurricane Katrina. In last week's "Under the Bridge," Greg Thomas writes about spending
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Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:15 PM

The Rock Comes to a Hard Place

Can one man save the poorest place in Texas' richest county? In "The Fight for Sugar Hill,"  Paul Meyer of The Dallas Morning News offers a brilliant profile of Rock Carpenter, a struggling pastor who tries to rescue the desperate
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Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:30 AM

High-Cost Capital of America

The Chicago region has led the nation for three years in a row in high-cost mortgages that often leave homeowners with crippling debt, The Chicago Reporter has discovered. "The High Price of Home Ownership" by the Reporter's Kimbriell
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