The State of Fair Housing: Annual Report on Fair Housing FY 2009 is the Obama administration’s first annual report on the state of fair housing in America. Issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the report highlights the agency’s progress in enforcing the Fair Housing Act, identifies challenges related to that enforcement, and outlines policy intended to end housing discrimination.

Worst Case Housing Needs 2007: A Report to Congress, also from HUD, says that in 2007 nearly 13 million low-income people paid more than half their monthly income for rent, lived in severely substandard housing, or both. HUD found that these “worst case housing needs” grew significantly between 2001 and 2007.

Family Mobility and Neighborhood Change: New Evidence and Implications for Community Initiatives, by Claudia Coulton, Brett Theodos, and Margery A. Turner for the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Urban Institute, looks at how residential mobility can reflect positive changes in a family’s circumstances or be a symptom of instability and insecurity.

The State of the Nation’s Housing 2010, the annual report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, finds that while the housing market appeared to make something of a turnaround in 2009, the share of households spending more than half their incomes on housing was poised to reach new heights as incomes slid. (See page XX for an article based on the findings of this report.)

The New Orleans Index at Five from the Brookings Institution combines comprehensive trends analyses with seven scholar essays on key post-Katrina reforms. It concludes that much work lies ahead if this metropolis is to emerge with a stronger economy, better opportunities for its residents, and a more sustainable future.

Paying More for the American Dream IV: The Decline of Prime Mortgage Lending in Communities of Color, is the fourth annual joint report from the California Reinvestment Coalition, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, Empire Justice Center, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, Neighborhood Economic Development, Advocacy Project, Ohio Fair Lending Coalition, and the Woodstock Institute. It looks at systematic inequalities in the housing finance system and their effects on lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Gaming the System, a report by National People’s Action, finds that four of the big banks—Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and JP Morgan Chase—exploited loopholes in the Community Reinvestment Act by funneling most of their destructive and discriminatory lending “off the books” to affiliate lenders or outside of their graded assessment areas.