Foreclosure Fuzziness Media Watch

Pity the poor media consumer. It’s nigh-on impossible to understand the burgeoning mortgage crisis rippling through communities around the country if you’re relying on the mainstream press to give you insight into “the story.” Is it a matter of market forces and investment returns? A tale of predatory lending practices and unscrupulous mortgage brokers? A chronicle of worsening woes for already ailing low-income neighborhoods? A human tragedy? A business opportunity?

The answer, of course, is all of the above. But whether you’re reading the business section, the editorial page or the national news, you’re unlikely to get a sense of the whole picture. The press shows little inclination to cover this story any more accurately or comprehensively than it handles most stories about the poor or the struggles of low-income communities.

Business and financial coverage, with its emphasis on federal scrutiny of the mortgage industry, stock prices, investors’ anxieties and subprime lender bankruptcies, seems to exist in a different universe-though often in the same newspaper or magazine-as stories of families losing their homes and communities trying to stave off blight. And there’s virtually no reporting on how community activists or housing advocates are mounting responses to the crisis.

Granted, it’s a huge, morphing story with complex causal factors. But that doesn’t excuse the Fourth Estate from its obligation to connect the dots and arm citizens with coherent information-the necessary precondition to intelligent action in our communities and in the halls of power.

With help from our readers, Shelterforce is tracking the press coverage of the subprime mortgage mess and other issues that effect low-income communities. Send us your favorite (best and worst) examples at articles@nhi.org, and they may show up in this space.

MacArthur Foundation Earmarks $25 Million for Housing Research

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation plans to invest $25 million over the next five years in research into the causes, effects and solutions to the nation’s affordable-housing crisis. The foundation’s initiative seeks to redress what MacArthur president Jonathan Fanton describes as inadequate research focus on the complex effects of decent and affordable housing.

“A greater national commitment to affordable housing requires a greater understanding of the impact of housing on the well-being of children, families and communities,” said Fanton, in making the announcement on February 12 at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

The foundation plans to create an interdisciplinary “research network” including housing scholars, policymakers and practitioners as well as leading experts in health-related disciplines, child development, education policy and labor markets, aimed in part at creating an environment that will produce the “next generation of scholars” in the study of housing.

“This new research will produce a deep, empirical evidence base to show how housing affects children’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral development and how housing choices shape the economic, emotional and physical well-being of adults,” Fanton said.

The new MacArthur initiative represents the single largest private philanthropic research commitment in the field of affordable housing, second only to the federal government’s research funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

On a Positive Note

House Committee on Financial Services chair Barney Frank’s plan to include provisions for an Affordable Housing Fund in the House version of regulatory reform legislation governing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks drew an epistolary response from the committee’s ranking Republican, Spencer Bachus, that was high on sensibility but low on sense. Bachus, who has repeatedly questioned the need for the fund, informed Frank in a letter that, “I respect your view” but “do not share it.” His reasoning? The housing program would be “in essence, a tax” on low- and middle-income homeowners. Frank was unmoved by Bachus’s illogic, but said he appreciated the note’s “cordial tone.”

School House Rocks

One Missouri school district has given new meaning to “no child left behind.” Discouraged by the number of homeless students in its district, and by the limited shelter options available to male teens especially, the Maplewood, Mo., school board partnered with local school officials and churches to open Joe’s Place-a house for homeless high-school boys. The school board fronted the money to buy the house and will also pay the mortgage, insurance and utilities-about $34,000 a year. Managed by a local nonprofit, Joe’s Place can accommodate four students and live-in house parents.

Passing the Buck

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on the effects that predatory lending and exotic mortgages have on the rising rate of home foreclosures, Douglas G. Duncan, senior vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, cited death, illness and unemployment as the prevailing reasons for the foreclosure spike. No mention of the bad subprime loans that were foisted upon unsuspecting, eager new homeowners.

Both Duncan and another “expert” witness, Harry Dinham, of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, say that subprime loans should not be blamed because the loans have allowed more cash to flow in to disinvested, minority communities. Instead, they believe, borrowers simply need to become more financially literate.

An A for Effort

When it comes to covering affordable housing and homelessness crises that plague our country, the press has given it the good-old college try. Small-town papers like California’s Modesto Bee and big-city papers like The New York Times frequently report on affordable master-planned communities and supportive housing services-some even appear above the fold. But they haven’t done much to help readers distinguish “affordable housing” from “public housing” or to move communities to be more open to inclusionary zoning. Could it be that housing issues are just too complex for J-school grads to grasp? Maybe not, if the recent recipients of the National Low Income Housing Coalition first media awards for coverage of affordable housing crisis are any indication. In late February, six journalists in Miami, D.C. and Long Beach, Sacramento, Stockton and Pasadena, Calif., won first-place prizes for their local coverage, and seven received honorable-mention recognition.

NYC Tenants Get a Break

Since 1994, only low-income New Yorkers in emergency circumstances-those fleeing domestic violence or families in shelters-could apply for federal housing assistance. But this year, from February until May, the NYC Housing Authority has opened the waiting list for its Section 8 housing-voucher program to the general public. Because of federal funding changes and reforms in local homelessness policies, NYCHA found itself with 22,000 additional housing vouchers-12,000 this year and 10,000 next year. The largest housing authority in the United States, NYCHA handles more than 83,000 Section 8 vouchers. Already this year, more than 300,000 applications have been distributed, which means that the supply still falls far short of the demand.

In another positive move for NYC tenants, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is promising to give a $300 tax credit to renters, a plan similar to one that issues rebates to property owners. Quinn also wants the City Council to pass a law that will permit tenants to sue their landlords for harassment.