Getting a Fix on a Shape-Shifting Bailout

While President-elect Barack Obama’s politics of hope helped sweep him to victory, he’ll have his hands full getting the public to trust that the Bush administration’s economic rescue plan he’ll be inheriting in January is, in fact, a plan. According to The New York Times, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, chair of the oversight panel formed to monitor the federal bailout for the ailing economy, has concluded that so far, the government had simply resorted to ad-hoc tactical solutions in dealing with the crisis, rather than creating a coherent strategy.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s original plan, dubbed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), asked Congress for $700 billion to buy so-called “toxic assets”—mortgage-backed securities whose value had dropped sharply or had become impossible to sell. While the measure was signed into law in early October, Paulson instead went on to use TARP’s first tranche to invest directly in troubled financial institutions. In November, Paulson announced that asset purchases were not the way to go and instead called on securing the financial markets by making loans more attainable.

All the tacking and swerving has not gone unnoticed. Warren, a consumer bankruptcy expert and author most recently of The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, mirrored the bemusement of the general public when she told The Times that “You can’t just say, ‘Credit isn’t moving through the system’...You have to ask why.” Declaring that the panel’s reports should have an impact on the overall effect of the bailout, Warren told Times reporter Diana B. Henriques, “Our role is to make sure that the right questions are asked as soon as possible.”

Well, the clock is ticking. The panel, which monitors the Treasury’s actions along with the Government Accountability Office and a special inspector general, is due to submit a report to Congress by Jan. 20—Obama’s Inauguration Day—outlining recommendations for reforms to the financial regulatory structure.

Building Hope and Homes

Taller San Jose, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based job-training program, broke ground in September on an affordable-housing project for first-time homebuyers. The planned development—three houses in Santa Ana’s historic Logan barrio—is the first project of Taller’s newest operation, Hope Builders Inc., and results from a collaboration of Taller San Jose, the City of Santa Ana, and Orange County Community Housing Corp. Reminiscent of YouthBuildUSA, Taller San Jose aims to employ graduates from its construction job-training program to achieve “real-world experience,” said Taller San Jose executive director Shawna Smith. Taller graduates include individuals recovering from drug use, former gang members, high school dropouts, those originally lacking job skills, and ex-convicts.

Chicago Public Housing Museum in the Works

On Chicago’s Near West Side sits a 70-year-old Depression-era building, the sole remaining structure of the Jane Addams Homes, the first federal government housing project in Chicago. The building—part of one of three demonstration projects in Chicago built under the Public Works Administration Act—will be the future site of the National Public Housing Museum. The Chicago Housing Authority, which owns the building, chose it to serve as the museum’s home in August with the hope of changing the image of public housing residents, CHA Commissioner Michael Ivers told the Chicago Tribune.

Modeled after the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City, the museum is slated for a December 2011 opening. It will trace 70 years of public housing through the stories and artifacts of six decades of residents of the red brick Addams buildings along Chicago’s West Taylor Street.

Housing a Rising Homeless Population: Female Veterans

The number of homeless female veterans far outstrips the affordable housing available for this increasing demographic, but a new housing complex in Dayton, Ohio, hopes to, at the very least, put a small dent in that number. According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, there are an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 homeless female veterans, and that number continues to rise as female enlistment in the armed services increases. In Dayton, a 27-unit apartment building located on the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Campus has been renovated to serve as veterans housing and signals a growing trend around the country to establish housing for returning military personnel. But Dayton’s all-female housing project is one of about a dozen such facilities around the country.

The housing complex will make services including day care, job training, and drug and alcohol counseling available to vets. According to the V.A., women account for 5 percent of homeless veterans, up from 3 percent a decade ago.

Location, Location, Location

In an effort to promote inner-ring Philadelphia suburbs and unsung city neighborhoods, a regional planning commission has launched a high-profile informational campaign. The initiative, “Classic Towns of Greater Philadelphia,” created this year by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, is, according to the commission’s announcement, “designed to foster the growth of the region’s older communities” by elevating the profile and touting the virtues of the 11 towns or neighborhoods—Ambler, Bristol, Collingswood, Doylestown, Haddon Heights, Lansdowne, Manayunk, Media, Overbrook Farms, Riverton, and West Chester—all of which have rebounded through recent revitalization efforts, their proximity to a large urban core, and their location on mass-transit lines. Some of the communities featured in the campaign have historic regional institutions like museums or landmarks, or are their respective county seats. Classic Towns, which received a $250,000 seed grant from the William Penn Foundation and gets an additional $2,500 (with matching DVRPC funding) from each participating town, also aims to increase investment in the towns, reaching out to the finance industry, and to community development professionals.

Gardening? It's Gone to the Goats

Anything to save a buck these days, but in Los Angeles, a cost-savings measure employed by a local redevelopment agency appears to have all of the necessary sustainable ingredients. As part of an ongoing effort to combat urban blight, the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles is cutting its brush- and weed-clearing budget in half—by employing 100 goats at Angels Knoll in downtown Los Angeles. The bearded ruminants plowed through weeds, brush, and bushes during a two-week stay on the steepest portion of the 2.6-acre site. The site will be developed into a mixed-use office development as the last stage of the California Plaza’s development. Until construction can begin, the lower section of the site is being planted with water-saving California native vegetation. The steepest portion of the site, however, was overrun with hard-to-reach weeds and brush—precisely the area where the goats would be up to the task. Using human labor to clear the area would have cost upward of $7,500, but the “no-tech, eco-friendly and cost-effective cleanup solution” ran an estimated $3,000, according to a CRA/LA statement. Further, the goats, of course, release no emissions, their dung is a fertilizer, and their small hooves help aerate the ground. As far as safety, fear not Los Angeles: security and a herdsman were on hand to oversee the progress.