MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

• The People’s Court

  Cleveland housing court Judge Raymond Pianka uses innovative legal tactics to achieve code compliance, but is it enough to stabilize neighborhoods?

• Great Falls And The Silk City

  New Jersey’s Paterson is the nation’s oldest planned industrial city — depend on who you ask. But it has fallen on hard times since the once-booming silk industry there declined in the latter half of the 20th century. Much of the industry in this city of 150,000 has since left, but with the help of a local CDC there, as well as corporate and community partners, a geological attraction once envisioned by Alexander Hamilton as something that could be harnessed for industrial might, is fully protected, and being prepared for a makeover.

• Shelterforce Interview: Sen. Robert Menendez

  In February, on the heels of $25 billion attorneys general mortgage settlement, Sen. Robert Menendez unleashed the Preserving American Homeownership Act, a bill that would help eligible underwater homeowners by creating a program where banks reduce mortgage principal in exchange for a portion of the increased value of the home over time — shared appreciation mortgage. The bill was timely because it mirrored Ocwen Financial’s loan modification program, Shared Appreciation Modification, that creates equity by writing down an underwater borrower’s principal balance to 95 percent LTV. In this interview, Shelterforce talks to Menendez, (D-NJ), who serves as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development, about this initiative, the ongoing federal response to the housing crisis, the Sustainable Communities Initiative, the Occupy movement, and more.