Thank you to those who were able to attend the CHAPA Young Professional Group's Brown Bag lunch with Rachel Bratt, " The US Housing Crisis - 5 Years Later," on Wednesday. Rachel drew a wonderful crowd and we hope everyone enjoyed the presentation.
Housing News
The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has issued its 2013 Draft Analysis of Impediments (AI) to Fair Housing Choice and will post information on the public hearing and comment process on its website when it become available.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino is proposing a goal of building 30,000 homes in Boston by year 2020.
The plan calls for $16.5 billion in public and private investment.
Recommended steps include selling large chunks of city property, increasing fees on developers to help fund affordable housing, and approving some of the 3,600 housing units awaiting city permits.
Click here for link to the report and further information.
The Roger Williams University (RWU) Community Partnerships Center has issued a Call for Projects with an affordable housing focus in Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The program is open to non-profits and government agencies and provides student-faculty teams that can provide a wide range of types of project-based assistance. Applications are due by October 1.
In an editorial on September 5 entitled "Legislature Must Thwart Efforts to Chip Away at Housing Law", the Boston Globe called on the Legislature to respect the will of the voters and the economic needs of the state and reject efforts to weaken the comprehensive permit law. The editorial describes three provisions inserted in the Housing Bond Bill that are designed to stop specific projects but are like
The Non-Defense Discretionary (NDD) Coalition is preparing a report on sequestration that will illustrate the impact on users of NDD programs and highlight the successes of these programs pre-sequestration. The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) serves on the NDD Steering Committee and is working on the chapter on housing programs, and together with the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding, has put together a short survey to capture basic impacts of sequestration of HUD program funding on low income households and organizations.
From DHCD:
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR)
Action Plan
A Joint document between the Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness and the Governor’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Just Released:
Increasing the Effectiveness of Government’s Response to the Intersection of Homelessness, Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence in the Commonwealth of Massachusett
HUD published an amendment on August 15, making a technical correction to the final rule on "Streamlining Requirements Governing the Use of Funding for Supportive Housing for the Elderly and Persons With Disabilities Programs," issued this June. Specifically, the amendment corrects language on the duration of fund reservation, making it clear that the rule extends the duration of the fund reservation for a capita