The full House of Representatives and the Senate Committee on Appropriations have approved bills that would provide adequate funding in 2011 to renew all Housing Choice (“Section 8”) vouchers used by low-income families this year, according to Center analysis. If final appropriations legislation were to fund the voucher program at the midpoint between the House and Senate bills, it would provide $19.3 billion for housing vouchers, including $17 billion for voucher renewals.
Housing News
The FY11 - 15 capital spending plan has been released.
View the Overall Capital Plan.
View a comparison of Housing Capital Spending in FY11 versus past years here.
For the first time this year, both year-over-year foreclosure petitions and deeds decreased in Massachusetts, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
Foreclosure petitions - the first step in the foreclosure process in Massachusetts - dropped to 1,127 in October, a near 51 percent decrease from 2,296 in October 2009. This is the first month since January that foreclosure petitions have dropped below 2,000. A total of 22,091 foreclosure petitions have been filed so far this year, compared to 23,931 for the same period last year.
BOSTON – November 16, 2010 – The United States Treasury announced today that Massachusetts Commissioner of Banks Steven L. Antonakes, who has played a leadership role on banking issues on the state and national levels, will join the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) implementation team to build the consumer supervision program for the nation’s largest depository institutions.
Please click here to read the full press release.
Please click here to read the comments.
The Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership has released a report assessing the effectiveness of re-housing families sheltered in motels with Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing (HPRP) funds. The report finds that very few families are likely to be able to sustain housing once short-term housing assistance expires. The report includes the following recommendations for the HPRP and Housing First model:
State Updates
CHAPA Releases Policy Recommendations for the New Gubernatorial Term
BOSTON, Nov. 9, 2010 ---The gradual movement of distressed properties away from urban areas has reached a tipping point as there are now more distressed units in the suburbs and rural communities.
In an examination of Warren Group data as of Oct. 1, 2010, Foreclosure Monitor found that distressed units in Boston and 24 Gateway municipalities account for 49 percent of the distressed units in Massachusetts, down from 59 percent as of Oct. 1, 2008 and from 54 percent as of Oct. 1, 2009.
Please click here to read recommendations of the Mass Law Reform Institute concerning family homelessness policies.
In the wake of the mortgage foreclosure crisis, calls have grown for a national housing policy that more evenly balances homeownership and rental housing. As America “rediscovers” the rental option, one could easily forget that for at least the past several decades one in three U.S. households — or more than 37 million households in 2008 — have been renters.