HousingPolicy.org Out Loud

This month's Out Loud podcast features an interview with Connie Ealey, Residential Assistance Coordinator at Funding Partners for Housing Solutions. Laura Williams, research associate at the Center for Housing Policy, talks to Ealey about the benefits of employer assisted housing for workers in high-cost areas based on her experience in resort communities in Colorado. Ealey describes the success of a downpayment assistance program that Funding Partners administers, and how it can enable employees to live near work.

This month's Out Loud podcast features an audio recording from HousingPolicy.org's March 25 Live at the Forum event, "Making Homes More Resistant to Natural Disasters." The guest speakers introduced the Center for Housing Policy's new Disaster-Resistant Homes online toolkit and a series of related policy briefs. The event provided information on several advocacy efforts and programs aimed at expanding financial support and incentives for disaster resistant home construction and renovations.

This month, we present a recording from HousingPolicy.org's recently launched series, Live at the Forum. Live at the Forum events highlight the latest reports, programs or policy developments related to affordable housing policy in a two-part format. First, guest speakers participate in a conference call in which they provide an overview of new research or innovative policies. Following the conference call, listeners can log-in to the HousingPolicy.org Forum to pose questions about the audio presentation and get real-time answers from the guest speakers. The recording you are about to hear is from a July 30th Live at the Forum event with Rick Jacobus of Burlington Associates in Community Development and Barbara Lightsy of City of Lakes Community Land Trust. They spoke about the new Center for Housing Policy report Balancing Durable Affordability and Wealth Creation: Responding to Concerns about Shared Equity Homeownership, which was supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In addition to listening to this overview of the report's findings, you can visit the HousingPolicy.org Forum's Shared Equity Homeownership Discussion Group to view the questions and answers from the event.

In this month's podcast, we hear from Nic Retsinas, Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University's center for information and research on housing in the United States. Retsinas provides a broad picture of the current housing policy environment, highlights the most pressing policy issues of today and offers some insights to what this all means for the future. He also discusses the upcoming Solutions for Working Families learning conference where he will be featured at the Town Hall Plenary. Retsinas shares his thoughts about how Solutions for Working Families offers an ideal opportunity to interact with peers from across the country and why that matters for addressing today's housing challenges.

In this month's podcast we hear from Erika Poethig, Associate Director of Housing in for the Program on Human and Community Development at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation has been a long-time advocate of affordable rental housing preservation, and has funded vital preservation efforts and research to enhance these efforts. The Foundation is also a major sponsor of Solutions for Working Families, providing support for several events dealing with rental preservation, including a daylong institute on rental preservation and a special reception open to all conference participants. In this podcast, Erika explains why affordable rental housing preservation is such an important policy focus at this time.

In this month's podcast we hear from Alan Mallach, Senior Fellow of the National Housing Institute. The National Housing Institute provides research and advocacy to bring attention to and encourage action on progressive, high-impact housing and community-development policies and practices. In this podcast, Alan talks about how communities can help stabilize neighborhoods that experience an increasing number of vacant and abandoned properties due to foreclosure.

In this month's podcast we hear from Claudia Coulton, Professor and Co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change operates a comprehensive database, North East Ohio Community and Neighborhood Data for Organizing (NEO CANDO), providing public access to neighborhood indicators and property information for the entire region. In this podcast, Coulton discusses how the data collected through NEO CANDO are helping to shape foreclosure prevention and intervention policies in Cleveland.

In this month's podcast, we hear from Danilo Pelletiere, Research Director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a non-profit dedicated solely to ending America's affordable housing crisis. As Pelletiere reminds us, many of the properties facing foreclosure -- including both single-family homes and multifamily buildings -- are occupied by renters, leaving these families at risk of eviction, even if they are paying their rent on a timely and regular basis. In this interview, he summarizes research his organization has conducted on this topic as well as actions being taken at the state and local levels to assist renters that are at risk of being displaced.

n this month's podcast we hear from Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America. Reconnecting America is a national non-profit organization that works to integrate transportation systems and the communities they serve, with the goals of generating lasting public and private returns, improving economic and environmental efficiency, and giving consumers greater choice. In this podcast, Poticha discusses the importance of policies and programs to ensure homes near transit are affordable for families of all incomes.

In this month's podcast we hear from Vicki Been, Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. She is also one of the authors of The Effects of Inclusionary Zoning on Local Housing Markets: Lessons from the San Francisco, Washington DC and Suburban Boston areas, a report prepared by the Furman Center for the Center for Housing Policy on the effects of inclusionary zoning in three housing markets. Dr. Been discusses the findings from this report and implications for communities interested in adopting their own inclusionary policies.

In this month's podcast we hear from Mike Pitchford, President and CEO of the Community Development and Preservation Corporation (CPDC). CPDC specializes in the rehabilitation and preservation of affordable rental homes in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan region, and Pitchford talks about the importance - and environmental benefits - of preservation. Special guest Angie Skildum, Research and Policy Director at the Family Housing Fund in Minneapolis, MN, joins us to talk about the Interagency Stabilization Group, a collaborative initiative that brings together public and private sector funding partners to facilitate the preservation of affordable rental homes in the Twin Cities.

In this month's podcast we hear from Rick Jacobus, Partner at Burlington Associates, to give us a better understanding of how local governments can implement shared equity homeownership strategies to achieve permanent housing affordability, while still allowing for significant individual asset-building. Special guest Connie Chavez, Executive Director of the Sawmill Community Land Trust in Albuquerque, NM, joins us to speak about Arbolera de Vida, a vibrant, mixed-use community with affordable housing built on a formerly vacant lot near downtown.

In this month's podcast we hear from two of the nation's leading experts on green building. Special guest Dana Bourland, senior program director for the Green Communities Initiative at Enterprise Community Partners, highlights how Enterprise's Green Communities Criteria provide affordable housing developers with proven, cost-effective standards for creating healthy and energy-efficient homes. Also in this episode, Paul Freitag, development studio director for Jonathan Rose Companies, discusses David and Joyce Dinkins Gardens, Harlem's first green building for low-income families, and the many ways that the development benefits its residents, the community and the environment.

This month's edition of Out Loud takes an in-depth look at foreclosure prevention. Special guest Andrew Jakabovics, associate director for the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress, outlines the foreclosure crisis across the country and describes how communities are handling the ever-increasing problem. Also in the episode, Michael van Zalingen, director of homeownership services for Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, discusses how Chicago is helping families keep their homes.

This month's edition of Out Loud takes an in-depth look at employer-assisted housing (EAH). Special guest Robin Snyderman, housing director for the Metropolitan Planning Council, is interviewed and talks about the many ways EAH can benefit both families and communities nationwide. Also in this episode, Ray Schmidt, executive director of Select Milwaukee, discusses how key Milwaukee employers are using EAH to recruit and retain quality employees.