PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING -- part 3

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING
Schwartz, sharing observations she and MacArthur colleague Erika Poethig delivered at a HUD symposium, identified three barriers to affordable housing preservation that must be overcome:

• Properties. Current resources, incentives and requirements tied to affordable rental properties do not adequately encourage or require owners to preserve long term affordability or to sell to other owners committed to that objective.
• Ownership. Current policies also limit the ability of owners to recapitalize, earn sufficient cash flow and build a sustainable capital base from which to successfully maintain, manage and operate properties that are affordable to low- and moderate-income renters.
• Transactions. Current housing programs and regulations are fragmented, cumbersome, often unpredictable and inconsistently applied. Transactions that would transfer properties to new owners committed to preserving affordability and providing good long-term stewardship are difficult, costly and slow.

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING -- part 2

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING

The foundation’s “Window of Opportunity: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing” goal is to directly support the preservation and improvement of 100,000 affordable rental homes and to significantly improve the regulatory and funding environment for preservation through policy reforms at local, state and federal levels.

“Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reports that over the past 10 years two existing units were lost for every affordable rental newly built,” said Debra Schwartz, Director of Program-Related Investments for the MacArthur Foundation. “Without concerted action, our nation’s stock of affordable rental housing is projected to fall by another million units or more in the decade ahead.”

“It is expected that by the end of 2007, over $3.5 billion in new long-term subsidy and financing will have been invested in `Window of Opportunity’ projects at an average cost of roughly $80,000 per home,” she added. “This is significantly less than the cost to build a new affordable rental unit anywhere in the country today.”

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING
By Steve Wright

If homeownership is the American Dream, then lack of affordable rental housing is the American Nightmare.

For a huge percentage of Americans – those who are part of the increasing low-wage workforce, elderly, disabled, entry level professionals, even mid-level wage earners in expensive big cities – renting makes more sense that home ownership.

While the need for affordable rental housing has never been greater, the uphill battle to preserve existing affordable housing has never been steeper.

A number of factors – an endless maze of U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations, the lure of market rate rent earnings, high land values, perplexing local building codes – threaten to diminish an affordable rental housing inventory that already fails to meet the rising demand for it.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is supporting a 10-year, $75 million initiative to preserve and improve affordable rental housing across the country.

September 11 -- One Decade Later

September 11 -- One Decade Later

9-11-2001

It was my wife's birthday, her first as a resident of Miami -- where we moved from Ohio.

I got up early at our high rise apartment, got the mail that I'd forgotten from the day before and headed to work.

We had big plans that night. I'd take my wife out on the town to celebrate the successful reinvention of ourselves in SOFLA.



At work, in an office filled with former New Yorkers, I proudly showed the cover image that I shot for Total Access Magazine -- a proud photo of the Word Trade Center's Twin Towers accompanying a story I'd written about our beloved Manhattan.

My boss gasped when she saw it -- reports were out that a plane had hit one of the towers. Surely, a tragedy, but only some kind of freak flight accident we guessed...as we scrambled to find someone with a TV in the pre-Twitter, Facebook, blogger days.

As the morning unfolded, it became clear something much worse was happening to America. A second tower hit, the first going up in flames, reports of other crashes by the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.




Stunned, we were ultimately dismissed from our mid-rise worksite. Police cars zoomed past on the highway. Was Miami under attack? Would terrorists blow up the nuclear power plant and forever destroy the Everglades, Florida Keys and diverse Miami?

By mid-afternoon, I was hugging my wife on her 37th birthday -- but not in celebration of her Feliz Cumpleanos or our new life in South Florida.

We were clinging to each other, wondering how we'd evacuate our apartment if an act of terrorism shut down the power -- rendering the elevator useless to help her make it down several floors in a wheelchair.



We watched the TV and hoped for leadership from a president we hadn't voted for. Friends who are Agnostics phoned and said they were praying on bended knees.

Days and nights passed without the roar of airplanes heading to and from Miami International Airport. The posh Mandarin Oriental, usually lit brightly and full of people, looked bare and dim across the sliver of channel separating us on mainland Brickell from its Brickell Key opulence.

Today, a decade later, America is mired in an economic crisis that has hurt more working families than any act of terrorism. New York has survived and thrived. A half decade following the WTC attacks, we mustered the strength to visit Ground Zero.

Heidi, turned 47 on this infamous day, is even more beautiful now than she was a decade ago when life forever turned 9-11 from her birth date to the most memorable and tragic date in American history.

Ultimate Divas: The Greatest Female Vocalists of Our Time, various artists

Ultimate Divas: The Greatest Female Vocalists of Our Time, various artists (Arista):

The trouble with collections such as this is the inevitable quibbling they invite over the inclusion of one artist and the exclusion of another.

Forget such debates and enjoy its outstanding assemblage of 17 women gifted with pipes and panache.

Billie Holiday is a sublime way to start, her version of My Man (Mon Homme) impeccable in its phrasing and depth of feeling.

Lena Horne is both delicate and powerful on Stormy Weather.

Ella Fitzgerald is pure perfection with Someone to Watch Over Me.

Flash forward and we thrill to Gladys Knight’s soulful Midnight Train to Georgia and ache when Diana Ross croons the poignant Touch Me in the Morning.

Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It is still fresh after 15 years.

Only time will tell whether Annie Lennox (Why), Mary J. Blige (Not Gon’ Cry) and Toni Braxton (Un-Break My Heart) will have the staying power of uber-diva Aretha Franklin, who closes the collection with neither Respect nor Chain of Fools, but Puccini’s aria Nessun Dorma.


--Heidi Johnson-Wright

Seven More Minutes, The Rentals

Seven More Minutes, The Rentals (Maverick)

Barcelona, Spain must be an inspirational place.

Matt Sharp, bassist for Weezer and driving force behind the Rentals, wrote or co-wrote this wonderful album’s songs in that city and even named one of the tunes after it.

Besides references to discos and transvestites, the song features commanding guitar, a compelling hook and kicky electronic fuzz.

It’s the coolest tune the Pixies never did.

And though the apparent influence of other bands – including the Beatles – pops up throughout, the Rentals are no mere imitators.

Of course, one expects impressive things from a band who’s collaborators include Blur’s Damon Albarn and Elastica’s Donna Matthews.

The result is a delightful mix of pop, punk and powerful hooks that’s at turns lighthearted and ominous.

She Says It’s Alright pairs a gentle, little tune with lyrics that painfully convey a lover’s indifference.

The hard rocking Keep Sleeping hints at the ugliness of possessiveness: “When you leave your friends for me/the itinerary is a thousand places we could be.”

--Heidi Johnson-Wright

The Nashville Sessions, Leftover Salmon

The Nashville Sessions, Leftover Salmon (Hollywood)

Eclectic, electric and boatloads of fun best describes this collection by this Boulder, Colo.-based group.

The roots-oriented quintet left their mountain turf for Nashville where they brought together talent from Taj Mahal to “Big Head” Todd Park Mohr.

The fruit of their toil is wonderfully listenable and remarkably cohesive given the diversity of artists involved.

The backbone of the Salmon is bluegrass, so the album opens appropriately with the mountain music of Midnight Blues.

Guest musicians Del and Ronnie McCoury ably contribute to the lively track.

The catchy, earthy Lovin’ In My Baby’s Eyes is Mahal’s masterful contribution complete with his gorgeously gritty vocals and delightful dobro stylings.

Heavy hitting talent Waylon Jennings scores big with his tune, Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.

The song, rendered as a duet with Salmon Vince Herman, asks whether country music has strayed from its roots and its vision.

Lines Around Your Eyes, a Cajun-style ripsnorter penned by Lucinda Williams finds her delivering powerhouse vocals on this track about the pitfalls of love and passion.

Also of note is the irresistible Latin-flavored Dance On Your Head featuring Bela Fleck on banjo and the up-tempo country rocker On The Other Side, blessed with the harmonica magic of Blues Traveler’s John Popper.

--Heidi Johnson-Wright