The Neighborhood Housing Service of Springfield Massachusetts has recently sponsored the building of low-income modular homes in their Old Hill neighborhood. The project is notable for at least two great reasons: First, the Springfield NHS built the homes on what had been ‘trash strewn vacant lots,’ so the entire community enjoys aesthetic and economic boosts. […]
Education Resources And Analyses In The Context of The Great Recession
Education is a stunningly inefficient human endeavor. A teacher might invest hours of time on a student only to discover that the student’s family situation is too unstable to allow any of the teacher’s influence to stick after the school bell rings. Or the teacher might get dispirited about students’ indifferent reactions to a […]
Government Announces Plans To Forestall New Wave Of Foreclosures
Jeff Swiatek of The Indianapolis Star (Indiana) reported two days ago that the wave of foreclosures that seemed to have been forestalled in that city is on the verge of swelling again. The report, specific to the Indianapolis region, is all the more chilling when we recall that Indiana (and Maryland) was (were) not deep […]
ACORN Shuts Down and/or Breaks Up
The board of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now announced today that its national organization was shutting down operations, though state-level community organizations may (and surely will) continue to function. The move likely was, as Frank James at NPR‘s blog put it, a “mercy killing.” The national organization faced charges of bending rules […]
NeighborWorks Offers $119 Million For Community Development
After yesterday’s report about the trickle of federal recovery aid being used to assist mortgage holders on the brink of foreclosure, we can return to the topic of the housing crisis with some much better news. NeighborWorks America has announced that it will be distributing $119 million in grants for this year. The amount is […]
The Social Costs of the Housing Crash: Hispanic Communities in NYC
Last week we posted a couple of reports pointing to the relative stability in the housing market that Baltimore has ‘enjoyed’ and how the faltering economy seems to have spurred growth in the non-profit sector. Today we are reminded of how important the qualifier ‘relative’ is. Optimists and bank executives largely believe the economy has […]
Texting to raise money for Haitian victims of the earthquake
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Haiti who are struggling for survival after the terrible earthquake of last week. The outpour of support from countries around the world has been one bright spot in the tragedy, and as MKCREATIVE’s mission is to work with non-profits and community-housing groups, we feel especially […]
Study of Mission Entrepreneurial Entities and Strategies for Future Development
The Affordable Housing Institute recently released its first comparative study of the work of MEEs (‘Mission Entrepreneurial Entities’) in the public housing sector. The study explores the adaptive advantages MEEs have over both purely private/for-profit enterprises and government and social-work entities. It does so by studying the ways MEEs in the US and in Britain […]