Press Room

Local affiliates of Habitat for Humanity are looking to share mortgage servicing, pre-construction services, advertising, public-relations and other functions. The Charlotte Rescue Mission and United Family Services are building facilities for women on the same site. They’re also studying ways to trim their expenses by working together in developing the tract. And an initiative known as Project Hope has brought together four agencies to help individuals living in long-term poverty find affordable housing. These efforts represent what community leaders believe can become a broader re-engineering of the Charlotte region’s nonprofit sector. And they hope to speed that process by making strategic investments in nonprofits’ innovation and collaboration.

Minneapolis city leaders broke ground yesterday for Nicollet Square, an innovative $9.2 million model of supportive housing and employment to help young adults transition out of homelessness or foster care to become independent and economically self-sufficient. The project, located at 3700 Nicollet Avenue, is one of seven projects in Minnesota selected for federal stimulus funds from the Tax Credit Exchange Program. Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation is the developer.

There were not many people packed in to the Los Angeles "town hall" meeting who had heard of the foreign woman with the unfamiliar title who had come to listen to their tales of plight. But many took it as a good sign that she had worried the last American government enough for it to keep her out of the country.

For everyone right now, the job market is tough. The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% in October, its highest level in more than 26 years, according to the Labor Department. Nationwide, 15.7 million people are out of work. That is really bad news for the hundreds of thousands of ex-convicts who are released from prison every year.

Can't pay the mortgage? You still might be able to stay in your home. Government-controlled mortgage company Fannie Mae is going to give borrowers on the verge of foreclosure the option of renting their homes for a year.

For millions of out-of-work job seekers, unemployment insurance is providing an increasingly tenuous financial lifeline. With jobless benefits expiring for a record number of workers, some 7,000 a day, Congress is sending the president legislation to expand a popular homebuyers tax credit and extend unemployment benefits. The $24 billion economic package seeks both to propel a sluggish economic recovery and help out the millions who have lost jobs and have been unable to rejoin the workforce.

As our nation pauses to salute those who serve our country, it is important to recognize the incredible work being done to combat homelessness among veterans. To eradicate this scourge, current efforts must be bolstered by additional financial and political investments.

Barely a year into his first term, Gov. Tim Pawlenty set out to end long-term homelessness in Minnesota by 2010, an audacious-sounding goal that he insisted was "very real and attainable." Almost six years later, the problem remains.

The Areyto Apartments, a significant new asset in the Upper Eastside neighborhood, is a twenty unit supportive housing development designed to provide housing with services to individuals who have experience homelessness with mental health challenges and/or in recovery from chemical dependency.

Fannie Mae is implementing the Deed for Lease™ Program under which qualifying homeowners facing foreclosure will be able to remain in their homes by signing a lease in connection with the voluntary transfer of the property deed back to the lender.