Housing
High lead levels pour from Chicago faucets; raise concern of testing methods
Exposure to lead – even a little – in tap water can cause serious health problems in both children and adults. In this report by Ellen Gabler of the Chicago Tribune, she reveals that a recent federal testing of Chicago’s tap water showed that “nearly 45 percent” of homes “had lead levels spike when more water samples…
Read MoreFlorida housing market still struggles with foreclosures
As the real estate market began to crumble around 2007, the Florida housing market took a big hit. In 2009, nearly 6 percent of the state’s “entire housing stock” was in foreclosure. While the market has improved slightly in the past two years, there are still “almost 40,000 properties in foreclosure. “Almost 30,000 more are in…
Read MoreBailed-out banks that agreed to help struggling homeowners are caught praticing the opposite
Rob O’Dell, of the Arizona Daily Star, reports on the shameful acts of three of the largest banks in Arizona. “Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners’ tax debt. The tax liens…
Read MoreFannie Mae pressures banks to foreclose, despite their own policy
“Detroit Free Press investigative reporter Jennifer Dixon reports Sunday that Fannie Mae is privately telling banks to foreclose on homeowners who are more than a year deliquent even if the borrowers are seeking a federal loan modification. The policy, uncovered in confidential Fannie Mae records, is contrary to Fannie Mae’s public assurances that homeowners will be…
Read MoreBurmese refugees placed in squalid living conditions
In this report, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveals that Burmese refugees who have fled their home to avoid persecution, have found themselves placed in terrible living conditions. The Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan placed the refugees in “cockroach-infested Milwaukee apartments.” Most of the rooms did not have fire or carbon monoxide detectors…
Read MoreThe U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development fails to use common-sense oversight.
In “Million-Dollar Wasteland,” The Washington Post’s Debbie Cenziper reports that the federal government’s largest housing construction program for the poor has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or the local housing agencies that funded them. Nationwide, nearly 700 projects awarded $400…
Read MoreSocial and economic discrimination still rampant in Houston low-income housing.
Yang Wang reports on the disturbing low-income housing neighborhood conditions in Houston, TX that led to a teens death. Just weeks before 19-year-old Jamesha Floyd was pulled from her burning home, her aunt and uncle complained to their landlord about faulty electrical wiring in the four-room house they shared with Floyd on Sayers Street. And…
Read MoreLegal problems mount for large foreclosure processing company
Reuters correspondent Scot Paltrow reports on Lender Processing Services, a Florida company that handles half of all foreclosures in the United States. A Reuters investigation shows the company’s legal woes are more serious than previously disclosed. “Public records reveal that the company’s LPS Default Solutions unit produced documents of dubious authenticity in far larger quantities…
Read MoreViolations riddle Florida housing agency
After HUD reviewed the local public housing authority in Lee County, Florida, The News-Press took an in-depth look at the finances and operations of this federally funded affordable housing agency. The newspaper documented instances of employees given Section 8 rent subsidy vouchers and public housing rentals ahead of needy families, kickbacks from contractors, and a…
Read MoreHistoric Hawaiian homes get big tax breaks
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez found that owners of million-dollar historic homes on Oahu were getting major property-tax breaks without meeting a key requirement of the exemption program — that the homes be visible from public streets. He also found that the city did not verify the owners’ required statements that the pre-exemption level of…
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