The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has assisted veterans with home-ownership since 1944, when Congress enacted the loan guaranty program to help veterans returning from World War II purchase homes. The loan guaranty program assists veterans by insuring mortgages made by private lenders, and is available for the purchase or construction of homes as well as to refinance existing loans. A third way in which the VA provides housing assistance to both veterans and active duty service members is through the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) Program. Through the SAH program, veterans with certain service-connected disabilities may obtain grants from the VA to purchase or remodel homes to fit their needs. This book discusses these three types of housing assistance; the loan guaranty program, direct loan programs, and Specially Adapted Housing program -- their origins, how they operate, and how they are funded. Additionally, the default and foreclosure of VA-guaranteed loans is discussed.

Farmworkers play a critical role in the nation's agricultural sector. However, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmworkers are among the most poorly housed people in the United States. To support the development of adequate, affordable housing for farmworkers, Congress enacted the Farm Labor Housing (FLH) Loan and Grant Program in the early 1960s. This program provides capital financing to buy, develop, improve, or repair housing for domestic farmworkers employed on farms or in agricultural or processing industries off-farm. The FLH program is the only federally assisted source of housing dedicated to farm labour, which is defined as services associated with the spectrum of farming activities, from cultivating the soil to delivering commodities to market. This book discusses the opportunities that exist to strengthen farm labour housing program management and oversight.

The Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration program was created by Congress to give the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) the flexibility to test alternative policies for providing housing assistance through the nation's two largest housing assistance programs: the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program and the public housing program. The alternative policies are meant to increase the cost-effectiveness of assisted housing programs, promote the self-sufficiency of assisted families, and increase housing choices for low-income families. This book provides an overview of the history and purpose of the MTW demonstration program, followed by a description of some of the policies adopted by participating PHAs, and policy options for the future.

The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is the federal government's largest needs-based housing assistance program, in terms of both the number of families served and the cost to the federal budget. Under the program, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides funds to local public housing authorities (PHAs), which, in turn, provide subsidies to low-income households to use to rent private market apartments. Although the basic structure of the program is governed by federal law and regulations, PHAs have discretion to determine many important elements. This book discusses the key drivers of cost growth in the voucher program and the actions taken to control this growth and analyses various options to cut costs or create efficiencies.

During the continuing foreclosure crisis and economic downturn, increased numbers of vacant residential properties are becoming vandalised or dilapidated, attracting crime, and contributing to neighbourhood decline in many communities across the country. Even though homeowners whose properties are being foreclosed upon may continue to occupy their properties until after a foreclosure sale occurs, many leave their homes during the foreclosure process. In addition, properties for which a new entity has assumed ownership through foreclosure may be vacant until the property is resold. This book explores the concern over the costs that foreclosed and unattended vacant homes are creating for local communities and the strategies state and local governments are using to address unattended vacant property problems and the challenges those governments face.

This book examines the extent and nature of the issue of homelessness in the u.s. the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 1.1 percent from 643,067 in January 2009 to 649,917 in January 2010. Discussed are the characteristics of persons experiencing homelessness, trends in shelters; the use of supportive housing programs; and homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing assistance.

The idea of a federal public housing program began taking shape in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Its purpose was intended to be twofold: the housing created would respond to a lack of sanitary housing available at a low cost to families who had fallen on hard times, and the construction of the housing would lead to the creation of jobs and economic growth. However, the idea of the federal government providing housing proved to be controversial. This book examines the history of the federal housing program; current policy issues; how it is administered and funded and the characteristics of public housing properties and the households they serve.

The term "assisted housing preservation" refers to public policy efforts to maintain the affordability of rental properties financed or subsidised by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but owned by private for-profit or non-profit organisations. Beginning in the late 1950s, HUD extended mortgage and/or rental assistance to owners in exchange for which the owners agreed to make their units affordable to low- and, in some cases, moderate-income tenants. This book introduces the concept of assisted housing preservation, provides background information, and discusses current public policy issues and proposed legislation corresponding to the preservation of HUD-assisted housing..

Since 2006, the percentage of mortgage loans that are seriously delinquent, including defaulted loans and foreclosures in inventory, has risen. One option for resolving a mortgage default is foreclosure. Foreclosure, however, is costly for borrowers that lose what might be the largest asset in their portfolios; for lenders that may not be able to recoup the outstanding loan amount, legal fees, lost revenue and maintenance costs until the distressed property is sold. This book provides an overview of servicing and a summary of the typical array of loss mitigation that servicers may offer distressed borrowers. Also discussed are regional house price movements and unemployment trends which are important drivers of mortgage repayment problems and loss mitigation outcomes.

Mentally ill people turned out of institutions, crack-cocaine use on the rise, more poverty, public housing a shambles: as attempts to explain homelessness multiply so do the homeless-and we still don't know why. The first full-scale economic analysis of homelessness, Making Room provides answers quite unlike those offered so far by sociologists and pundits. It is a story about markets, not about the bad habits or pathology of individuals. One perplexing fact is that, though homelessness in the past occurred during economic depressions, the current wave started in the 1980s, a time of relative prosperity. As Brendan O'Flaherty points out, this trend has been accompanied by others just as unexpected: rising rents for poor people and continued housing abandonment. These are among the many disconcerting facts that O'Flaherty collected and analyzed in order to account for the new homelessness. Focused on six cities (New York, Newark, Chicago, Toronto, London, and Hamburg), his studies also document the differing rates of homelessness in North America and Europe, and from one city to the next, as well as interesting changes in the composition of homeless populations. For the first time, too, a scholarly observer makes a useful distinction between the homeless people we encounter on the streets every day and those "officially" counted as homeless. O'Flaherty shows that the conflicting observations begin to make sense when we see the new homelessness as a response to changes in the housing market, linked to a widening gap in the incomes of rich and poor. The resulting shrinkage in the size of the middle class has meant fewer hand-me-downs for the poor and higher rents for the low-quality housing that is available. O'Flaherty's tightly argued theory, along with the wealth of new data he introduces, will put the study of homelessness on an entirely new plane. No future student or policymaker will be able to ignore the economic factors presented so convincingly in this plainspoken book.

This book on counting sheltered homeless persons is part of HUD's larger technical assistance effort to help Continuums of Care (CoCs) prepare annual applications for homeless assistance funds and meet Congressional directives on improving the quality of information on homelessness. This book describes recommended methods for collecting data on sheltered homeless populations, that is, homeless persons residing in emergency shelter or transitional housing. In addition, this guide describes several methods for learning something about homeless people who are unlikely to be found in shelters or in other residential programs within a local homeless assistance network. The primary audience for this book are likely to be state and local government agencies, other organisations involved in Continuums of Care (CoCs) and regional councils of government. Others who may find it helpful include state and local legislative bodies needing to allocate resources among several jurisdictions or programs. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

This guide to the literature presents descriptions of books, reports and articles dealing with all aspects of Homelessness including: economic aspects; issues on substance abuse and homelessness; mortality rates; treatment preferences; homeless programs: public opinion; community care; and many more. The book is completely indexed for easy axis.

Homelessness prevention is an essential element of any effort to end homelessness either locally or nation-wide. To close the front door of entry into homelessness, the central challenge of prevention is targeting our efforts toward those people that will become homeless without the intervention. This book identifies elements of community homelessness prevention strategies that seem to lead to reductions in the number of people who otherwise would become homeless. The contributing elements include targeting through control of the eligibility screening process; developing community motivation; maximising mainstream and private resources; fostering leadership; and ensuring the availability and structure of data and information used to track progress, improve on prevention efforts, and facilitate outcome-based contracting. Evidence from the six communities studied indicates that those employing the most elements seem to be more successful at prevention and better able to document their achievements. This book also identifies four promising homelessness prevention activities that may be used alone or in combination as part of a coherent community-wide strategy: (1) supportive services coupled with permanent housing, particularly when combined with effective discharge from institutions, especially mental hospitals; (2) mediation in Housing Courts; (3) cash assistance for rent or mortgage arrears; and (4) rapid exit from shelter. This study provides insight into approaches that will help prevent homelessness. It is an important contribution to our understanding of how to help homeless Americans.

Between the early 1900s and the late 1950s, the attitudes of white Californians toward their Asian American neighbors evolved from outright hostility to relative acceptance. Charlotte Brooks examines this transformation through the lens of California's urban housing markets, arguing that the perceived foreignness of Asian Americans, which initially stranded them in segregated areas, eventually facilitated their integration into neighborhoods that rejected other minorities. Against the backdrop of Cold War efforts to win Asian hearts and minds, whites who saw little difference between Asians and Asian Americans increasingly advocated the latter group's access to middle-class life and the residential areas that went with it. But as they transformed Asian Americans into a "model minority," whites purposefully ignored the long backstory of Chinese and Japanese Americans' early and largely failed attempts to participate in public and private housing programs. As Brooks tells this multifaceted story, she draws on a broad range of sources in multiple languages, giving voice to an array of community leaders, journalists, activists, and homeowners - and insightfully conveying the complexity of racialized housing in a multiracial society.

This remarkable book presents a series of vignettes of homeless people from the streets of New York. Riveting photographs of each person accompany the stories. Many of us tend to lump all the homeless together into a single, faceless category. It's easy to see why. We seldom actually hear the voices of the homeless. The author uses an approach which allows these people to speak through him. Perhaps they will no longer remain silent. All of us should listen.

Beginning in the 1950s, an explosion in rural-urban migration dramatically increased the population of cities throughout Peru, leading to an acute housing shortage and the proliferation of self-built shelters clustered in barriadas, or squatter settlements. Improvised Cities examines the history of aided self-help housing, or technical assistance to self-builders, which took on a variety of forms in Peru from 1954 to 1986. While the postwar period saw a number of trial projects in aided self-help housing throughout the developing world, Peru was the site of significant experiments in this field and pioneering in its efforts to enact a large-scale policy of land tenure regularization in improvised, unauthorized cities. Gyger focuses on three interrelated themes: the circumstances that made Peru a fertile site for innovation in low-cost housing under a succession of very different political regimes; the influences on, and movements within, architectural culture that prompted architects to consider self-help housing as an alternative mode of practice; and the context in which international development agencies came to embrace these projects as part of their larger goals during the Cold War and beyond.

The most accurate and comprehensive picture of homelessness to date, this study offers a powerful explanation of its causes, proposes short- and long-term solutions, and documents the striking contrasts between the homeless of the 1950s and 1960s and the contemporary homeless population, which is younger and contains more women, children, and blacks.

Through an international comparative research, this unique book examines ethnic residential segregation patterns in relation to the wider society and mechanisms of social division of space in Western European regions. Focuses on eight Southern European cities, develops new metaphors and furthers the theorisation/conceptualisation of segregation in Europe Re-centres the segregation debate on the causes of marginalisation and inequality, and the role of the state in these processes A pioneering analysis of which and how systemic mechanisms, contextual conditions, processes and changes drive patterns of ethnic segregation and forms of socio-ethnic differentiation Develops an innovative inter-disciplinary approach which explores ethnic patterns in relation to European welfare regimes, housing systems, immigration waves, and labour systems

In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his previous prize-winning books, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood.
For nearly fifty years, Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation. But never has his intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than in "Fire in the Ashes," as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States. Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and often jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face. As we watch these glorious children grow into the fullness of a healthy and contributive maturity, they ignite a flame of hope, not only for themselves but also for our society.

Despite billions of government dollars spent in the attempt, we are no closer than we were three decades ago to solving the problem of homelessness. Why? And what can we do about it? Tackling these questions, the authors of Ending Homelessness explore the complicated and often dysfunctional relationship between efforts to address homelessness and the realities on the street.

Sharing the daily struggles of children and families residing in transitional situations (homelessness or because of risk of homelessness, being connected with the child welfare system, or being new immigrants in temporary housing), this text recommends strategies for delivering mental health and intensive case-management services that maintain family integrity and stability. Based on work undertaken at the Center for the Vulnerable Child in Oakland, California, which has provided mental health and intensive case management to children and families living in transition for more than two decades, this volume outlines culturally sensitive practices to engage families that feel disrespected by the assistance of helping professionals or betrayed by their forgotten promises. Chapters discuss the Center's staffers' attempt to trace the influence of power, privilege, and beliefs on their education and their approach to treatment. Many U.S. children living in impoverished transitional situations are of color and come from generations of poverty, and the professionals they encounter are white, middle-class, and college-educated. The Center's work to identify the influences or obstacles interfering with services for this target population is therefore critical to formulating more effective treatment, interaction, and care.

David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. "Down on Their Luck" sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of human resilience and determination, not one of frailty and disability.

By the early 1900s, the poor farm had become a ubiquitous part of America's social welfare system. Megan Birk's history of this foundational but forgotten institution focuses on the connection between agriculture, provisions for the disadvantaged, and the daily realities of life at poor farms. Conceived as an inexpensive way to provide care for the indigent, poor farms in fact attracted wards that ranged from abused wives and the elderly to orphans, the disabled, and disaster victims. Most people arrived unable rather than unwilling to work, some because of physical problems, others due to a lack of skills or because a changing labor market had left them behind. Birk blends the personal stories of participants with institutional histories to reveal a loose-knit system that provided a measure of care to everyone without an overarching philosophy of reform or rehabilitation. In-depth and innovative, The Fundamental Institution offers an overdue portrait of rural social welfare in the United States.

Around the world and across a range of contexts, homelessness among older people is on the rise. In spite of growing media attention and new academic research on the issue, older people often remain unrecognized as a subpopulation in public policy, programs, and homeless strategies. As such, they occupy a paradoxical position of being hypervisible while remaining overlooked. Late-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Basing her analysis on a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of aging and homelessness. She draws attention to disadvantage over time and how the condition of being unhoused disrupts a person's ability to age in place, resulting in experiences of unequal aging. Weaving together findings from policy documents, stakeholder insights, and observations and interviews with older people, this book demonstrates how structures, organizational practices, and relationships related to homelessness and aging come to shape late life. Situated in the context of an aging population, rising inequality, and declining social commitments, Late-Life Homelessness stresses the moral imperative of responding justly to the needs of older people as a means of mitigating the unequal aging of unhoused elders.

Home to eighty thousand people, Accra's Old Fadama neighbourhood is the largest illegal slum in Ghana. Though almost all its inhabitants are Ghanaian born, their status as illegal 'squatters' means that they live a precarious existence, marginalised within Ghanaian society and denied many of the rights to which they are entitled as citizens. The case of Old Fadama is far from unique. Across Africa, over half the population now lives in cities, and a lack of affordable housing means that growing numbers live in similar illegal slum communities, often in appalling conditions. Drawing on rich, ethnographic fieldwork, the book takes as its point of departure the narratives that emerge from the everyday lives and struggles of these people, using the perspective offered by Old Fadama as a means of identifying wider trends and dynamics across African slums. Central to Stacey's argument is the idea that such slums possess their own structures of governance, grounded in processes of negotiation between slum residents and external actors. In the process, Stacey transforms our understanding not only of slums, but of governance itself, moving us beyond prevailing state-centric approaches to consider how even a society's most marginal members can play a key role in shaping and contesting state power.