March 30, 2017
Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Roundup
- Could the post-Great Recession drop in housing demand have been driven in part by an increase in mortgage credit spreads across borrowers? In a new Joint Center working paper that uses proprietary data on the spread of mortgage rates across borrowers with different credit, I find that mortgage demand does react to mortgage interest rates in economically and statistically significant ways.
- The HOME Coalition is organizing a national sign-on letter for state and local organizations, businesses and other stakeholders urging Congress to reject the Trump Administration’s proposal to eliminate the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) program and restore its funding to at least $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2018 (FY 18). Please sign onto the letter by the March 31 deadline.
- As part of a series of monthly columns on growth, housing, displacement and the future of neighborhoods in Nashville, The Tennessean looks at efforts to transform Nashville’s public housing complexes into mixed-income rental developments without displacing existing residents. According to this effort, which is already underway, Nashville’s public housing complexes will be redeveloped in phases and existing residents will be allowed to gradually move into their new units, in order to avoid displacement while construction is ongoing. Efforts to redevelop public housing into mixed-income developments will be completed by the end of this year, according to Jim Harbison, executive director of the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.
