Issue #147, Fall 2006


Access

Publications & Services


The University of California Press published a second edition of The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City, coauthored by Peter Dreier, Regina Freer, Bob Gottlieb and Mark Vallianatos. The book describes and analyzes the past, present and future of progressive politics in Los Angeles. The last chapter, “A Policy Agenda for the Next L.A.,” is a platform crafted by a coalition of progressive groups. www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9799001.html

America’s Rental Housing: Homes For A Diverse Nation, the new study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard says that affordable rental housing is essential but shrinking. www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/rental/rh06_americas_rental_housing.pdf

The U.S. Census Bureau, in partnership with HUD, released the national summary of the 2005 American Housing Survey, which provides a national snapshot of housing unit characteristics, the incomes of householders, housing costs, neighborhood quality, recent movers and commuting patterns. www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/h150-05.pdf

In its report, From Poverty, Opportunity: Putting the Market to Work for Lower Income Families, the Brookings Institution found that lower-income families pay more for the same essential goods and services than families with higher incomes, making it more difficult for those families to save. www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060718_povop.htm

The Poverty and Race Research Action Council and the National Fair Housing Alliance released Are States Using the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to Enable Families with Children to Live in Low Poverty and Racially Integrated Neighborhoods?, which found that between 1995 and 2003, the LIHTC program placed almost 145,000 units with two or more bedrooms in area with poverty rates less than 10 percent, demonstrating the program’s potential to provide opportunities for low-income families to live in solid, middle-income neighborhoods. www.prrac.org/pdf/LIHTC_report_2006.pdf

Social Service and Social Change: A Process Guide teaches service nonprofits how to incorporate progressive social change values and practices into their work and address systemic problems. www.buildingmovement.org

Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity is available at www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/kelloggabcd.pdf

Four Narratives of Anti-Poverty Community Mobilization: HousingWorks, FIERCE, Human Rights Watch, and the More Gardens Coalition, by Benjamin Shepard, is a collection of essays covering housing, community gardens, free spaces and social justice issues in New York City.
http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers.htm

AWARDS
The New York City Opportunities Fund, administered by the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, is a funding pool developed by the Overbrook Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Merck Family Fund. The fund assists organizing groups in NYC engaged in youth organizing in low-income communities and will provide grants to address technical assistance needs and/or collaboration projects. Deadline: December 8. www.fcyo.org/sitebody/rfp.htm

Scholarship Opportunity: Southern New Hampshire University’s School of Community Economic Development is offering tuition reduction of 50 to 60 percent to employees of NeighborWorks network member organizations and NeighborWorks Training Institute faculty. Deadline: June 30, 2007. Contact Anthony Poore, , or 603-668-2211.