Public Housing

Joining the ranks of Evicted, The Warmth of Other Sons, and classic works of literary non-fiction by Alex Kotlowitz and J. Anthony Lukas, High-Risers braids personal narratives, city politics, and national history to tell the timely and epic story of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, America’s most...

There was no single, dramatic event that set the current financial crisis off. A whole series of very questionable decisions by many people, in many places, over a period of years, built up the pressures that led to a sudden collapse of the housing market and of financial institutions that began to fall like dominoes as a result of investing in securities based on housing prices. This book is designed to unravel the tangled threads of that story.

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

In 2006, Ben S. Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, capping a meteoric trajectory from a rural South Carolina childhood to professorships at Stanford and Princeton, to public service in Washington's halls of power. There would be no time to celebrate, however - the burst of the housing bubble in 2007 set off a domino effect that would bring the global financial system to the brink of meltdown.

In London, only those with vast cash deposits can get on the property ladder, private rents have spiralled out of control and the wait for social housing is measured in decades. Once vibrant communities are being uprooted, schools are closing down and homelessness is rampant. It was not always like this. Tracing the last forty years of housing policy, Peter Apps examines this transformation, following a diverse group of Londoners as their fortunes rise and fall across the decades amid the economic forces sweeping through the city.

Millennials are the first generation in Ireland to be worse off than their parents. Trapped in a game of rental roulette, stuck living at home as adults, and many on the brink of homelessness, the Irish housing crisis has defined the lives of an entire generation—and it is set to continue. With housing costs in Ireland the highest in the EU, the property ladder has been kicked from under thousands. So how did we get here…and how do we break the cycle?

Have you ever felt like you had a gift to share with the world, but only needed the perfect opportunity to make that dream a reality? Do you ever feel stuck on your path because you feel your race, gender, social class, etc., is hindering you from making the necessary strides to get ahead in your education or career? As a first-generation low-income student, Crystal received over $670,000 in scholarship funding, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship and the Army ROTC merit award.

Empathetic and excellent advice from one of our nation's leading Housing Authority experts, having served in leadership roles across eight major U.S. cities and one in Canada. In his book, Housing Humans- A Vicarious Memorandum, Gene first describes his early childhood and military life and details how his experiences led him to finding his ultimate calling in working to improve the lives of others via affordable housing. Gene later articulates his specific call-to-action for national housing reform.

A landmark history told with narrative skill, Freedom to Discriminate uncovers realtors' definitive role in segregating America and shaping modern conservative thought. His book traces the increasingly aggressive ways realtors justified their practices, how they successfully weaponized the word "freedom" for their cause, and how conservative politicians have drawn directly from realtors' rhetoric for the past several decades.

Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners.

La crisis de vivienda existe y no podemos seguir ignorándola. Nuestras ciudades son cada vez más inhabitables: cada vez más caras, más distantes, más precarizadas y con menos servicios. Miles de personas están preocupadas por su imposibilidad de adquirir unavivienda en propiedad o, incluso, en arrendamiento. Sin embargo, esta problemática sigue siendo percibida como una preocupación individualizada y no como el problema estructural que realmente es.

What if there were one single way we could significantly improve the American economy, public health, and offer attractive investment opportunities, while also providing more homes for American families and workers? The American Dream has always been built on the notion that no matter where you come from, you can be successful. For the past century, housing has played a major role in making the American Dream a reality for millions of individuals. In short, the availability of affordable housing stands at the crossroads of capitalism and compassion.