Yearly Archives: 2015

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $21.8 million in grants for 295 humanities projects, including new grants to digitize historical materials held by individuals, give a second life to important out-of-print humanities books, and support public programs on pressing contemporary challenges.

Lord Richard Rogers, an internationally renowned architect recognized for people-oriented building design and development, has been named the 2015 recipient of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. Rogers will be awarded the prize, which is the Institute’s highest honor, at a celebratory event during the ULI Europe Conference set for February 2–3, 2016, in Paris

Performance of first-lien mortgages continued to improve during the third quarter of 2015, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) quarterly report on mortgages

a 30-year agency veteran who for the past decade has overseen the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site – has been promoted to a newly created position of Chief of Major Capital Projects, where he will oversee projects including the Port Authority Bus Terminal replacement, the PATH-to-Newark Liberty International Airport extension, the Bayonne Bridge “Raise the Roadway” navigational clearance project, and the emerging Gateway Tunnel project on behalf of the agency.

The American Bankers Association – through its Corporation for American Banking subsidiary – has renewed its endorsement of Freddie Mac’s secondary mortgage market solutions

Scientists from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have discovered that a metabolic pathway previously only suggested to be functional in photosynthetic organisms is actually a major pathway and can enable efficient conversion of carbon dioxide to organic compounds.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro today announced HUD’s latest national one-night estimate of homelessness, highlighting a continuing decline across the nation. The results are based on HUD’s ‘point-in-time’ estimates, which seek to measure the scope of homelessness on a single night in January each year.

Consumers Energy announced the emergency public warning siren systems near its Rogers, Hardy and Croton hydroelectric generating plants on the Muskegon River will be tested on Thursday, Dec. 17, at approximately 10 a.m.

The severe and worsening inequality in the United States means that access to opportunity is often dependent on where a person lives. Yet due to a lack of available affordable housing and deeply rooted patterns of residential segregation, where people live depends in large part on income, race, and ethnicity. Policies that promote residential mobility while also reinvesting in racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods are crucial for reducing inequality and promoting healthy communities.

Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors, a nationally-recognized boutique real estate brokerage and advisory firm specializing in retail property sales, announced today that the group has raised awareness and critical funds for men’s health in November, one moustache at a time. Hanley Investment Group raised $35,000 for The Movember Foundation, surpassing what the group raised last year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for November 2015 shows mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased by 6 percent relative to the previous month. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.

In October 2015, NCHV held The Drive to December: Veterans Access to Housing Summit, a training event gathering stakeholders from around the country to address their local challenges in housing homeless veterans. The event, presented in partnership with Citi and The Home Depot Foundation, was titled"The Drive to December," to address the urgency of our efforts to meet the goal of ending veteran homelessness in every community by creating functional zero systems.

On the radar of every commercial real estate broker, investor, and developer, Austin, Texas, is the golden U.S. city with the magic combination of low unemployment, accelerated job growth, and innovative urban living. It is the envy of other U.S. cities for breezing through the Great Recession, for attracting record population growth that includes 35 percent millennials, and for swiftly becoming a secondary commercial real estate market.

Be there to honor the winners of the 2015 Beyond Green™ High-Performance Building and Community Awards. The National Institute of Building Sciences Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) will recognize the 2015 winners on Thursday, January 14, 2016, from 12:00 to 1:30 pm, at the Beyond Green™ Awards Luncheon, sponsored by the Illuminating Engineering Society, held during Building Innovation 2016:

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) embarked upon a demonstration to explore ways to prevent or end homelessness among veterans. Today, HUD released the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD) Evaluation Final Report, which finds participating veterans, many having served in the Iraq and Afghanistan, experienced substantial improvements in housing stability, employment and income that persisted after exiting the demonstration

The Tahoe Regional Planning Authority (TRPA) is committing an unconstitutional “taking” by prohibiting a couple from rebuilding a house on their vacant parcel, where a home stood for 30 years before being destroyed by the Angora forest fire in 2007.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took a major step forward in realizing untapped value from its real estate holdings at the World Trade Center, authorizing certain modifications to its net lease agreement for the Tower 2 site at the World Trade Center, which will accelerate the creation of at least $500 million in new capital for future transportation projects in the region.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) President William C. Baker issued this statement concerning a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint. The brief is in support of the request of the American Farm Bureau Federation and its allies asking the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of their lawsuit against EPA.

the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, published a newsletter encouraging law enforcement to promote alternatives to the criminalization of homelessness. The newsletter,coordination with the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health & Human Services, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

On December 10, 2015, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty issued its annual report card on the human right to housing in the U.S., praising the progress of the federal government in addressing the criminalization of homelessness, but condemning its ongoing failure to stem the tide of homelessness by ensuring adequate, affordable housing is available to all