The Chicago Housing Authority’s “hard to house” families inspired an innovative service delivery model that helps vulnerable families maintain safe and stable housing. The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration is testing this model of intensive and comprehensive case management, relocation support, and long-term follow-up services with households in two large public housing developments. We’ll explore model features, interim outcomes, and lessons learned in the first year of this initiative.

Researchers who analyzed the performance of HOME and American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) homebuyer assistance programs conclude that these efforts have helped low-income families sustain homeownership. We will examine comparisons between foreclosure and delinquency rates of ADDI- and HOME-assisted loans and the FHA-insured portfolio for the period of 2001–2005, and what researchers found as contributing factors to rate variations.

The Neighborhood Stabilization program (NSP) counters the impact of foreclosures through the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed, vacant properties to create more affordable housing and to renew neighborhoods. Enterprise Community Partners has analyzed a sample of state and local plans to use NSP funds. We’ll discuss the analysis, along with data from HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, to learn about local priorities for stabilizing neighborhoods and their planned strategies, financing mechanisms, and program models.

In October, HUD co-hosted World Habitat Day 2009 at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. This year’s event focused on planning for affordable and sustainable urban communities in the face of rapid urbanization and its challenges, a theme that resonates with a guiding principle of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: promoting sustainable, stable communities. An American finalist in the 2009 World Habitat Awards competition for innovative and sustainable housing solutions, ecoMOD is doing exactly that with its production of affordable and environmentally sustainable housing for low-income households. We’ll review highlights of this project.