Eviction prevention efforts in Baltimore lag

An affordable housing development in Mount Laurel, N.J., holds promise for integration by placing the development in an upscale suburban area. Since 140 affordable units were built in 2000, there has been no effect on crime rates, property values, or taxes, in reference to nearby suburbs.

A new book chronicles each below-market subsidized housing project ever built in New York, highlighting in particular Co-op City, where residents have come to care for their city-subsidized homes.

Many subprime borrowers in the United States are financially unable to buy a home themselves. An unconventional lender is trying to make it easier for low-income people to buy houses despite the tighter requirements that other lenders adopted after the mortgage bust.

Cleveland has a list of lead-safe homes, a result of decades of cleaning up hazards with tens of millions of dollars in HUD grant money.

It's been a decade since the city of Rochester, New York, committed to tackling its lead poisoning problem head on. What resulted was a more than 80 percent drop in the number of children with high lead levels. It's a change leaders believe is sustainable.

Lead poisoning is not purely a problem of the poor - it can affect any child living in an older home, or playing on contaminated soil. New solutions journalism efforts aim to increase transparency about the risks and to help parents decide whether their children should be tested.

To break through gridlock on fair housing, city planners, citizens, and government officials in wealthy Westchester County, New York, try a new tactic: Using a simulation game to try out different development scenarios. The result has been increased civic participation and efficiency.

Foreclosure affects millions of homeowners and millions more owe more on their mortgages than what their homes are worth, but Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP), offers assistance. As a free service to borrowers, ESOP holds lenders accountable with fair lending agreements, creates constructive communication, and ultimately saves homes.

An innovative program by an unusual bank allows low-income people in Cambodia to take out a 15-year fixed mortgage with little or no documentation - contradicting traditional loan assumptions and creating means for some of the country's poorest people to completely change their lives. The bank and its investors are now making a profit, and more than 700 mortgages and building loans have been provided.

To address the increasing unaffordability of housing in Berlin, the city introduced a new rent control law to prevent rates from exponential growth. The city has also outlawed vacation rentals in certain zones of the city and created a program that aims to have 30,000 new rental properties available over the next decade.