News

Czech Republic Roma Community Stand Firm Against Eviction

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In In the media

In August 2012, the Ostrava City Hall issued a 24-hour eviction order to the owner of the 11 buildings at Přednádraží, asking him to evict all of the residents, giving as a reason an unsafe condition of the buildings, primarily due to broken sewage lines. Three lawsuits have been filed between the various departments of the Ostrava City Hall to establish responsibility for fixing the sewage lines, but in the meantime, the residents have to bear the consequences of this neglect (earlier GV coverage of the case – here [1]and here [2]
Approximately 100 families, supported by local activists, refused to move out. Many simply did not have anywhere else to go; some have been living there for over 30 years. Now, five months later, twelve families still remain at Přednádraží, including six children. Everyone, except for one couple, moved to Building #8, which has become the focus of community efforts.

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Don’t Skimp on Sandy Aid

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In Opinion

New York Times Editorial
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey made an impassioned pitch on Monday to his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote on Tuesday for almost $50 billion in Hurricane Sandy disaster relief. “New Jersey does not expect anything more than what was done for Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi in Katrina, and what was done in Joplin, Mo., what was done in the floods in Iowa. We don’t expect anything more than that, but we will not accept anything less,” Mr. Christie said.
It is now more than 11 weeks after the hurricane severely damaged a huge swath of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, yet these states are still waiting for enough federal aid to repair and rebuild housing, businesses and transportation systems that were destroyed by the storm.

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Families evicted from Maela land in Kenya

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In In the media

Tension is high in the volatile area of Maella Naivasha after APs evicted several families from a piece of land. The heavily armed officers raided Ngambani village destroying property worth thousand of shillings.
Maize crops were destroyed during the early morning eviction supervised by senior AP officers. The officers said the land in question had been set aside for the construction of an AP post. Families affected threatened to hold a demonstration and called on Lands minister James Orengo to intervene as the issue has raised anxiety in the area.

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The Foreclosure Fiasco

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In Opinion

It’s been five days since Jessica Silver-Greenberg’s article on the latest bank settlement was posted on The New York Times’s Web site. I’m still shaking my head. Her “story behind the story” of the $8.5 billion settlement between federal bank regulators and 10 banks over their foreclosure misdeeds illustrates just about everything that is wrong with the way the government has handled the Great Foreclosure Crisis. Shall we count the ways?

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Life in the Red

Published in Tuesday January 15th, 2013 In In the media

The usual explanations for reckless borrowing focus on people’s character, or social norms that promote free spending and instant gratification. But recent research has shown that scarcity by itself is enough to cause this kind of financial self-sabotage.
“When we put people in situations of scarcity in experiments, they get into poverty traps,” said Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. “They borrow at high interest rates that hurt them, in ways they knew to avoid when there was less scarcity.”

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Indigenous Squatters Resist Eviction in Brazil

Published in Monday January 14th, 2013 In In the media

Police in riot gear surrounded a settlement of indigenous people next to Rio de Janeiro’s storied Maracana stadium on Saturday, preparing to evict them as soon as an expected court order arrived. The site commander, police Lt. Alex Melo, explained officers were “waiting for the order, and understand it can come at any time.” But the order still had not arrived after a tense, daylong standoff.

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Haiti’s earthquake generated a $9bn response – where did the money go?

Published in Monday January 14th, 2013 In In the media

Saturday marked the third anniversary of the tragic earthquake in Haiti that claimed between 230,000 and 300,000 lives. The grim landmark has prompted much discussion about the struggles surrounding reconstruction and also some hope about what may come next.
Most observers agree that the international response to the quake was overwhelming. Haiti received an unprecedented amount of support: more than $9bn (£5.6bn) in public and private donations. Official bilateral and multilateral donors pledged $13bn and, according to the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti, almost 50% of these pledges ($6bn) have been disbursed. Private donations are estimated at $3bn.

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Progress on Mortgage Regulations

Published in Friday January 11th, 2013 In Opinion

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued long-awaited rules on mortgage lending that should help protect home buyers and the global financial system from a repeat of the subprime disaster. But the rules, which were announced on Thursday and go into effect next year, include some features that could hurt lower-income borrowers.
Predatory lending was a leading cause of the housing bubble, the spike in foreclosures and the failure of large financial institutions. It saddled borrowers with too much debt and left investors with big losses. Congress created the consumer bureau in large part to make sure all that never happened again.

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Bank Deal Ends Flawed Reviews of Foreclosures in the US

Published in Friday January 11th, 2013 In In the media

Federal banking regulators are trumpeting an $8.5 billion settlement this week with 10 banks as quick justice for aggrieved homeowners, but the deal is actually a way to quietly paper over a deeply flawed review of foreclosed loans across America, according to current and former regulators and consultants.
To avoid criticism as the review stalled and consultants collected more than $1 billion in fees, the regulators, led by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, abandoned the effort after examining a sliver of nearly four million loans in foreclosure, the regulators and consultants said.

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Home ownership dreams in booming Beijing

Published in Thursday January 10th, 2013 In In the media

It was a bargain China’s zealous real estate buyers couldn’t refuse: at the East Asia Impressions Lake compound in suburban Beijing, apartments were selling for just 13,000 yuan ($2,086; £1,282) per square metre.
Similar apartments located closer to Beijing’s central business district cost approximately 20,000 yuan per square metre, according to Savills, a global real estate broker. In comparison, an average flat near London’s financial centre costs 50,000 yuan, while in New York the figure rises to a whopping 68,000 yuan.

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