In the media

UN in Haiti: At least 4 die in police eviction in national park

Published in Monday July 30th, 2012 In In the media

July 27, 2012 Investigators from the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Haiti are trying to figure out how at least four Haitians died after police officers carried out an eviction in a national park. A statement on Friday from the U.N. said the killings took place in the southeastern town of Seguin, but didn’t say […]

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Under water and under fire in Beijing

Published in Monday July 30th, 2012 In In the media

July 28, 2012 As the capital floods, its government carries the can FOR a capital city which, unusually, is situated neither on a coastline nor along the banks of a big river, Beijing has been under water a lot of late. In June last year violent rainstorms overwhelmed the antiquated drainage system, inundating roads and […]

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Some 850 Roma refugees in Montenegro displaced after fire destroys their settlement

Published in Thursday July 26th, 2012 In In the media

It was the only home Selija Hisenaj knew since she was forced out of war-torn Kosovo 13 years ago, and now it’s gone too. The 30-year-old mother of seven is among hundreds of Roma, or Gypsies, from Kosovo who are living in tents after a fire burned down their settlement on the outskirts of the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica.

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Slum eviction plans in Haiti spark protests

Published in Wednesday July 25th, 2012 In In the media

July 25, 2012 Plans to evict people from slums precariously situated on the vertiginous slopes around the Haitian capital are sparking protests from many who want to stay despite the dangers. Port-au-Prince acts as a magnet in the poor Caribbean nation, which was struck by a catastrophic 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 225,000 people […]

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Affordable rental housing scarce in Sacramento region, in the United States

Published in Monday July 23rd, 2012 In In the media

July 23, 2012 by Cynthia Hubert and Phillip Reese Trying to find affordable rental housing in the Sacramento region is a bit like playing the lottery: Fifty thousand prospective tenants recently vied for one of 3,000 slots on a Sacramento County waiting list for subsidized housing. Families are waiting two years for an apartment in an affordable housing […]

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Serbia’s Roma face uncertainty

Published in Monday July 23rd, 2012 In In the media

In Belgrade, large settlements of Roma are evicted with little or no warning. This presents an acute problem for internally displaced persons from Kosovo, who can become essentially invisible in the eyes of the law. Often uneducated and without documentation, many of these people live in the informal settlements of central Belgrade, where they’re able to scrape together an existence by scouring the city’s streets and rubbish bins for raw materials to be recycled or sold.

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Romania Walls In Its Roma

Published in Monday July 23rd, 2012 In In the media

July 20, 2012 The Roma are the largest ethnic minority in the European Union. And most live as second class citizens, in abject poverty. In the Romanian town of Baia Mare, a mayor has come up with a radical solution – he’s rehousing families in dilapidated communist-era offices and building a wall that closes them […]

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A Foregone Foreclosure

Published in Thursday July 19th, 2012 In In the media

July 18, 2012 by Jonathan Blitzer By 7:30 a.m., two hours before the authorities are due to arrive to enforce the foreclosure, some 15 people are already assembled to stop it. A family of five mingles with friends and local activists in front of No. 20 Calle de Dolores Armengot, in the working-class neighborhood of […]

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AARP Study Say Ethnic Elders Slammed Hardest by Foreclosures

Published in Thursday July 19th, 2012 In In the media

19 de julho de 2012 The mortgage crisis has slammed every age group—especially the oldest Americans 75-plus—and has hit Latino and African American seniors and their families the hardest, according to a study being released today by AARP. About 1.5 million people ages 50 or older lost their homes to foreclosure from 2007 to 2011, […]

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In Rwanda, habitat policies still need fine-tuning, says UN expert

Published in Thursday July 19th, 2012 In In the media

July 16, 2012 The UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik , has issued her preliminary findings on habitat in Rwanda, saying that  implementation still faces challenges. In the nine days she spent in the field, she worked on the policy of villagisation-imidugudu, the land reform policy and urban strategies, then on planning and […]

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