Author: Gabriella Chiarenza
-
An affordable twist on investor-owned, single-family housing
Investors’ activity in the single-family rental market has raised both concerns about and interest in their approach, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. Drawing on what works, impact investors and intermediaries are adapting the model to serve affordability and preservation goals.
-
How the Fed studies and understands housing’s key role in the economy
The cost and availability of housing affect family budgets, labor force mobility, business growth, and the health of the economy. Learn how the Fed studies and engages with communities around vital housing trends, challenges, and innovations.
-
Why don’t more out-of-work people receive unemployment insurance?
Unemployment insurance can help people transition in their careers and quickly re-enter the workforce. Yet many people who lose their jobs don’t receive this benefit. Recent Federal Reserve research sheds light on the barriers limiting UI access and recipiency.
-
Investing in health, tribal nations reap more than economic benefits
Improving and growing their health care infrastructure with their communities front of mind, three tribal nations in Oklahoma fuel employment, expand quality health care access, and enhance economic benefits for Native American citizens and the broader regional economy.
-
Could greater secondary market access help CDFIs meet growing demand?
Demand is up among underserved borrowers for community development financial institutions’ loans. Some industry experts are exploring whether these mission-driven lenders might leverage broader secondary market opportunities to increase available lending capital.
-
To advance workers and the bottom line, employers act on benefits cliff
Benefits cliffs challenge workers’ financial security and career advancement and introduce staffing and retention complications for employers. Pilot programs and partnerships offer employers guidance on how they can help address the issue.
-
Debt-related license suspensions put the brakes on employment
Debt-related driver’s license suspensions can keep people out of the workforce and make it hard for businesses to find and keep the employees they need. Research and practical interventions are helping to change that.
-
Affording homeownership now is hard for many. These approaches may help.
In this explainer, learn more about some of the factors recently complicating affordable US homeownership and discover how some communities and organizations are helping to extend affordable homeownership to more families.
-
Coalition draws on local benefits cliff lessons to inform national approach
Dozens of experiments across the country aim to mitigate workers’ benefits cliffs as their incomes rise and assistance lessens. A coalition of 13 of these pilots now plans to share what they have learned and practiced with policymakers, employers, and funders.
-
Built to fail? Contracts for deeds often sell a homeownership illusion
Contract for deed homeownership agreements can appeal to lower-priced home buyers who believe they are unable to qualify for or secure a mortgage. But CFDs often lack consumer protections and can cost unsuspecting buyers their home and their investment in it.