FEMA had previously told Hurricane Katrina victims still living in government trailers that they would have to leave those trailers by the end of May. But that's no longer the case, reports the New York Times' Shaila Dewan: many of the 3,446 trailers still in use ...

Jason DeParle of the New York Times has one of the best reported articles I've read about government's response to the recession. Basically, the response is a two-layered -- federal and state government -- bloody mess:

Now decades after the Great ...

Congress's bill to tax 90 percent of bonus money received by employees at bailed out companies will severely hurt the good people at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, say reports from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Well, actually Zach Goldfarb ...

Government in My Back Yard is on the lookout for news stories about local governments falling down on the job.  So far that problem -- falling down -- has hit only one elevator in New York City's public housing, at least in the last few years.  But as ...

While I was wasting my weekend away, watching the disappointing Frost/Nixon, Barack Obama was naming his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Obama named New York City housing commissioner Shaun Donovan to the post. Obama has also named Bronx Borough President Adolfo ...

Understanding Government continues its work with reporters around the country, here featuring Jane Johnston of the Newburgh Advocate.

When Banks Say No, City Says Yes

Newburgh, N.Y., October 16, 2008 -- With the downturn in the economy, LeylandAlliance, Newburgh’s waterfront developer, has had a hard time getting the loan they wanted from banks for their East Parmenter Street Project.  LeylandAlliance is looking to build 24 homes downtown, including eight homes to be built together with Habitat for Humanity.  So the developer came before the Newburgh City Council to request a project construction loan from the city’s Kingston-Newburgh Enterprise Corporation (KNEC) funds.

The New York Times' Adam Nossiter reports that FBI and Housing and Urban Development agents raided a New Orlean nonprofit housing agency intended to help Hurricane Katrina victims. The Affordable House Ownership Program was supposed help elderly and poor residents displaced by the ...

The New York Times' Charlie Savage has a nice follow-up story on the damning Justice Dept. Inspector General report released Monday on politicized hiring practices. Savage leads with a 2005 email sent by the White House's office of political affairs to executive branch ...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has earned mixed reviews in his response to the subprime mortgage crisis. But the New York Times' Stephen Labaton portrays Paulson today as taking charge in Sunday's multibillion-dollar bailout of public-private mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It ...

As Education Secretary Margaret Spellings pointed out in the Washington Post today, Democrats, in principle, are mostly opposed to school vouchers. However, they have been for "Section 8" housing vouchers. This federal voucher system, enacted in the early 1990's and carried out by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, is designed to get predominantly black families out of the urban projects and into safe neighborhoods.

But in a controversial Atlantic magazine piece, Hannah Rosin explores whether the HUD program is actually leading to yet more urban danger zones. Rosin speaks with residents in Memphis who say that when residents move away from high-crime housing projects the gangs and violence move with them.