Our staff has been studying failure, it seems: failed industries, failed fortunes, business failures, a “house of the future” destroyed by a flood. More details below:

Two key reforms proposed by Housing Committee Chair Karen Yarbrough that would empower communities to better address the foreclosure crisis are coming up for consideration in the Illinois House of Representatives Housing Committee this tomorrow, April 7. We need your support to make sure that communities have enough resources to keep families in their homes and keep vacant foreclosed homes from destabilizing neighborhoods.

With all the media buzz about the “mancession,” one might be forgiven for thinking that women emerged from the recession unscathed. It’s true that men are overrepresented in industries that were hit hardest by the recession, like construction and manufacturing, but that isn’t the whole story when it comes to measuring economic security. Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) hosted a conference last week for its network of national partners, including Woodstock Institute, to explore persistent challenges to women’s economic security, from childhood to retirement.

Members of the Regional Home Ownership Preservation Initiative, of which Woodstock Institute is a lead partner, sent a letter urging the Illinois delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against H.R. 839, The HAMP Termination Act of 2011, which would cancel funding for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). In the letter, Housing Action Illinois, Metropolitan Planning Council, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, and Woodstock Institute told representatives:

Debt protection and credit insurance are high-cost, low-value products that are poorly understood by consumers and inadequately monitored by regulators. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act should shed some light on these often shady products.

When the South Suburban Housing Collaborative and the West Cook County Housing Collaborative were formed in 2009, they were built on a bold idea: that municipalities could look beyond political boundaries and work together to tackle the pressing housing needs of their areas, from foreclosure response to affordable housing to strategic and sustainable development. It was a tall order, and one that had scarcely been tried elsewhere.  Almost two years later, the experiment is starting to show positive results. The West Cook County Housing Collaborative broke ground on their first project this month in Maywood.

It’s clear that vacant homes put a damper on their surrounding community. Not only are they eyesores, they put other homes at risk of losing value and may attract crime and other destabilizing elements. To minimize these risks, many municipalities have ordinances that allow them to hold the homes’ owners responsible for securing and maintaining the property. What can already-strapped local governments do if it’s unclear who the owner is, or the owner hasn’t notified them that the property is vacant?

On Friday, March 18th, Circuit Court Judge Carolyn Quinn ruled that Illinois Lending Corporation (plaintiff) did not meet the standards for issuing a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

Efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to eliminate or cut funding for federal programs and agencies designed to protect homeowners, consumers, and investors reflect the same flawed thinking that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted was wrong when he testified before Congress in October 2008. Greenspan, a longtime champion of deregulation, said that he had been mistaken to put so much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and that he had failed to anticipate the foreclosure and economic crisis that such deregulation ultimately generated.

This week, the payday lender Illinois Lending Corp. filed a lawsuit challenging portions of a new law that enacts many necessary consumer protections for small consumer loan borrowers. Specifically, the suit challenges provisions of the law that prevent lenders from holding a license for shorter-term payday loans in addition to a license for longer-term consumer installment loans. The lawsuit coincides with the introduction of a bill authored by Rep. Daniel Burke that would remove the dual license restriction, scheduled for a hearing in front of the Illinois House Executive Committee tomorrow.