Bridges Out of Poverty

by Philip Devol, Terie Dreussi Smith, and Ruby Payne

Bridges Out of Poverty is a unique and powerful tool designed specifically for social, health, and legal services professionals. Based in part on Dr. Ruby K. Payne's myth shattering A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Bridges reaches out to the millions of service providers and businesses whose daily work connects them with the lives of people in poverty.

In a highly readable format you'll find case studies, detailed analysis, helpful charts and exercises, and specific solutions you and your organization can implement right now to:

• Redesign programs to better serve people you work with Build skill sets for management to help guide employees
• Upgrade training for front-line staff like receptionists, case workers, and managers;
• Improve treatment outcomes in health care and behavioral health care;
• Increase the likelihood of moving from welfare to work.

Also available: Workbook and Audio Version

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A Framework for Understanding Poverty

by Ruby Payne

How does poverty impact learning, work habits and decision-making?

People in poverty face challenges virtually unknown to those in middle class or wealth—challenges from both obvious and hidden sources. The reality of being poor brings out a survival mentality, and turns attention away from opportunities taken for granted by everyone else.

If you work with people in poverty, some understanding of how different the world is from yours will be invaluable. Whether you’re an educator —or a social, health or legal services professional—this breakthrough book gives you practical, real-world support and guidance to improve your effectiveness in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Also available: Audio Version

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Branding for Success: A Roadmap for Raising the Visibility and Value of Your Nonprofit Organization

by Larry Checco

In Branding for Success, Larry Checco debunks the notion that branding is the sole domain of large, well-funded corporations that can afford multimillion-dollar advertising budgets and celebrity endorsements. But that you, too, through efficient and cost-effective means, can raise the visibility and value—namely, the brand—of your organization in powerful and meaningful ways.

There is nothing in this book that is beyond the reach of any organization, regardless of size or financial resources. Its two primary objectives are: (1) to make the case for branding and its importance to the sustainability—and perhaps even the survivability—of your organization; and (2) to make the fundamental principles of good branding accessible to everyone.

In short, Branding for Success will help you answer the questions: Who are we? What do we do? How do we do it? And why should anyone care enough to support us?

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Getting Ahead in a Just - Gettin' - By World: Building Your Resources for a Better Life

by Philip Devol

Getting Ahead by Philip E. DeVol, is a set of two workbooks for people in poverty that shows how to use the hidden rules of class to build up financial, emotional, social, and other resources. Understanding the hidden rules of the middle class and wealth, and choosing to use them, can open doors to new relationships, new jobs, and higher resources. The workbook is designed to be used as an investigation tool by people working in groups with a trained facilitator. The participants explore the impact that poverty has had on them, investigate economic realities, complete a self-assessment of their own resources, make plans to build their own resources, and develop a mental model of community prosperity.

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America's Trillion - Dollar Housing Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy

by Howard Husock

Housing policy in the U.S. is an issue within the urban planning, development and design professions (and beyond) that is as tough, as it is sensitive, as it is variegated, as it is unresolved. And arguably many of us, united in acknowledging some of its past mistakes, are divided by its future course. America's Trillion Dollar Housing Mistake is a collection of essays written from 1995-2003 on everything that Howard Husock, director of public policy case studies at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, thinks is wrong with U.S. housing policy. It is an unforgiving look at the history of 'failed' housing programs in the U.S., with such provocative chapter titles as "Don't Let CDC's Fool You" and "We Don't Need Subsidized Housing." Husock dedicates nearly all of his book to trying to discredit policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, Section 8, public housing in its many forms, and subsidized non-profit housing development. He also offers some solutions, including a "compassionate conservative housing policy," which would gradually dismantle public housing and subsidy programs. He also highlights what he thinks are successful models, such as time-limited public housing in Charlotte, NC, and Habitat for Humanity.

The experience of reading Howard Husock's essays is interactive. Along the way, you may find yourself yelling out counter-arguments, or giving Husock a mental high-five. And depending on which chapter it is and what your position is on solving the seemingly insurmountable housing problems in this country, you may even find that you do both. Whether you agree with Howard Husock or not, America's Trillion Dollar Housing Mistake keeps you on your toes and holds you accountable for your opinions, whatever they may be, on housing policy in the U.S.

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Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict?

by Anthony Downs

Advocates of growth management and smart growth often propose policies that raise housing prices, thereby making housing less affordable to many households trying to buy or rent homes. Such policies include urban growth boundaries, zoning restrictions on multi-family housing, utility district lines, building permit caps, and even construction moratoria. Does this mean there is an inherent conflict between growth management and smart growth on the one hand, and creating more affordable housing on the other? Or can growth management and smart growth promote policies that help increase the supply of affordable housing?

These issues are critical to the future of affordable housing because so many local communities are adopting various forms of growth management or smart growth in response to growth-related problems. Those problems include rising traffic congestion, the absorption of open space by new subdivisions, and higher taxes to pay for new infrastructures.

This book explores the relationship between growth management and smart growth and affordable housing in depth. It draws from material presented at a symposium on these subjects held at the Brookings Institution in May 2003, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Association of Realtors, and the Fannie Mae Foundation. Contributors seek to inform the debate and provide some useful answers to help the nation accomodate the curtailment of growth in urban and suburban domains while still ensuring a supply of affordable housing.

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Housing Policy in the United States: An Introduction

by Alex Schwartz

Housing Policy in the United States is an essential guidebook to and textbook for housing policy, and is written for students, practitioners, government officials, real estate developers, and policy analysts. It discusses the most important issues in the field, introduces key concepts and institutions, and examines the most important programs. Written as an introductory text, it explains all concepts, trends, and programs without jargon, and includes empirical data concerning program evaluations, government documents, and studies carried out by the author and other scholars.

The first chapters present the context surrounding US housing policy, including basic trends and problems, the housing finance system, and the role of the federal tax system in subsidizing homeowner and rental housing. The middle chapters focus on individual subsidy programs. The closing chapters discuss issues and programs that do not necessarily involve subsidies, including homeownership, mixed-income housing, and governmental efforts to improve access to housing by reducing discriminatory barriers in the housing and mortgage markets. The concluding chapter also offers reflections on future directions of U.S. housing policy.

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A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda

by Rachel Bratt, Michael Stone, and Chester Hartman

In the 1949 Housing Act, Congress declared "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family" our national housing goal. Today, little more than half a century later, upwards of 100 million people in the United States live in housing that is physically inadequate, unsafe, overcrowded, or unaffordable.

The contributors to A Right to Housing consider the key issues related to America's housing crisis, including income inequality and insecurity, segregation and discrimination, the rights of the elderly, as well as legislative and judicial responses to homelessness. The book offers a detailed examination of how access to adequate housing is directly related to economic security.

With essays by leading activists and scholars, this book presents a powerful and compelling analysis of the persistent inability of the U.S. to meet many of its citizens' housing needs, and a comprehensive proposal for progressive change

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2006 Advocates' Guide to Housing & Community Development Policy

produced by National Low Income Housing Coalition

Handbook that covers Housing and Community Development on a national scale. Issues covered range from Block Grants, Continuum of Care, Earned Income Tax Credit, Homeownership Tax Credit, Housing Trust Funds, Individual Development Accounts, Low Income Housing Tax Credit, Plans to End Homelessness, Rural Housing and Economic Development, YouthBuild, and much, much more.

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Out of Reach 2006

produced by National Low Income Housing Coalition

Despite the emphasis on homeownership and the marginalization of renters, renter households still make up fully one-third of the households in the United States — nearly 36 million households. Out of Reach is a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, Metropolitan Area (MSAs/HMFAs), combined nonmetropolitan area and state in the United States. For each jurisdiction, the report calculates the amount of money a household must earn in order to afford a rental unit at a range of sizes (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms) at the area’s Fair Market Rent (FMR), based on the generally accepted affordability standard of paying no more than 30% of income for housing costs. From these calculations the hourly wage a worker must earn to afford the FMR for a two-bedroom home is derived. This figure is the Housing Wage.