News and Reviews
The New York World
I’ve just made a small but important change to my bio that deserves a callout here, not just because my new job is something you ought to know about but also because it bookends the five years of my life I’ve devoted to writing about the real estate bubble and bust. I’m now editor of The New York World, a new accountability journalism project at Columbia Journalism School that not accidentally is named after the mighty newspaper founded by Joseph Pulitzer. I’m working with a full-time staff of six butt-kicking graduates of Columbia master’s programs to cover the inner workings of city and state government. We’ve just had our first big story, breaking the news that the high-paid CEO of a homeless housing and services agency founded by Gov. Mario Cuomo has resigned just as a task force appointed by the governor has begun to probe excessive compensation at state-funded nonprofits. That executive, Laurence Belinsky, is married to a cousin of Andrew Cuomo and his sister Maria, who chairs the board of the organization, HELP USA.
The New York World’s website will be live soon, at thenewyorkworld.com. In the meantime, follow us at @thenyworld.
I’ll never stop paying attention to housing – hell, I’m covering New York City – but I won’t be writing about it regularly. Pulling away from a huge story that is by no means over is hard. The good news is that some very good journalists continue to chronicle the painful recovery (to the extent there is one) from the housing and financial crises. The bad is that the cleansing power of exposure – story after story revealing securities fraud or predatory lending – isn’t enough to get homeowners or the economy out of their hole.
Reflections on Jack Newfield
Hello world. I’m resurfacing after an intense few months of work with some extraordinary students at Hunter College, who hopefully are not regretting that they signed up for the Jack Newfield journalism workshop. They’re now finishing up their projects investigating the budget crisis in New York City public housing, which is affecting residents and communities in profound ways. I won’t divulge too much here because each of the projects breaks important stories, but you’ll be seeing their work soon. While they toil on their final edits, I want to thank everyone who has knocked themselves out this semester to create great stories: Sarah Grile, Walis Johnson, Kelly Spivey, Flonia Telgrafi, Rosalyn Temple, Tennessee Watson, and Jay Weichun.
I also want to thank Jack Newfield, even though I never met him. Newfield was the closest thing New York City had to a conscience in my lifetime, until his ended in 2004. At The Village Voice and then the News, Post and Sun Newfield mapped power and its abuses in New York City, and along the way mentored another generation of great muckrakers, including Wayne Barrett, Tom Robbins and Joe Conason. After his death, Newfield’s widow, Janie Eisenberg, collaborated with Newfield’s friends and colleagues to create the workshop at Hunter, Newfield’s alma mater, so future students could have the opportunity to report deeply on the city they live in under the tutelage of active journalists. I feel incredibly honored to carry the baton for a few miles.
Join me for The Backstory – Jan 25th
Mark your calendars: On Tuesday, January 25th, I’ll be joining Michael W. Hudson, author of The Monster, and Columbia Journalism Review’s Dean Starkman for a conversation about the financial crisis sponsored by the Nation Institute and hosted by the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU (where I also teach).
When: Jan 25th, 5:30-7:30
Where: 20 Cooper Square, 7th floor, New York City (6 train to Astor Place)
Who: Michael W. Hudson, Alyssa Katz, Dean Starkman
If you’re in or near New York City that day, I hope to see you there!
Brooklyn: Adult Education
Join me and author Michael W. Hudson (The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America–and Spawned a Global Crisis) on November 2 for our presentation “Duped! A forensic investigation into the art of scams, skulduggery and salesmanship,” part of the Adult Education lecture series at Brooklyn, New York’s, Union Hall. Curated by Carrie McLaren and Charles Star, Adult Ed brings nerds like me and Mike together with actual, funny comedians for monthly evenings of laughter and erudition. November’s theme is “Money.”
Mike is going to be recreating “The Track,” a sales routine subprime lenders used to bamboozle borrowers into taking out loans they couldn’t afford. I’m going to show how generations of middle-class strivers got caught in the swamps of Florida real estate speculation. Yes, November 2 is election night. I believe I mentioned comedians? If you need them, they’ll be there at Union Hall.
Fox Business News
Yeah, you read it right. All in all, not a bad experience, and I was glad to script the Chyron as Fox’s guest expert with bullet points like “Support rental housing” and “Keep a strong govt mortgage market backstop.”
All Things Considered
NPR’s All Things Considered just interviewed me on what it means to be a renter in the United States – namely, freewheeling and flexible but also often unstable and deprived of financial benefits that government policies grant to homeowners.
It’s Here: Paperback!
For those of you who have been holding out (don’t feel bad – I do it all the time): Our Lot is now available in paperback. And hardcover still, and Kindle. And even available at these funny places they call bookstores.
Harry Chapin Media Award
Great news: I’m now the proud winner of a Harry Chapin Media Award from WhyHunger, in the best periodical journalism category, for my American Prospect story “There Goes the Neighborhood”.
Chicago Hearts Texas
Mary Umberger at the Chicago Tribune has written a kind and thoughtful article about my Texas prescription for avoiding future foreclosures: limit cash-out refinancing to 80 percent of a home’s value.
Expert/friends I’ve been talking to since my article ran in The Big Money/Slate/Washington Post note that constitutionally any legislation directly restricting cash-outs, Texas-style, would have to take place at the state level. So how about it, Illinois? Sure, it’ll be a tough sell politically, especially once the lobbyists and donors descend. I can already hear the cry: The politicians are stealing Americans’ freedom [to destroy their family finances]!
But as Umberger notes the real estate biz is more split on cash-outs than you might imagine. The Texas Realtors, for one, have vigorously defended the state’s cash-out limits. After all, they want selling a home to be the readiest way to tap home equity.
How the homes we live in turned into the monsters that ate our economy and the United States became a nation obsessed with real estate.
The Latest
Organizations that matter
- Affordable Housing Centers of America
- Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
- Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program
- Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
- Center for Responsible Lending
- Demos
- Drum Major Institute
- Joint Center for Housing Studies
- Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
- National Consumer Law Center
- National Housing Institute
- National Housing Trust
- National Low Income Housing Coalition
- National Training and Information Center
- Natn’l Community Reinvestment Coalition
- NEDAP
- New America Foundation
- PolicyLink
- Pratt Center for Community Development
- Revson Fellowship
- Smart Growth America
What Alyssa reads
- Baseline Scenario
- Ben Smith
- Bloomberg News
- Calculated Risk
- City Limits
- Consumer Law and Policy Blog
- Doug Henwood
- Felix Salmon
- Galleycat
- Housing Wire
- Mother Jones
- Next American City
- Paul Krugman
- PolicyCents
- Ryan Avent
- Shelterforce
- Street Level
- Talking Points Memo
- The Audit
- The Balance Sheet
- The Big Picture
Tags
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