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Housing market improving? Depends who needs a home
By Mike LaFontaine The latest news reports have the housing market rebounding. But that depends on which “market” you’re talking about. For low-income renters across New England, very little has changed. Finding safe, decent housing that’s affordable to many working families is still an uphill climb: In most areas, rents have not fallen (the average two-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire still costs more than $1,000 a month) and vacancies are as hard as ever to find. The New England Housing...
5 days 16 hours ago | more
Opening the jar(gon): What's an asset, anyway?
By Steve Varnum Those of us who work for financial organizations like the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund throw around industry lingo and jargon all the time, all the time assuming that people know what we're talking about, and much of the time being wrong about that. I survived my first 55 years never having heard the terms "infill" or "stick built," not really understanding any of the many definitions of "equity," and thinking "income-eligible" referred to the fact that I'd never be able to...
3 weeks 3 days ago | more
Co-op president has what it takes to advocate for his community
By Rick Minard It takes vision, persistence, and guts to change big systems. Don Woodward, president of Exeter River Cooperative in Exeter, NH, has all three qualities and uses them to change public policy to serve his resident-owned community. He recently persuaded a public bus line to add a stop, starting April 22, that will serve the residents of Exeter’s three manufactured-home co-ops. Don explains: “One of the ways we make our community financially sustainable is to look for ways to...
5 weeks 4 days ago | more
NH House makes low-income homes a RGGI fund priority
By Rick Minard New Hampshire’s House of Representatives recently voted to help low-income households be part of the solution to climate change, instead of its victims. Good work, House! Representatives voted 204-153 to allocate “at least” 20 percent of N.H.’s proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to help low-income households become more energy efficient. This is progress. Conserving energy is one of the best ways for homeowners to save money. Anyone with a manufactured...
7 weeks 3 days ago | more
First-time homebuyers reconnecting with dream of homeownership
By Jennifer Hopkins When I think about first-time homebuyers, I think of Ziggy and Pat Zeveckas buying their first home after 43 years of marriage. Ziggy was a Navy and Coast Guard veteran, and an engineer. Pat worked in the plastic mills before retiring. They rented an apartment, then a house in Tyngsboro, Mass. Pat and Ziggy made ends meet while raising their three children, but never saved enough for a down payment for a house. When water problems forced them to leave their Tyngsboro house,...
7 weeks 6 days ago | more
Unplug, people!
By Maureen Carroll We’ve all done it. You hear a phone ringing in a meeting, and quick―hip check! The sweet relief washes over you when you realize it isn’t yours. Maybe you even pull your phone out to double-check that it’s on vibrate, taking an extra moment to inspect your email inbox while you have the phone in hand. Most of us have done it. Some of us do it all the time. We’ve unplugged our devices and made them portable―now we need to unplug from them. We’re all relying more and more on...
8 weeks 3 days ago | more
National study: Manufactured-home mortgages are excellent loans
By Juliana Eades It isn’t often that a nonprofit from little New Hampshire gets to speak into a big megaphone. But in 2009 the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund received a national honor, the NEXT Award for Opportunity Finance, for being the first organization in the U.S. to make real mortgage loans for manufactured homes (sometimes called mobile homes) located in cooperatives. Ziggy and Pat Zeveckas in their manufactured home in Hudson. You might be surprised to learn that...
8 weeks 3 days ago | more
Payday and car-title loans are "debt traps" for low-income consumers
By Mike LaFontaine One of the longest-running battles in New Hampshire’s Legislature has been over how much to regulate “small-dollar” loans that are offered to consumers in the form of payday loans (typically between $300 and $1,000) and their somewhat-larger kissing cousins, car-title loans. The major difference between the two is in the collateral the borrower must put up. For payday loans, it’s a claim on the borrower’s future paycheck. For car title loans, as the name implies, it’s the...
10 weeks 4 days ago | more
A presidential gift: State of the Union call for investment in early childhood education
By Julie McConnell As an early childhood advocate, I was encouraged to hear President Obama highlight the importance of early learning as a policy priority in his State of the Union Address. Early childhood education, while widely recognized as important for healthy kids, families and communities, has never attracted the political support needed to ensure true “universal access” for all families. The President’s commitment to expand access to high-quality early education is significant, and he...
1 week 4 days ago | more
Give yourself some credit
By Ron Thompson I heard an ad on the radio recently claiming that all debt management agencies are really just working for the credit card companies. I couldn’t disagree more. While disreputable businesses can be found in any industry, there are many excellent debt management/debt consolidation companies out there. Generally charging a one-time setup charge and monthly administration fee, these companies will take on the unwieldy task of negotiating directly with creditors to reduce payments...
1 week 4 days ago | more