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Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. Author Robert Neuwirth suggested in 2004 that there were one billion squatters globally. Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur when people who are poor and homeless find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a Cabinet department in the executive branch of the United States federal government. Although its beginnings were in the House and Home Financing Agency, it was founded as a Cabinet department in 1965, as part of the "Great Society" program of President Lyndon Johnson, to develop and execute policies on housing and metropolises.
The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, funds local community development activities with the stated goal of providing affordable housing, anti-poverty programs, and infrastructure development. CDBG, like other block grant programs, differ from categorical grants, made for specific purposes, in that they are subject to less federal oversight and are largely used at the discretion of the state and local governments and their subgrantees.
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit is a dollar-for-dollar tax credit in the United States for affordable housing investments. It was created under the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) and gives incentives for the utilization of private equity in the development of affordable housing aimed at low-income Americans. LIHTC accounts for the majority of all affordable rental housing created in the United States today. As the maximum rent that can be charged is based upon the Area Median Income ("AMI"), LIHTC housing remains unaffordable to many low-income renters. The credits are also commonly called Section 42 credits in reference to the applicable section of the Internal Revenue Code. The tax credits are more attractive than tax deductions as the credits provide a dollar-for-dollar reduction in a taxpayer's federal income tax, whereas a tax deduction only provides a reduction in taxable income. The "passive loss rules" and similar tax changes made by TRA86 greatly reduced the value of tax credits and deductions to individual taxpayers. Less than 10% of current credit expenditures are claimed by individual investors.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots.
Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937, often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. Fort Lauderdale, Florida Housing Authority Director William H. Lindsey, upon the advice of Housing Authority attorney J. Richard Smith, initially developed 11(b) financing in the early 1970s to accommodate a local savings and loan interested in assisting with urban renewal projects Mr. Lindsey eventually brought to fruition. This was the initial impetus for the subsequent development of the now well known Section 8 Program. Of the 5.2 million American Households that received rental assistance in 2018, approximately 1.2 million of those households received a Section 8-based voucher. 68% of total rental assistance in the United States goes to seniors, children, and those with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development manages Section 8 programs.
An FHA insured loan is a US Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance backed mortgage loan that is provided by an FHA-approved lender. FHA insured loans are a type of federal assistance. They have historically allowed lower-income Americans to borrow money to purchase a home that they would not otherwise be able to afford. Because this type of loan is more geared towards new house owners than real estate investors, FHA loans are different from conventional loans in the sense that the house must be owner-occupant for at least a year. Since loans with lower down-payments usually involve more risk to the lender, the home-buyer must pay a two-part mortgage insurance that involves a one-time bulk payment and a monthly payment to compensate for the increased risk.
Nehemiah Corporation of America is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, California specializing in homeownership, affordable housing and community development. It started in 1994 as a small organization, but grew to prominence later in the 1990s after it developed a program that allowed home buyers to make down payments on their purchases using funds that were derived from the home sellers. This program, the Nehemiah Program, became popular and was widely emulated, giving birth to what came to be known as the seller-funded down-payment assistance industry. The industry attracted criticism from U.S. federal agencies and was ultimately shut down in 2008 by a change in federal law.
The National Housing Conference (NHC) is an American non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. established in 1931. Its stated goal is "ensuring safe, decent and affordable housing for all Americans".
The Housing Act of 1937, formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the U.S. government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living conditions for low-income families.
An empowerment zone is an economically distressed community eligible to receive tax incentives and grants from the United States federal government under the Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities Act of 1993.
The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Actof 1966 was enacted by the United States Congress to guarantee that federal grants were being spent on set projects in urban redevelopment. It was enacted as a broad urban planning program meant to revitalize cities and improve the welfare of people living in underdeveloped neighborhoods. The act provided aid to cities rebuilding blighted areas, while also offering measures that dealt with mass transit, beautification, conservation, water and air quality, public safety, and support for the arts and humanities.
Hazle Reid "H. R." Crawford was a real estate developer and former Democratic politician in Washington, D.C..
Subsidized housing in the United States is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). More than 1.2 million households currently live in public housing of some type.
The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 is an enacted public law in the United States. On May 20, 2009, the Senate bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The stated purpose of the act, a product of the 111th United States Congress, was to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages on primary residences, among other purposes; however, that provision was dropped in the Senate and is not included in the version that was eventually signed into law. In addition, the bill amends the Hope for Homeowners Program as well as provide additional provisions to help borrowers avoid foreclosure.
Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC), the Kentucky state housing agency, was created by the 1972 Kentucky General Assembly to provide affordable housing opportunities. KHC is a self-supporting, public corporation.
Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government began to take action against these laws in 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Squatting in the United States describes the legal and practical aspects of squatting in the United States of America. Historically, squatting occurred as colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 and in the 2010s, there have been increasing numbers of people squatting foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents.
Howard County Housing is the umbrella organization for the Howard County Department of Housing and Community Development and the Howard County Housing Commission. The Department is Howard County Government’s housing agency and the Commission is a public housing authority and non-profit. Both have boards that meet monthly.
The Rental Assistance Demonstration is a federal housing program that was enacted as part of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, and is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). Broadly, the purpose of the Rental Assistance Demonstration is to provide a set of tools to address the unmet capital needs of deeply affordable, federally assisted rental housing properties in order to maintain both the viability of the properties and their long-term affordability. It also simplifies the administrative oversight of the properties by the federal government. Specifically, RAD authorizes the conversion of a property's federal funding from one form to another, where the initial form presents structural impediments to private capital investment and the new form is not only familiar to lenders and investors but, since its enactment in 1974, has leveraged billions in private investment for the development and rehabilitation of deeply affordable rental housing.