Foreclosing on the American Dream

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: HortonA@staff.abanet.org

Foreclosing on the American Dream:

The Housing Crisis and the Role of Lawyers and Laws in Securing Housing
Justice



A free CLE* program presented by



The American Bar Association

Commission on Homelessness & Poverty

Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law

Section of Business Law

Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law

Section of Dispute Resolution



Friday, February 13, 2009

8:30am - 10:00am

Hynes Convention Center, Room 308

Boston, MA



"Life comes at you fast." Many victims of the current meltdown in the
financial markets are living this tagline from a recent advertising
campaign. The impact of this crisis is broad. Families are losing
their homes, often with no place to go. Innocent tenants, paying their
rent on time every month, are being evicted on short notice when their
landlords go through foreclosure. And now that investment in poor
communities depends increasingly on tax credits or production trust
funds or linkage fees, when commercial activity falls off, so does
community development funding. In this climate, private investors and
lenders renege on existing commitments and retract from extending new
ones.



The current crisis is having a domino effect on the rental housing
market. As homeowners default and turn to the rental market, their
needs are pushing on the supply of affordable housing stock. And when
apartment owners default on their mortgages, units of affordable housing
are lost, while demand for existing units rises yet again. These
pressures of supply and demand are resulting in rising rents, despite
the poor economy. We see the ultimate cost in both increased demand for
the services of food banks and homeless shelters, and in decreased
capacity of food banks and homeless shelters to meet the need, as their
sources of financial support dry up as well.



Join us for an interactive session to explore how attorneys can work to
assist individuals and families in crisis due to foreclosure or
eviction, and how we can bolster efforts to create new units of
affordable housing. To spark a discussion on these topics, our panel
will walk through a hypothetical focusing on a family in need. Our
discussion will focus both on current laws that can help people protect
their homes and on new initiatives that would fill gaps and add to the
available legal tools to help people save their homes. We will
conclude by looking at potential policy changes to support affordable
housing development.



Panelists:

Jasleen Anand, Esq., Affordable Housing Real Estate Attorney, Garden
City, NY

Susan Bennett, Esq., Professor of Law and Director of the Community and
Economic Development Law Clinic, Washington College of Law of American
University, Washington, DC

Kurt James, Esq., Director, Rackemann, Saywer and Brewster, Boston, MA

Jeremy Rosen, Esq., Executive Director, National Policy and Advocacy
Council on Homelessness, Washington, DC

Stephanie M.M. Smith, Esq., Community Development Policy Analyst, Garden
City, NY



This program is free and open to the public.

Non-lawyer advocates and service providers are welcome to attend.



*CLE credits have been requested for this program, and registered
attendees of the ABA Midyear Meeting are eligible to receive credits.

Registration for the ABA Midyear Meeting is free. Register online at
www.abanet.org <http://www.abanet.org/> .



For more information or to RSVP, please contact Amy Horton-Newell at
hortona@staff.abanet.org or (202) 662-1693.









Amy E. Horton-Newell, Esq.

American Bar Association

Commission on Homelessness & Poverty

740 15th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 662-1693

(202) 638-3844 fax