White House Sustainable Communities Live Chat on Thursday July 15 at 11 AM PDT.

Event information from Planetizen is HERE. Access the event itself on the White House live website HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Improper Payments Dashboard Coming in A Couple of Weeks.

President's Excecutive Order requires this dashboard to be up by May 19, 2010. (Don't have URL yet).

My prior post on this subject is HERE. Short presentation HERE highlights XO requirements.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: White House? There's an App for That.

New IPHONE app was announced yesterday on the White House Blog HERE.

For non IPHONE users, this is prelude to a future roll out of a mobile website for other cell phones at mobile.whitehouse.gov

YouTube video of features of new White House app is embedded below:


Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Video: Obama Gettin' Busy with Metro Agenda--Putting the "U" Back in HUD?

White House event and future plans HERE. (President's remarks are HERE). WaPo story HERE.

While public emphasis will be on a "metropolitan" agenda, reality is that metro areas consist of Urban and subUrban areas, putting the "U" back in HUD.

Oregon Impacts from Recovery Plan.

Released by the White House today, HERE.

Oregon specific impacts are found on page 75-76 and are pasted below:

• Creating or saving 46,300 jobs over the next two years. Jobs created will be in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with over 90% in the private sector. [Source: White House Estimate based on Romer and Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” January 9, 2009.]

• Providing a making work pay tax cut of up to $1,000 for 1,400,000 workers and their families. The plan will make a down payment on the President’s Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, designed to pay out immediately into workers’ paychecks. [Source: White House Estimate based on IRS Statistics of Income]

• Making 41,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable. By creating a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college, this plan will give 3.8 million families nationwide – and 41,000 families in Oregon – new assistance to put college within their reach. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of U.S. Census data]

• Offering an additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 329,000 workers in Oregon who have lost their jobs in this recession, and providing extended unemployment benefits to an additional 53,000 laid-off workers. [Source: National Employment Law Project]

• Providing funding sufficient to modernize at least 102 schools in Oregon so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy. [Source: White House Estimate]