Volume 3 Number 10
November 2006

In this Issue
Funding for Recovery in the Hurricanes' Wake, Part II
Affordable Housing Grows in Central San Joaquin Valley
Forecasts of Housing Demand in 18 Local Markets
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• Energy expenditures by public housing authorities, utililties receiving allowances, and private building owners receiving housing assistance are costing HUD's budget about $4 billion in operating grants each year. HUD's Energy Action Plan promotes energy efficiency in HUD-assisted, financed, or subsidized housing. Reducing energy costs by five percent annually could result in a savings of almost $2 billion over the next 10 years. We'll examine features of the plan that are helping to reduce energy costs, as well as look at two projects that incorporate its features — a "green" tax-credit complex in Wytheville, Virginia and a straw bale complex of four houses built for migrant farm workers in Leedsville, Virginia.

• HUD and the Census Bureau released the results of the 2005 national American Housing Survey (AHS) in microdata form in June 2006. This is the most current AHS information about U.S. housing available today. We'll review selected outcomes from the 2005 survey that describes the housing of American families and share the many ways of accessing this rich source of data.

• A recent monograph, Scholarship in Action, sponsored by the Office of University Partnerships, explores the use of community and university research partnerships to address local issues. We'll review typical experiences of academic researchers in community-based projects, and look at some of the benefits of applied research and difficulties encountered in such projects. Examples of community-based research, designed to assess housing suitability and to test household environmental safety, will illustrate how these community-university partnerships achieve positive results for all concerned. Scholarship in Action is available in electronic format only, and is available online at www.oup.org/files/pubs/scholarship.pdf.