Tag: Housing

  • Nation & World

    Panel: Housing crisis is opportunity for action

    When housing prices on Main Street tumbled last year — who doesn’t know this? — tremors rumbled all the way to Wall Street, and beyond. For the first time in 40 years of record-keeping, the median price of a single-family home declined. In six months, the value of U.S. housing stock dropped $3 trillion. Credit…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When gentrification occurs in City of the Seven Hills

    History and modernity collide in Monti, a neighborhood in Rome, and the local way of life is falling victim to the impact. Michael Herzfeld, professor of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, explores the changing landscape of this ancient neighborhood in a new ethnography about this district within Italy’s capital city.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    House Renewal Survey highlights ‘community of friends’

    A survey of Harvard undergraduates reveals a House system that, despite the need for renovations, meets student expectations well and, for most, serves as a space to be with a “smaller community of friends.”

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Strengthening the House tradition

    A draft report on the House Renewal Program highlights a residential system that has in many ways worked as planned as it has aged, providing not just a roof over students’ heads, but fostering a supportive community that frames students’ years at Harvard and inspires House loyalty for decades after graduation.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing sees remodeling potential

    The U.S. home improvement industry, much like the broader housing market, is experiencing a severe downturn, but prospects for growth are already developing, finds a new report released by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Renewing a venerable experiment

    Even as we absorb the implications of the global financial crisis and plan for how we might react to it, our commitment to provide our undergraduates with an unparalleled academic experience remains as strong as ever. Progress continues with our new Program in General Education and with planning for our ambitious House renewal effort. It…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    At GSD, UPenn’s Thomas Sugrue talks about ‘civil rights and the metropolis’

    For the first time in a generation, urban policy is back on the national agenda. Advocates for the nation’s cities have been thrilled by the announcement that the Obama administration will include a White House Office of Urban Policy.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    Money Mondays offer help; Harvard Real Estate Services plans home-buying seminar; Fontainebleau Schools info session in Adams House; Global health workshop, Dec. 3; Holiday gifts for those in need; A musical invitation

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newsmakers

    Carbonari named chair, Fulton named vice chair of Harvard’s JCHS Policy Advisory Board; HSPH presents Q Prize to maestro

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    N.E. HUD chief offers suggestions

    The chief federal housing official in New England told a Harvard University audience that his department is poised to help foreclosure-imperiled homeowners navigate the nation’s economic crisis, but he called on President-elect Barack Obama to empower that effort by expanding the nation’s commitment to fair and affordable housing.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    Money Mondays offer help The Office of Human Resources will be offering a special series of “HARVie chats” on banking, benefits, investing, and other financial topics. Harvard staff are invited to visit http://harvie.harvard.edu/chats/upcomingchats.shtml to get information that may help in navigating through the current economic downturn.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    HRES plans home-buying seminar

    Harvard Real Estate Services is holding a home-buying seminar on Dec. 4 from noon to 1:30 p.m.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Home for the homeless: Community Gifts kicks off the season of giving

    It’s November again, signaling the cold autumn preamble to another lengthy Massachusetts winter. And here at Harvard, “giving month” has arrived — kicking off the annual Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign, a campuswide charitable initiative that draws much-needed dollars from generous faculty, staff, and retirees for various Massachusetts Bay charities during the month of November.…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Home buying seminar Nov. 6

    Susan Keller of Harvard Real Estate Services is holding seminars on Nov. 6 and Dec. 4 from 12-1:30 p.m. titled “Home Buying Seminar & Obtaining a Mortgage: Tips to Assist You with This Process.” The programs will be at Mt. Auburn Street, Room 3311, and feel free to bring a lunch. Registration is required. To…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    HRES fetes completion of grad, professional student housing program

    Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES) Tuesday (Oct. 21) celebrated the completion of an eight-year program to provide housing for approximately 50 percent of the University’s graduate and professional students. The program, which included both new and renovated properties in Cambridge and Boston, provides students with myriad housing options — everything from single-family homes to high-rise…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Joint Center for Housing sees mortgage turmoil hitting rental market

    The current mortgage turmoil reaches deep into rental markets. New research on rental housing market dynamics from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that the current housing debacle not only adds to the number of households competing for low-cost rentals but also threatens renters living in foreclosed properties with sudden eviction.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Thoughtful House renovation planned

    More than bricks and beams, it is the people of the 12 undergraduate residential Houses who make the structure of residential life at Harvard transformational, complex, and robust. So, when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences decided to invest in student life by renovating the Houses, supporting House life was the guide for reinforcing and…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Stilgoe predicts the return of railroad

    The golden age of the railroad ended in the mid-20th century, when Americans switched from Pullman cars to Chevys and eventually 747 jetliners. Yet, to John R. Stilgoe, Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Graduate School of Design, trains are anything but passé. Based on analyses of…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Undergrad Houses to be renovated

    Following a comprehensive assessment, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will begin planning a major renovation of Harvard University’s undergraduate residential Houses. The renovations, a significant, long-term project that is anticipated to involve all 12 Houses, will unfold over 15 years.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Dirty Work’

    As reports of the subprime mortgage meltdown continue, an exhibition on view through March 16 in Gund Hall Gallery highlights a real estate crisis of an altogether different sort. A third of the world’s city dwellers — 1 billion people — live in shantytowns.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HRES proposes 2008-09 rents for Harvard Housing

    Harvard Real Estate Services manages approximately 3,000 apartments, offering a broad choice of styles, amenities, and sizes to meet the individual budgets and housing needs of Harvard affiliates (full-time graduate students, faculty members, or employees). Apartments are available in a variety of sizes: standard and double studios; standard and convertible one-bedrooms; and two-, three-, and…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Charlesview and Harvard agree to land exchange

    The Charlesview Inc. board of directors and Harvard University have signed a purchase-and-sale agreement that will enable the construction of a new apartment complex for Allston’s Charlesview residents on Harvard-owned property located a half-mile from the current complex in Barry’s Corner.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Finding shelter: Community Gifts supports Just-A-Start

    This is the second in a series of Gazette articles highlighting some of the many initiatives and charities that Harvard affiliates can support through this month’s Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign. The Community Gifts campaign allows you to donate to a charity of your choice through cash, a check, or a payroll deduction.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Versatile vocalist Mahogany headlines benefit at Sanders

    Local fans of jazz and blues will soon have a chance to hear some of the most talented and admired performers in those genres and to help the homeless as well.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Map Collection digitizes historic Cambridge and Boston atlases

    The Harvard Map Collection’s atlases of historic Cambridge have much to reveal about the city and the University’s past. Looking at these oversized documents one learns, for instance, that 135 years ago, Harvard students boarded their horses in the University stables where the current-day John Harvard’s Brew House operates, and that, as of 1903, the…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Students help the grass roots grow in New Orleans

    Statistics may cause some people to grow bleary-eyed, but not a group of New Orleans residents at a recent community meeting where they listened to Harvard students talk about post-Hurricane Katrina recovery rates in their neighborhood.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    KSG pledges ongoing action in New Orleans, Broadmoor Project

    The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) recently announced that the Broadmoor Project is being launched to formalize the School’s existing relationship with residents of the New Orleans neighborhood that was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. KSG students and staff will spend March 25-31 in New Orleans to continue the work of the ongoing project.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HRES approves 2007-08 Affiliated Housing rents

    Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES) has announced the approval of the new rent schedule for approximately 2,800 Harvard-owned apartments rented by graduate students and other University affiliates. The new rents will take effect July 1, when the 2007-08 rental season begins.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HRES proposes 2007-08 rents for Affiliated Housing

    Per University policy, Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES) is required to charge market rent for its housing. To establish proposed rents for 2007-08, HRES performed a regression analysis on three years of market rents for more than 4,000 neighboring apartments, all of which were voluntary postings at the Harvard Housing Office by non-Harvard property owners.…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Study shows maintaining homeownership gains is key to strong economy

    A June 2002 report by The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University documents the strong demographic foundation of current and projected future housing market activity. According to the…

    1 minute