Construction Maison

Jennifer Johnson was freezing cold and so was her 5-month-old baby. It was January, and the heat in her apartment wouldn 't go above 60. When the wind blew outside, her drapes fluttered inside . She called the maintenance department at Lakecrest Park Apartments in Roosevelt Park . The man who answered was rude, then crude, then hung up on her. Desperate and shivering, Johnson called the police. The result? Inspectors were called who issued citations, city leaders changed the ordinance to allow stricter enforcement of building codes and the apartment complex's East Coast owners became "cooperative" with city officials . And what about the apartment's management and maintenance department she dealt with? All fired. It's unusual for officials of any city to move so quickly to step into a tenant-landlord dispute. But with only a few large apartment complexes in the one-square-mile city, inspectors and leaders decided change was needed fast. A lease nightmar...

Cedar Rapids residents continue fight against affordable housing project as City Council prepares to make decision May 18, 2017 at 5:40 pm | Print View CEDAR RAPIDS — Neighbors to a proposed affordable housing complex in the northwest quadrant say they are frustrated with unresponsive elected officials as the project that months ago appeared dead now appears primed to pass. CommonBond Communities, a St. Paul, Minnesota- based nonprofit affordable housing developer , wants to build the $9 million, 45- unit Crestwood Ridge Apartments at 1200 Edgewood Road NW . Neighbors have fought back but been painted as biased, city leaders won ’t give them a fair chance and an east-west divide is fueling opinions, said Boyd Severson, 65, who has been part of a core group of opposition. “People are aligning as east side versus west side , at least that is the appearance,” said Severson, who is among 769 people who have signed a petition against rezoning to allow the development. “People say our...

At the corner of Travis Street and Pecan Grove Road in Sherman, the lot is reddish brown with overturned earth, crisscrossed by excavator tracks. Less than half-a-mile north on Travis, dense vegetation stands defiantly , just to the north of a small subdivision of 38 homes. Both sites were earmarked for luxury apartments , but only one will serve that purpose. At the corner of Travis Street and Pecan Grove Road in Sherman, the lot is reddish brown with overturned earth, crisscrossed by excavator tracks. Less than half-a-mile north on Travis, dense vegetation stands defiantly , just to the north of a small subdivision of 38 homes. Both sites were earmarked for luxury apartments , but only one will serve that purpose. The juxtaposition is a very tangible embodiment of a town in need of new rental units but wary of upsetting current residents . The Sherman Planning and Zoning Commission approved the Pecan Grove development — formally called Creed Canyon Apartments — in March of 2...

By Lambert Strether of Corrente. We had our Naked Capitalism meetup in Burlington Thursday, August 17, and our meetup in Montréal on Friday, August 18. Seven NC readers attended the Burlington Meetup, some coming a long distance; fourteen — I think, we had to add a table — came to Montréal. I thought both numbers were remarkable; strangers coming together for no other reason than that they read the same blog speaks to a great hunger for connection, IMNSHO, and speaks well of the blog. In Burlington, we met at Zero Gravity Brewpub at Flatbread ( excellent craft beer , excellent pizza). In Montréal, we met at Le Café Cherrier (cuisine bourgeois, again excellent, and bringing back very happy memories for me. And a big hat tip here to the Montréal organizer for selecting the venue; I’m anonymizing them because I’m not sure they wish to be named). Both meetups were very convivial — conviviality is important — and both establishments let us sit and chat for a long time. I hadn’t been to e...

This month, a man was arrested in Oklahoma City for trying to detonate 1,000 pounds of explosives in a cargo van parked downtown . The attack, he hoped, would cripple the government and start a revolution. Last October, three men were arrested in Kansas for plotting to bomb an apartment complex and a mosque using four cars laden with explosives. In these febrile days, where terrorists have sought to wreak fear and chaos from Orlando to Paris, and now Barcelona, you’d expect wall-to-wall coverage on cable news about these foiled plots. Terrorism experts would be wheeled out to opine for hours on all angles, from the explosives used to the profile of the would-be attackers to how and why they were radicalized. Instead, the two incidents got barely any coverage — some brief news spots here and there and a few mentions online. Ask any Arab-American or Muslim in America why those incidents weren’t covered ad nauseam and they’ ll reply deadpan : because the would-be attackers were white. So...

By Georgette BraunRockford Register Star Forest Glen's name has been popping up in conversations the past few months among movers and shakers in Rockford. They're saying the 140- unit apartment complex near McFarland Road and East Riverside Boulevard — with a swimming pool, tennis courts, garages and manicured landscaping, as well as comparatively little crime surrounding it — is a good example of what affordable housing should be: 56 units are set aside for income-restricted renters.  The talk about Forest Glen Apartments has been fueled by a plan that was pulled back last week by a Wisconsin-based developer to build 65 apartments in east Rockford off South New Towne Drive. Eighty-eight percent would be for low-income renters. The plan called for housing about 150 residents, most from the 650- resident Fairgrounds Valley , a decaying property on the west side that the Rockford Housing Authority wants to raze. The 210-unit complex is 47 years old. Residents of the New T...

"); } if ($(imageDivId).length == 0) { $("#wrapper").after(contentText); } })(jQuery); BREMERTON, Wash. - Crystal Turner stood in the kitchen of her cramped apartment and stared at the cracks in the fake wood flooring beneath her feet. Surrounding her was the home she'd made for herself and her two sons in the past year, since they moved out of her Toyota Camry and into Admiral Manor, a low- rent apartment complex in west Bremerton . There was the single bedroom with two kids' beds on the floor. The living room she'd decorated with signs that said "Hope" and "Love." A dingy bathroom with a leaking toilet that had never been fixed. In this undated photo, Matthew Daigneault pushes his son Aden as he plays outside on the swings of his rental home in West Bremerton , Wash. (Larry Steagall/Kitsap Sun via AP) © 2017 Cox Media Group . Admiral Manor wasn 't the place Turner, a recovering addict, wanted to raise her boys. It was the place...

Aug 16, 2017 The first time Captain Noorullah Aminyar traveled to the United States, in 2012, he felt calm and peaceful in a way he never had before. Back home in Afghanistan, he had slept fully clothed , boots on, hand on his rifle. The Taliban attacked every night, and he had to be ready. "But when I come to America," he told me, "I have no stress in America. I sleep good. I tell you, I have no stress. It was really easy. It was a good thing. You feel safe. I was born in the war. I grew up in the war. Always, your life is in danger. You find a little safe time, for sure you'll be happy." Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Advertisement - Continue Reading Below For Aminyar, then twenty-eight, coming to America was an honor and an achievement. He attended the prestigious Defense Language Institute in San Antonio, the culmination of more than a decade of studying English, followed by a basic infantry officer 's course at Fort Benning, Georgia, with Ame...