Each month, the editors of The Atlantic’s Business section put together a list of the most intriguing, well-told stories they've read (or listened to). Over the past month, we’ve collected pieces about housing, poverty, sports, entertainment, and a number of other topics that relate to money and business.
Here are those we think are too good to miss. And if you’re just catching up, you can check out our roundups from earlier this year, which can be found here and here.
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"How Habitat for Humanity Went to Brooklyn and Poor Families Lost Their Homes"
Marcelo Rochabrun | ProPublica
In 2010, the New York City Affiliate of Habitat for Humanity received a $21 million federal grant to work on a city neighborhood hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis and help stabilize it.
The funds would allow Habitat-NYC to launch the most ambitious project in its 32-year history. Its neighborhood pick was Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically poor neighborhood in central Brooklyn, where the charity would focus on buying and renovating abandoned apartment buildings.
There was just one problem. With few vacancies in the gentrifying area, longtime tenants were pushed out of their apartments — some into homelessness — clearing the way for developers to sell to Habitat at a hefty profit, a ProPublica investigation has found.
. . .
Between 2010 and 2011, at least seven Bed-Stuy families were pushed out of their rental apartments shortly before Habitat purchased them, ProPublica found.
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