CRASH TALK

Business Insider - The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, [shows] a decrease of 19 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. . . The Refinance Index is at its lowest level since November 2008.

Wall Street Journal - The president's stimulus plan has been aimed primarily at the top of the economy, pumping money into banks and car companies and state and city governments. But it also has put more money into the hands of the poorest Americans by boosting monthly food-stamp allocations. Starting in April, a family of four on food stamps received an average of $80 extra.

Money from the program -- officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- percolates quickly through the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that for every $5 of food-stamp spending, there is $9.20 of total economic activity, as grocers and farmers pay their employees and suppliers, who in turn shop and pay their bills.

While other stimulus money has been slow to circulate, the food-stamp boost is almost immediate, with 80% of the benefits being redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 97% within a month, the USDA says.

Edward I. Koch & Robert S. Weiner, NY Daily News - While the recent anti-foreclosure bill signed by President Obama is of assistance to the homeowners affected by the current financial meltdown, the bill and its $13.6 billion of housing recovery money have ignored the nearly one-third of American households who rent, including more than 2 million households in New York City.

All these people also have a dream of having and staying in a home - and they also need help from Congress, on the double. Over the course of the last generation, things have gotten progressively worse for renters - and the deep recession has added insult to injury. . .
The Federal Housing Administration advocates that a family should spend no more than 30% of their income on housing. In 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of renters exceeded this guideline, with almost 25% of renters spending more than 50%. The situation is particularly dire in New York, where nearly one in three New Yorkers use half of their income on rent.

It shouldn't surprise us that one very immediate consequence of all this is homelessness. In New York City alone, there has been a 65% increase in the use of homeless shelters since 1998 and a 23% increase since 2002. Even at these record numbers - 36,218 were in shelters as of May 31 - a shelter, though a wonderful resource, is not a permanent home, and shelters only house a tiny fraction of the homeless. While a virtually immeasurable number, the New York City Coalition for the Homeless believes homelessness this decade is "the greatest since the Great Depression.