Month: July 2011

Newport Folk Festival

Late this afternoon I had a chance to listen online to The Decemberists , the closing act for the Saturday show of the Newport Folk Festival. In the early years – the festival was formed in 1959 – it featured well-known artists Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Oops, I disgress. What was so special was that today I had a chance to hear and see today’s show. So I thought to pass on this note in hopes some of you might get a chance to hear tomorrow’s acts.

Sunday headlines include: Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello and Amos Lee. You should be able to listen to the Sunday show courtesy of WFUV. They have set up a Newport Folk Fest 2011 page. If you scroll down to the bottom of that page you will see a listing of most of the Newport scheduled acts. It will take you to dozens of NPR.org’s archived performances and interviews.

If you visit the Newport Folk Festival site, www.newportfolkfest.net you can download a free 2011 Newport Folk IPHONE/IPAD/IPOD app. Enjoy the show, tomorrow and online in the future – as the shows will be archived so I hear.

Union County Housing Fair – Saturday, July 23, 2011

Although the recession is technically over, the unemployment rate in New Jersey remains high as does the continued fear of home foreclosure. To address the housing crisis issue a number of agencies will be holding a Housing Fair on Saturday, July 23 at Union County College in Elizabeth. Sponsoring organizations include: Union County Foreclosure Task Force, New Jersey Housing & Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA), Brand New Day, Urban League of Union County, Affordable Housing For Union County, and Faith, Brick & Mortar.

The housing fair will be held on a Saturday in hopes of attracting homeowners, new home buyers, and tenants. Information will be available on foreclosure intervention, foreclosure prevention programs, tenants rights, credit counseling, weatherization programs, homelessness assistance, utility assistance, first time home buyer programs and more. The organizers hope to attract the general public, lenders, realtors, and other community organizations.

The Housing Fair will be held at Union County College – Kellogg Building, 40 West Jersey Street – 5th floor, in Elizabeth, New Jersey from 10AM to 2PM. The flyer recently issued indicates that for further information and to RSVP please contact Jacqueline Jenkins of Brand New Day, Inc. at 908-282-0781, extension 146 or email: jackie.j@bndcdc.org. Feel free to copy or distribute the Union County Housing Fair flyer, either in English or in Spanish.

In preparing this post I surveyed a number of reliable websites on foreclosure information. You may wish to visit these sites:
HUD/NJ Housing & Mortgage Finance Agency list of certified counseling agencies, NJ Judiciary Foreclosure Mediation Program, Legal Services of New Jersey foreclosure page, and HUD’s avoiding foreclosure in New Jersey page.

Please share this information with people who are in need of housing and foreclosure information.