TAVIS SMILEY PRESENTS 'NO PLACE LIKE HOME'
Six Month Series Illuminates the Real Estate Market and the Effects on Everyday Homeowners
Los Angeles, CA (BlackNews.com) - Smiley Radio Properties Inc. along with the Annie E. Casey Foundation announce its partnership on economic empowerment in a dynamic new monthly series, "No Place Like Home: Keeping the American Dream Alive" launching nationwide June 26th. Created and hosted by the award-winning broadcaster, Tavis Smiley, "No Place Like Home" profiles ordinary families who have struggled and maintained properties through difficult economic times and examines the deep impact of the home mortgage crisis. The series will air the last weekend of each month until November, increasing the diversity of new voices and rich perspectives in public media.
"No Place Like Home" will highlight stories of individuals and family members whose family home is the bedrock to their personal history and culture. This series will also feature conversations with everyday Americans as they build and sometimes rebuild their lives and financial security through home ownership.
"The Annie E. Casey Foundation is delighted to partner with Smiley Radio Properties as we address this significant aspect of the economy now facing our nation's most vulnerable families and communities," said Ralph Smith, Executive Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. "Because of our focus on families and children in low-income communities, we're concentrating on developing solutions to address the effects of the economic crisis on families who own or rent housing. When a family loses its home to foreclosure, it loses more than a physical structure."
"Home ownership is still perhaps the best way, the preferred route for most Americans to get on the road to wealth," said Smiley. "With the help of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we hope to use our media platform as a road map to help potential homeowners navigate safely into the direction of their dreams."
This series will look beyond the foreclosure crisis by exploring the importance of home ownership for communities of color, examining the new federal and local agency guidelines to prevent predatory lending and showcase how this in-turn will change the future of the American real-estate market. This series will give a voice to the Americans ensnared in this financial burden.
"No Place Like Home" debuts Friday, June 26 on The Tavis Smiley Radio Show from PRI. For local air times and more information visit www.tavissmileyradio.com
About Tavis Smiley
With his late-night PBS television talk show and his radio show, Tavis Smiley is the first American ever to simultaneously host signature talk shows on both public television and public radio. He has authored 14 books including The New York Times best-sellers, What I Know For Sure and Covenant with Black America. TIME magazine honored him as one of the "The World's 100 Most Influential People," in 2009. Newsweek dubbed him one of the nation's "captains of the airwaves." He is also the creator ofAmerica I Am: The African American Imprint museum exhibition. Smiley has received several honorary doctorate degrees, including one from his alma mater, Indiana University.
About Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization, dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the founders of UPS, and his siblings, who named the Foundation in honor of their mother. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today's vulnerable children and families. In pursuit of this goal, the Foundation makes grants that help states, cities and neighborhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs.
