Wednesday housing mix

- Rural Housing and allied USDA agencies issue a final rule changing their procedures for disbursement of funds. [UPDATE 10/13: there's a corresponding Procedure Notice revising Rural Development Instruction 1902-A.]

- More disaster areas defined in FEMA's and the SBA's sections of the Federal Register today.

- Sec'y Jackson attends a HOPE VI groundbreaking in his former home of St. Louis. Met by demonstrations against the project, he tells local officials: "... it is clear you must be doing something right, you've got these protesters here."

- The Department of Energy has a new test procedure out for residential central air conditioners and heat pumps.

- HUD extends the Youthbuild application deadline for South Florida applicants affected by Hurricane Katrina.

- IRS advises of loss limitations lifted for victims of Hurricane Katrina by the new tax relief law. (Past Katrina-related IRS press releases are here.)

- Katrina analyses, mostly gloomy, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

- Thomas Schelling, who now shares a Nobel Prize, is the inventor, among other things, of a model that explains how segregation can result from even mild levels of prejudice. Links via the liberal political webloggers Atrios and Mark A.R. Kleiman, and folks cited therein.