And in one of the week's more unusual stories, we reported on a public housing extension in Italy that was made from plastic shopping bags and other bits of non-renewable packaging.

ENGADGET: Inhabitat's Week in Green: ten earth activities, transnatural stools and wood ash bike frames

That's why he recently instituted the extension of the housing loan forbearance program, because those who have been -- who are struggling to stay in their homes, been unemployed, he believes it was essential to help them.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

For us, expanding opportunity means not the backward-looking plans of Labour's Deputy Leadership candidates - who only see a future for more state-owned and run housing - but helping young people onto the housing ladder through a massive extension of shared ownership and the right to buy.

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | In full: Cameron speech

Moreover, economists are increasingly worried that America's economic health (and by extension the world's) rests on a housing market that looks decidedly bubbly.

ECONOMIST: Don’t blame the savers | The

We know that a major cause was the bursting of a housing bubble that had been driven by the extension of easy credit.

FORBES: Double-Dip Yes, But Bullish Just The Same

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie asked why an extension of Scotland's freedom of information system was being blocked excluding housing associations, PFI projects and some public bodies.

BBC: First minister's questions

Among those measures, it said it would purchase agency debt and mortgage-backed securities to provide support to the mortgage and housing markets, and that early next year it would take measures to facilitate the extension of credit to households and small businesses.

FORBES: Magazine Article