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One of the biggest problems facing low-income families in the U.S. today is a lack of affordable housing.

According to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, more than 7 million low-income households now spend more than half of their income for rent, which leaves little money for anything else. And the situation is expected to get worse.

Now, a coalition of nonprofit groups is trying to turn things around with a new, more business-like approach to buying real estate. They hope to preserve housing units that low- and moderate-income families can afford.

Christopher LoPiano is senior vice president for real estate at Community Preservation and Development Corp., a nonprofit that develops, owns and operates affordable housing in the Washington, D.C., area and Virginia.

LoPiano says it was frustrating when his group made offers to buy eight properties in Virginia over the past few years and got the same answer every time.

" 'No, thank you.' That's what kept happening to us," he says. " 'No thank you.' "

It wasn't the price. LoPiano says his group was competitive with other buyers when it came to price.

"What we're not competitive on is closing quickly," he says, "because we're dependent upon public financing, and public financing just takes longer."

LoPiano says such real estate deals often involve government bond issues and housing tax breaks, which can take months, even a year, to be approved.

"And sellers in today's market are not willing to wait that," he says.

So LoPiano's group and a coalition of other housing nonprofits, called the Housing Partnership Network, decided it was time to get creative — to do what private investors have done for decades. They became the first nonprofits to form what's called a real estate investment trust, or REIT. It allows investors to pool their funds to buy property and collect dividends — and involves no public financing.

The nonprofit groups figured they could offer potential investors a modest return on their money — about 5 to 7 percent. It's less than what they'd get from a private-sector REIT, but the groups also appealed to investors' desire to preserve affordable housing. And they got several big ones — Prudential, Morgan Stanley, Citibank and the Ford and MacArthur foundations — to chip in an initial $100 million.

LoPiano says the nonprofits' new REIT has been a "game changer."

Dollar For Dollar: Adventures In Investing

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Here's a conundrum.

The Golden State ranks as the second best place for a woman to achieve economic security, according to 14 key measures. That's according to a study from the Center for American Progress.

Paid family leave? Check!
Great early childhood education? Check!
Paid sick leave? Check!

However Hispanic women in the state only make 44 cents to every dollar a white man makes. That makes the 6.6 million women, or 17 percent of the entire state of California, the lowest paid population, of any race, in any state.

Let me say that again.

Hispanic women, in a state where the number of Latinos is poised to surpass non-Hispanic whites this March, are on average earning the lowest amount of any women, anywhere, in the United States.

The pay disparity is especially ironic in California, where women as a whole make amongst the highest wage nationwide at 84 cents to every white man's dollar. The national average for women is 77 cents.

So what's going on?

Anna Chu, the researcher who conducted the study, says part of it has to do with the types of jobs they are working. "A lot of times we find that many women of color are not working in high paying industries."

In fact, two of the top three industries women in California work in are social services and retail, areas not exactly known for their lucrative earnings potential.

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Italy's Prime Minister Enrico Letta will step down after his own party launched a no-confidence vote against him, paving the way for the young and popular mayor of Florence to assume the post.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"Mr. Letta's resignation brings an end to a government that is barely 10 months old and has teetered on the brink of collapse virtually from its birth. It will clear the way for [President Giorgio] Napolitano to ask Matteo Renzi to try to form a new government."

Scotland, as we've told you previously, is voting later this year on breaking away from the U.K.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had said that the new country would retain the pound as its currency and take on a portion of the U.K.'s debt. Britain's message today [Thursday]: Not so fast.

"If Scotland walks away from the U.K., it walks away from the pound," said Chancellor George Osborne. [You can watch his comments here.]

Osborne's remarks were supported by members of all three major parties: the ruling Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as the opposition Labour. The chancellor's comments came after recommendations made by Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the senior civil servant at the Treasury. He said a currency union with an independent Scotland was "fraught with difficulty."

Salmond, Scotland's first minister, supports independence, and he reacted angrily to Osborne's remarks, calling them "bluff, bluster and posturing." And, he said, if there was no deal on the pound, there won't be a deal on the U.K.'s $2.67 trillion debt, either.

"All the debt accrued up to the point of independence belongs legally to the Treasury, as they confirmed last month – and Scotland can't default on debt that's not legally ours," he said in a statement. "However, we've always taken the fair and reasonable position that Scotland should meet a fair share of the costs of that debt. But assets and liabilities go hand in hand, and – contrary to the assertions today – sterling and the Bank of England are clearly shared UK assets."

Osborne's remarks mark a hardening of the anti-independence posture by the U.K.'s politicians. Just last week, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech in which he urged the rest of the U.K. – England, Wales and Northern Ireland – to tell Scottish voters to reject independence when they vote in September.

"If we lost Scotland, if the U.K. changed, we would rip the rug from under our own reputation," he said. "The plain fact is we matter more in the world together."

It's unclear what a "yes" vote for independence would mean economically. Diageo, the company that owns whisky brands such as Johnnie Walker, says it would make no difference, a comment echoed by the head of Barclays bank. The head of the oil giant BP, however, says independence would create "uncertainties."

Polls show that support for independence is low, but many Scots are still undecided.