Housing and Urban Issues
Stresses on urban communities continue to affect housing, food security, child services, homelessness, business development and crime. Coverage includes stories about new solutions to how cities are run, how they develop as urban centers and about the people who live there.
A study has found that Black drivers in Chicago receive approximately 54 percent of automated camera citations, but they make up 70 percent of police stops.
People spend years waiting for federal housing vouchers. That’s because of policy choices made decades ago.
Proposition 33 would allow cities to limit rent increases. Some economists doubt that’s a good idea.
Baltimore has approximately 13,000 vacant homes across the city. State and local officials are aiming to transition at least 5,000 of those properties into updated homeownership or other positive developments in five years.
By one estimate, only 10 percent of homeless citizens end up casting votes. There are many steps states can take to lower barriers to participation.
With strong mayoral leadership, Atlanta is not only leveraging creative financing to provide housing but also getting tough on landlords of blighted properties. It’s a recognition that homelessness is a moral issue rooted in poor public policy.
Last week, Mayor Brandon Johnson vetoed the Aldermen’s unanimous vote to keep the gunshot detection technology, saying the system doesn’t work well enough to justify its costs. Some residents are worried that without it, police response time will lag.
A new public opinion survey commissioned by the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows most Americans believe investments in housing and social service can reduce homelessness. A smaller fraction supports law enforcement as a primary solution.
Falling borrowing costs could trigger a flood of additional buyers and send home prices higher but, for now, the number of homes for sale is increasing modestly, rates are falling and home price growth is slowing.
Millions of Americans, particularly people of color buying lower-cost homes, have turned to land contracts and other alternative financing that lack the protections of traditional mortgages. Lawmakers could make these processes a lot safer.
HUD’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program had over 85,000 participants nationwide as of June. Since the program began in 2008, homelessness among veterans in Illinois has decreased by half.
Nine towns are suing New Jersey over a law implementing aspects of the state’s affordable housing requirements. The rules have pushed states to produce more multifamily and low-income housing.
An economist is making the case for such a correlation, and it carries a ring of plausibility.
Vice President Kamala Harris proposed a $40 billion “housing innovation fund” to help local governments build more affordable housing. It could be a potential break from most federal housing assistance programs, which are tightly defined.
They’re a constant in urban history, typically launching with excitement but achieving modest results. That doesn’t stop the enthusiasts from dreaming.
California is notorious for its lack of affordable housing. Still, it's seen a dramatic expansion of one type of housing over the past five years, known as ADUs, offering lessons for other states.
The U.S. is currently building dense housing at the highest rate since the mid-1980s. Former President Barack Obama noted in his convention speech that “we need to build more units and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations.”
This nonprofit model for increasing affordable housing supply is seeing success in convincing socially motivated investors to accept lower rates of return on rental units.
Groups of renters in five cities have formed a Tenant Union Federation to build power locally and advocate for changes to federal housing policy.
Each year, more trees fall in cities than are harvested from national forests, putting infrastructure at risk. Researchers estimate that urban trees could replace about 10 percent of the nation’s annual lumber consumption.
A report found that residents who work minimum wage jobs would need to work 82 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom rental home. But many cities across the state do not have enough low-cost housing to accommodate the number of low-wage workers.
Despite fires and floods, they keep coming in search of affordability and warm winters. But there are strong signs that the stampede is slowing.
Zoning changes in cities such as Minneapolis have helped prompt new construction, but allowing more units on formerly single-family lots isn’t a panacea for housing shortages.
Millions of Americans are evicted each year. Lack of detailed information about their circumstances makes addressing affordable housing needs more difficult.
Gavin Newsom has been dealing with the issue since long before he became governor, working to undo a Reagan-era legacy of deinstitutionalization. It’s common-sense progress.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development will change its rule that treated service-related disability benefits as income. Now disability compensation will be counted just for income to calculate the amount vets must pay for rent.
Latinos make up only about 16 percent of the city’s population, but their total number has risen from 129,000 in 2000 to 244,000 last year. Overall, the city has experienced slight population decline since 2020.
A study found that Chicago’s white families have the highest median net wealth ($210,000), while typical Black families report no wealth and U.S.-born Mexican families have just 19 percent of a typical white family’s wealth.
A ballot measure that would have let voters decide the fate of a massive land development project in California has been called off.
Jonathan Daniels, an experienced crisis manager, is getting Baltimore’s port back in business.
Nonprofit service providers publish plenty of metrics about their activities, but too often they don’t reflect actual success in reducing homelessness. Measuring impact would help them do more good.
