2 new stories about housing
Our housing supply shortage and the debate over tent encampments
Hi all,
I hope you’re enjoying the beginnings of spring. It’s the best season in D.C, which I plan to soak up before our intolerable, sticky, swamp summer arrives.
I’ve really appreciated all the reactions/feedback I’ve received to my afterschool story so far. Earlier this week I also had the great pleasure of talking about the reporting on NPR’s daytime show, Here and Now. You can listen to the segment here.
Today the White House released its new budget proposal and unfortunately pitched no increase in spending for afterschool, despite the intense need for it in so many communities. The Afterschool Alliance put out a statement calling Biden’s budget a “real disappointment.”
In other news, I have two new housing-related stories to share.
One is about what the Biden administration (and the federal government in general) could be doing to address the housing supply shortage. Yes, it’s an issue where state and local governments wield tremendous power, but there are more things the federal government could be doing, and they should do them! You can read that here.
The second story, out this week, looks at the rise of homeless tent encampments in the U.S and the intense debate over what to do about them.
Unsheltered homelessness, meaning sleeping somewhere at night that’s not primarily designed for human residence — like a tent, a car, an abandoned building, or a train station — accounts for 40 percent of homelessness in the country, up from 31 percent in 2015. I wrote about what we know regarding encampments, the ideas on the table to address them, and the growing political pressure to do something. You can read that here.
Thanks as always for reading, and if there are big policy stories you think I should be paying attention to, as always please drop me a note!