A housing policy I'm excited about
and the important and confusing fight for abortion rights in Nebraska this year
My job title is “policy correspondent” and while that often means covering debates in the world of policy, or new policy problems, sometimes I get to report on new policy ideas that I genuinely believe are good, smart, practical solutions. It’s one of my favorite things to do. In the world of housing over the last year, ideas I’ve covered that fit that bill include:
The rise of mixed-income public housing, where local governments are playing the role of housing developer
The Yes-In-God’s-Backyard movement, building affordable housing on land owned by religious institutions, or converting empty churches, mosques, temples
Experimenting with giving low-income renters cash instead of housing vouchers
Converting vacant strip malls into housing
I am legitimately enthusiastic about all the above, and today I’m glad to report on another new idea, outlined in a new paper out by Pew Research and Gensler (a global architecture firm) on how to convert vacant office buildings into essentially affordable adult dorm rooms. These would be dorms with a lot of amenities, and located downtown in desirable cities, near transit and jobs. These “co-living products” as they’re being called, were sketched out precisely for renters who earn below the area median income, or who need a cheaper, safe option in an otherwise expensive area. In Denver for example, rents in this proposal would fall between $500-$1,000 per month, compared to Denver’s median rent of $1,771.
The piece looks at how our cities used to be abundant in “single room occupancies” or SROs, but beginning in the 1950s cities started to ban them, and incentivize landlords to destroy existing ones. It’s one key reason why there are fewer affordable options for people to live in in cities compared to a century ago.
You can read the new story here.
Last week I wrote about two, competing abortion ballot measures in Nebraska. While abortion is on the ballot in ten states this year, Nebraska is the only state that has two competing and conflicting measures for voters to weigh in on. This was, in fact, done to be intentionally confusing, as anti-abortion advocates hope primarily to defeat the pro-choice ballot measure, before they move on to continue pushing for deeper bans next year.
One woman I got to speak to for this story is Kim Paseka, who I think really embodies how “exceptions” to abortion bans fail patients in practice. Nebraska lawmakers last year passed a 12-week ban on abortion, which may sound “reasonable” to some people, but then Kim learned within her first trimester after that that she was carrying a non-viable pregnancy. And even though she hadn’t reached the 12 week ban threshold, her doctors told her they wouldn’t be able to give her an abortion, because she hadn’t been sexually assault.
So Kim was forced to continue carrying this non-viable pregnancy for a month, experiencing all the tiredness and nausea and regular symptoms of being pregnant, but she just had to wait until she bled it out at home eventually. “I felt like a walking coffin,” she told me.
Some readers asked me why she just didn’t travel out of state to get an abortion. And that’s because it’s not easy for many people to do! Even those who are not poor. Kim had another baby to take care of, and her husband’s job didn’t allow him to get off work. So they realized as a family the “best” option they had was to wait, as wrenching as it was.
You can read my story about Nebraska here. I was glad to be able to cover this state — which has gotten comparably far less media attention than other states like Florida and Arizona with big abortion ballot measures this year.
In other news:
T minus two weeks until election day?? I hope everyone reading this who is eligible to vote has made their plan to vote. You’ll thank yourself later if you make a plan now, and/or just vote early!
I am excited to share I’m joining a board of directors for my first time, for this really wonderful organization in DC called Story of Our Schools. The nonprofit helps students build permanent historical exhibits of their DC public schools through research, reporting and art. You can look at some of the exhibits on their website, they’re really amazing. I’m looking forward to working with kids on some of the journalistic aspects of the exhibit-making, as well as help the org grow with communications and marketing.
Thanks for reading,
Rachel