More from The Appeal:
Creating a commission and a new deputy mayor of housing will give directly impacted people a much-needed voice in government—and help ensure a right to housing for all.
Shams DaBaron Apr 13, 2021
Shelters are not meeting people’s needs, and the city is clearing encampments, says City Councilmember Roberto Treviño.
Roberto Treviño Apr 09, 2021
Days before the election, campaign finance reports show that real-estate and construction industries favor Cara Spencer over Tishaura Jones.
Jerry Iannelli Apr 02, 2021
Four first-time candidates could grant progressives a majority on the Board of Alders and transform public safety and housing policy.
Eoin Higgins Mar 31, 2021
To all of the state lawmakers wondering how to fund legal representation for tenants facing evictions: follow the federal COVID-19 relief packages.
John Pollock Mar 26, 2021
The housing advocate’s run for city council could be a Texan litmus test for the broad appeal of policies popular with working class voters.
Eoin Higgins Mar 08, 2021
The two candidates will move on to the April 6 general election after securing the most votes under the city’s new approval voting system.
Meg O'Connor Mar 02, 2021
Seattle suburb Renton is battling an emergency homeless shelter through its zoning code.
Rachel M. Cohen Feb 10, 2021
In a forum with people experiencing homelessness, Democratic candidates criticized the mayor’s affordable housing plans, embraced a ‘right to housing,’ and rejected police intervention on homelessness calls.
Chris Gelardi Feb 05, 2021
Policies that helped keep people in their homes—and keep the utilities on—reduced COVID-19 deaths and infections.
Joshua Vaughn Jan 28, 2021
Fife has pledged to reinvest in the local community, aggressively combat the housing crisis, address income inequality, education, healthcare and more.
Eoin Higgins Nov 09, 2020
“I have always had a focus on public service, always a desire to make sure that I’m using my skills and talents to help people and to make the community around me a little bit better,” she said.
Dawn R. Wolfe Nov 04, 2020
Hollins’s ‘very personal’ decision to run was sparked in part by the Trump administration ‘catching everything on fire.’ Now she wants to advocate for subsidized child care, police reform, and more.
Minnesotans, Fateh said, “should be able to access the folks that are representing us and make sure that they’re partnering with the community.”
The state representative wants to bar landlords in Pennsylvania from reporting missed or late rent payments to credit agencies.
Joshua Vaughn Oct 13, 2020
In her run for City Council, Fife pushes back on the institutional barriers to Black people that come from a history of oppression.
Eoin Higgins Oct 01, 2020
A lawsuit alleges Breonna Taylor died because Louisville was trying to arrest its way toward economic redevelopment. Research shows this is common.
Brenden Beck Aug 04, 2020
A June report from the county’s independent judicial arm urges local government to reallocate law enforcement resources to social services.
Ella Fassler Jul 31, 2020
Hundreds were forced from an encampment to fenced-in, asphalt parking lots with no shade in Phoenix’s triple-digit summer heat. At least three people have died.
Meg O'Connor Jul 24, 2020
As thousands of people are freed from local jails, a group of nonprofits and activist organizations says the city's housing authority must revamp its policies that banish the formerly incarcerated.
Jerry Iannelli Jul 22, 2020
Making our communities safe requires not only the defunding of police departments, but also dismantling discriminatory laws that target survival activities such as sleeping, sitting, lying down, and eating in public space.
The ‘drug house’ ordinances that force landlords to kick out tenants are mostly compounding the overdose crisis, critics say.
Leora Smith Jun 09, 2020
There are certain universal human needs that any governing structure — from local to federal — is responsible for. Among these are housing, healthcare, education, public parks, clean water, and clean air — the things that make life beautiful. These needs touch every single living being and as such, are non-negotiable. They do not belong on the open market.
On the intersection of two public health crises: housing and COVID-19.
Jonny Coleman Apr 09, 2020
Residents have been told to stay in their homes to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus—but little has been done to ensure they can afford to stay there, activists say.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Mar 31, 2020
It should not take a global pandemic for our elected officials to acknowledge that we are all safer if everyone can shower and wash their hands.
Sabrina Johnson Mar 19, 2020
How California, which is home to more than half of the country’s unsheltered homeless population, is addressing the needs of the unhoused.
Kira Lerner Mar 18, 2020
The U.S. representative said her husband helped her realize that when one person is incarcerated, many more are affected.
Kira Lerner Mar 04, 2020