affordability

President Joe Biden speaks

White House unveils $42.5B to connect every American to high-speed broadband internet

BY: - June 26, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday announced $42.45 billion to connect all Americans to high-speed broadband internet by the end of the decade, likening the ambitious goal to FDR’s New Deal-era rural electrification program that brought the then-modern technology to farms and rural areas across the United States. The funds, which will be distributed […]

Members of a clean-up crew remove belongings that have been left behind by occupants as the National Park Service clears the homeless encampment at McPherson Square on Feb. 15, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said that when cities force unhoused people to move out of encampments, they’re putting their health at risk. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

High mortality rate of homeless highlighted in new report

BY: - April 9, 2023

Barb Anderson, director of Haven House in Jeffersonville, Indiana, works with homeless people to place them into housing. It’s a job that has shown her firsthand the severe health issues facing unhoused people in southern Indiana, where many people live in tents in the woods and under bridges.  She is currently working with an older […]

LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA - AUGUST 27: Utility employees work on downed power lines after Hurricane Laura passed through the area on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Laura made landfall in low-lying Louisiana with a top wind speed of 150 mph, putting it among the most powerful storms ever to strike the U.S. The expected catastrophic storm surge however wound up being 9-12 feet, far from the worst forecast of 15-20 feet, though still destructive. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Affordable, reliable and sustainable: report compares utility performance 

BY: - January 23, 2023

A nationwide comparison of electric utility performance by an Illinois consumer advocacy group found that customers in states that are heavily reliant on fuel oil and natural gas, as in the Northeast and South, tend to pay more than those with larger amounts of carbon-free generation, among other findings.  The report by the Illinois-based Citizens […]

In November, Colorado voters passed Prop 123, which will allow 0.1% of the state income tax rate to be used to increase the affordable housing stock among other provisions to help the unhoused. This man, who was living in an encampment in Boulder last year, said he had been on a housing wait list for a long time. (Derek Miles for Colorado Newsline)

Voters embraced affordable housing initiatives. Advocates say Congress should do the same.

BY: - December 15, 2022

Voters in Colorado approved a statewide affordable housing initiative in November, while voters in nine cities across the country OK’d measures to finance the construction of affordable housing, preserve existing rental properties and support renters. But as housing costs soar, analysts and advocates say more needs to be done and argue that federal action is […]

A row of abandoned homes along a residential street in Cairo, Illinois, in 2021. Many small towns like Cairo have a surfeit of vacant housing, but people who need housing often don't live where the houses are. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The nation’s vacant homes present an opportunity — and a problem

BY: - November 28, 2022

With construction costs for new homes and interest rates soaring, vacant housing is drawing more attention as a shortcut to quickly getting more units on the market. But whether vacant homes are a curse or an opportunity depends on where you live. As housing affordability plummets and rents rise, putting more families with low incomes at risk […]