- Millions of poor families could benefit from housing aid Trump wants to cut, By Tracy Jan, August 10, 2017, Washington Post: “The number of poor families struggling to pay their monthly rents or living in deplorable accommodations has grown 41 percent since the beginning of the Great Recession a decade ago, despite a stronger national economy, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. More than 8.3 million very low-income households in 2015 qualified for, but did not receive, federal housing assistance because there is not enough to go around, according to the agency’s latest biennial assessment of ‘worst case housing needs.’ That approaches the record high of 8.5 million in 2011 after historic increases during the mortgage foreclosure crisis…”
- More than half of L.A.’s 1 million poor households live in unaffordable or substandard rentals, study says, By Gale Holland, August 10, 2017, Los Angeles Times: “Los Angeles and New York City top the list of U.S. cities with the most poor people laboring under heavy rent burdens, living in substandard housing, or both, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs study released Wednesday. More than half of Los Angeles’ 1 million very poor households, or 567,000, spent more than half their income on rent or resorted to undesirable housing in 2015, the study said…”
- More Boston neighborhoods seeing affordable housing units, By Tim Logan, August 8, 2017, Boston Globe: “Boston’s building boom is bringing more affordable housing to some of its most affluent neighborhoods. A city program requiring developers to include low-cost apartments in or near their buildings has created more than 400 units of affordable housing in the Seaport and in South Boston since 2000, according to new figures released by the city this week. Nearly 430 more have come in the South End and several neighborhoods in downtown Boston…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty