- Need a basic 1 BR apartment on minimum wage? You’ll have to work — and work — to afford it, By Linda Robertson, March 15, 2018, Miami Herald: “For renters who need it the most, affordable housing is as scarce as ever in Miami. A person earning minimum wage would have to work 94.5 hours per week to make enough money to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual report on the shortage of affordable housing for the quarter of U.S. renters classified as low income…”
- Las Vegas worst area for affordable housing for poor, report says, By Michael Scott Davidson, March 13, 2018, Las Vegas Review-Journal: “For the second year in a row, Las Vegas was named the worst U.S. metropolitan area for providing affordable rental housing for its poorest families. Also, for at least the fourth year in a row, Nevada ranked last among the states, according to an annual report published Tuesday by the National Low Income Housing Coalition…”
Tag: Cities
Debt Collection and the Poor
- Debtors’ prison: ACLU report details ‘criminalization of private debt’, By Jon Schuppe, February 21, 2018, NBC News: “Americans’ reliance on household debt ─ and poor people’s struggles to pay it off ─ has fueled a collection industry that forces many of them into jail, a practice that critics call a misuse of the criminal justice system…”
- How Chicago ticket debt sends black motorists into bankruptcy, By Melissa Sanchez and Sandhya Kambhampati, February 27, 2018, ProPublica: “By last summer, Laqueanda Reneau felt like she had finally gotten her life on track. A single mother who had gotten pregnant in high school, she supported her family with a series of jobs at coffee shops, restaurants and clothing stores until she landed a position she loved as a community organizer on Chicago’s West Side. At the same time, she was working her way toward a degree in public health at DePaul University. But one large barrier stood in her way: $6,700 in unpaid tickets, late fines and impound fees…”
Los Angeles Times Series on Homelessness
Without a Home, series homepage, Los Angeles Times: “They’re part of the Los Angeles streetscape, as familiar as the swaying palm trees and idling traffic, living under freeways, alongside riverbeds and on canyon hillsides. The mentally ill, the drug addicts, the economically disadvantaged, many with their life belongings in a backpack or shopping cart. In this ongoing series, Without a Home, The Times is examining the crisis of homelessness in our region…”