December 08, 2022

Los Angeles County’s pandemic-era tenant protections will end December 31, meaning more than 30,000 households could face eviction by the end of the year. According to the county’s latest count, 69,000 people are already experiencing homelessness, and the end of these protections could put even more families at risk. “As each tenant protection is peeled off, we see a corresponding increase in the number of evictions,” said Kyle Nelson, urban sociologist and UCLA postdoctoral fellow.

Last month, roughly 48,000 University of California graduate student workers and academic employees went on strike, demanding higher wages to ease the strain of growing housing costs. Though the nonstudent employees reached an initial deal with UC, the remaining 36,000 graduate-student workers are still in negotiations. They plan to continue the strike until student workers secure a deal that reflects the high cost of housing and includes new workplace accommodations.

Massachusetts’s new MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) Communities law aims to tackle the state’s housing crisis by mandating new multifamily zoning in communities served by the MBTA. To nudge communities that haven’t been compliant with the new law, the state has threated to cut contributions to six housing authorities. “I don’t agree that we should have our housing authority targeted, but if you want to look at it from a perspective of getting towns in compliance, well, it worked in our case,” said Frank Lynam, the interim town administrator in Whitman.

Over the past decade, Houston’s Housing First strategy has reduced homelessness by 63 percent, more than any other of the 10 largest US cities. This model prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness as quickly as possible while providing a variety of voluntary supportive services. According to city officials, more than 90 percent of people participating in Houston’s Housing First program have remained housed for over two years.