October 22, 2020

As remote work becomes the norm, people are increasingly relocating from cities to smaller towns, often near public lands and ski resorts. This strains local affordable housing resources and capacity. A study in the Journal of the American Planning Association revealed 80 percent of public town official respondents perceive affordable housing as moderately to extremely problematic for their community as local residents are priced out. The authors write small towns facing urban challenges may be “valuable laboratories for novel planning approaches and planning innovation.”

Researchers at Wake Forest University report farmworkers in North Carolina are experiencing severe heat illness—not only from working in hot temperatures, but also from sleeping in farm owner–provided housing that isn’t air-conditioned. The study found personal characteristics such as age and being a smoker were not associated with increased risk of farmworker heat illness, but working in wet clothes in the heat and sleeping in an extremely hot building were. “This result argues for changes in the [federal] Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act requiring that farmworkers be provided cooled living spaces,” stated Thomas Arcury, director for Wake Forest University’s Center for Worker Health.

The nonprofit Flyaway Homes and homelessness services agency The People Concern partnered to repurpose shipping containers to provide permanent supportive housing to people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles, California. Recent research shows that the design, permitting process, and construction costs of shipping container complexes are more efficient and sustainable than traditional affordable housing developments. “We recognize a solution is building enough permanent supportive housing rapidly at an affordable cost in order to make a difference,” stated Kevin Hirai, chief operating officer of Flyaway Homes.

Despite current eviction moratoria, pressure from landlords has led to the rise of “invisible” evictions that disregard the formal legal eviction process. Legal aid and civil rights attorneys report anecdotal evidence of illegal lockouts and self-eviction following landlord intimidation, often targeting vulnerable renters, such as immigrants. “We know that evictions lead to homelessness, so we need to do everything we can to stop evictions,” stated Matt Hill, an attorney with the Public Justice Center in Baltimore.