Shelterforce

Bridge to Power aims to boost partner organizations’ capacity, information exchange, and agency. Sandra Larson reports. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2026/01/09/new-national-collaborative-links-local-housing-justice-efforts/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio

Baltimore, Boston, and Cleveland voters recently showed what happens when leaders loosen zoning and modernize permitting, while investing in community-scale development at the same time. Federal policymakers should take notes, says Antonio White. White is founder of 480 Advisors, and was previously a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the former chief of communic...

Almost every state in the U.S. requires that landlords maintain safe and livable residential units. This is often called a "warranty of habitability." In some places, there are laws that specify exactly what those requirements are; in others, the standards are less defined. Read by author Lara Heard. ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

In the memoir Staking Our Claim, Pat Morrissy talks about the early days of Shelterforce, organizing for rent control laws in NJ towns, and supporting tenant leaders in their fights for better homes. Anthony Schuman, professor of architecture at NJIT, reads his review of Staking Our Claim. Read the full review at https://shelterforce.org/2025/12/05/the-house-on-chestnut-street-njs-tenant-activists...

Sometimes disasters open a space for bigger and faster positive change. In Lahaina, Hawai'i, after the devastating fires in 2023, community leaders built on preexisting relationships to approach housing and land in new ways. Autumn Ness, the executive director of the Lahaina Community Land Trust, explains. Read the piece at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/08/harnessing-the-shock-of-disaster-to-pr...

Ross Chapin, an architect, provides a guide to affordable housing design that goes beyond the baseline. This piece appears in Shelterforce's new series—Fit to Live In: Fixing Our Housing Stock—and is read by Lara Heard. You can read it at https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/25/beyond-basic-health-standards-designing-for-well-being/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

The Healthy Homes Ordinance is supposed to help fix New Orleans’s deteriorating rental housing stock. But three years in, many “certified habitable” apartments still have leaking roofs, black mold, and dangerous heat. What went wrong? Shelterforce's Shelby R. King reports. Read the story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/24/healthy-homes-or-hollow-promises-in-new-orleans/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

Across the country, tenants and lawmakers are pushing for better standards around mold, cooling, and more. How did we get here? Franklin Schneider reports. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/18/why-habitability-is-a-growing-rallying-cry/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

Whether your home is safe and suitable for healthy living depends on a variety of factors. Shelterforce puts habitability under the lens to show how problems like inadequate heating, water damage, and pest infestations negatively affect your health and further exacerbate the housing crisis. Shelterforce's Lara Heard explains what you can expect in our new Under the Lens series, Fit to Live In: Fix...

The OZ program unleashed billions in private capital. Whether it lifts neighborhoods or just investors hinges on who’s steering the money and how well they can navigate the system. Now that Congress has made OZs permanent, the stakes are even higher. Shelterforce's Shelby R. King reports. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/14/opportunity-zones-billionaire-handout-or-housing-bo...

Joan Pransky was an activist lawyer who fought for and defended both tenants and rent control policies in New Jersey. Michael McKee organized in New York City, founding multiple organizations and helping to defend and strengthen rent regulations at the state level. Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute reads, "The Tenant Movement Has Lost Two Leaders—Michael McKee and Joan Pransky." Read the piece at ht...

This Shelterforce webinar caps off our most recent Under the Lens series, “Innovations in Community Ownership.” Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute speaks with folks who are implementing exciting new strategies for funding community ownership—both public and private—and for setting up the kinds of support ecosystems that will let these models thrive long term. Learn about the power of Los Angeles’s Me...

Tawanna Brown reads her poem, "A Memphis Love Letter." The poem was the artistic culmination of individual conversations with 13 Memphians affiliated with Centers for Transforming Communities, a partner in the Storied Communities, Community Stories project. "I was grateful to serve as a Memphis artist on the project and was honored to experience the stories of community members who hold such love...

As more than 5,000 rent-stabilized units connected to the Pinnacle Group prepare to go up for auction in 2026, residents warn would-be buyers not to overlook the years of disrepair that made those units unlivable. Reporting by Roshan Abraham; read by John Ludas. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/31/rats-faulty-heating-and-mushrooms-on-the-ceiling-inside-the-fight-against-pinn...

A public housing redevelopment plan in Manhattan will add mixed-income housing—but some of the first wave of tenants who would have to leave are refusing to go. Stacy Torres, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California–San Francisco, explains. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/29/rad-plan-in-chelsea-will-build-in-mixed-income-housing-but-disrupt-low-in...

To help ease the burden of finding affordable housing, officials in Buena Vista say businesses can allow employees to live on their property—but only temporarily. Reporting by Robert Davis; ready by John Ludas. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/05/inside-the-colorado-town-where-public-camping-is-considered-workforce-housing/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

A commonly used billing system can allow landlords to quietly shift building utility costs onto tenants. Tenants say it’s time to break open the black box. Reporting by Roshan Abraham. Read by John Ludas. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/10/la-tenants-strikes-forced-a-major-landlord-to-refund-opaque-utility-fees-their-fight-isnt-over/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

Tierra Colectiva, a community land trust in the Denver neighborhoods of Globeville and Elyria-Swansea, combines community organizing, traditional CLT development, and more unusual roles in a large affordable housing development. Listen to, "Denver Land Trust Fights Displacement Whether It Owns the Land or Not." Reporting by Amanda Abrams; read by Miriam Axel-Lute. Read the full story at: https://s...

The Naugatuck Valley Project grew out of factory closures and layoffs in the 1980s. But this interfaith and labor coalition also helped to not only found but sustain a group of affordable housing cooperatives in suburban Connecticut. Jill Webb reports. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/09/this-multi-issue-interfaith-organizing-group-has-supported-six-housing-co-ops-for-decade...

A temporary window of flexible funds in the early 2020s allowed many queer- and trans-led organizations to achieve long-held dreams of owning their own buildings and housing their members. Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute reports. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/15/a-space-of-our-own-lgbtq-organizations-move-to-ownership/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

Jacob Folger spent 13 years of his life homeless, starting when he left home at 14 to escape a violent father. He joined the army at 18, and became a handyman when he completed his tour of duty. He employed and housed homeless people through his business in Herdon, Virginia, and later ran a small private home for those leaving homelessness in New York City. Listen to his poem, The Homeless Stretch...

Gretchen Beesing, senior fellow at the Center for Community Investment, provides us with five steps to have economies operated by stewardship, not speculation. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/10/16/what-would-it-take-to-make-community-ownership-the-rule-not-the-exception/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

As homeowners’ insurance companies and lenders increasingly factor climate risk into their business strategies, communities may see a resurgence of racial and economic exclusion that mimics redlining. But our hands aren’t tied—we can do something about it. Monica Palmeira, associate director for economic equity at The Greenlining Institute, reads, "Lessons from Redlining: How We Can Prevent Climat...

The Homes for the Future fund aims create long-haul affordability without public funding by buying homes now and selling them to community land trusts after a period of renting them out. Reporting by Roshan Abraham; read by John Ludas. Read the full story at https://shelterforce.org/2025/09/26/a-no-subsidy-model-for-getting-homes-into-community-ownership/ ℗ Music by ComaStudio .

Samuel Stein, a housing policy analyst, and Susanne Schindler, a research fellow at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, discuss what it means—or could mean—to have resident control over property management.