Insights & Perspectives

The nation’s housing challenges are often framed within the context of cities: Boston’s high and rising rents, San Francisco’s brutal and persistent homelessness, and New York’s cramped and expensive apartments.

Hurricane Helene ravaged the southeastern United States for three days in September 2024, leaving a path of destruction and hundreds of casualties throughout North Carolina and five other states. Record-breaking rainfall devastated western North Carolina and triggered landslides that left many areas cut off from essential services for days. The mountain tourist hub of Asheville faced unprecedented destruction, including widespread property damage and disruptions to critical infrastructure.

Pew Research Center

Earlier this year, legislative staff in Colorado offered lawmakers a blunt, bold warning: “The budget appears to be on an unsustainable path.” Unless the state cut spending or increased revenue, staff members of the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) cautioned in February, ongoing deficits would exhaust the state’s reserves over the next five years.

Manufactured housing represents a critical opportunity to create and preserve lower-cost housing options in the United States, but many of these homeowners do not own their land—and millions don’t have leases that could prevent unexpected rent increases or eviction, according to a survey by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Have you tried to figure out whether the fish you eat is sustainably sourced? At least 1 in 5 fish caught in the global ocean is a product of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing—one of the main threats to the health of the ocean.