More than 200,000 lost their homes in the L.A. County fires. For people already on the streets, the damage ran deeper A new study out of UCLA shows the outsized impact of climate-related disasters like the 2025 fires on unhoused populations.

And an @latimes.com story www.latimes.com/environment/...

State-Level Changes in Homelessness in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era Leifheit et al1 examine factors associated with annual state-level changes in rates of homelessness in the US between 2019 and 2024. Using a study design leveraging state-level data, they found that e...

Also linking a nice commentary by @mkushel.bsky.social (thanks!) jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Factors Associated With Rising Homelessness Within US States, 2019 to 2024 This cohort study investigates whether state-level factors were associated with change in homelessness in the US from 2019 to 2024.

New paper out in @jamanetworkopen.com! We found that, among several potential explanations, recent surges in homelessness within states were best explained by 1) rollback of pandemic-era eviction protections and 2) property loss due to climate-related events jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

First publication! We show that the Supreme Court’s cessation of the pandemic-era national eviction moratorium increased food insufficiency among US renters with children by 3.17pp, a 20% relative increase. (1/2).

Link: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/M32SY...

The big-city socialists who want developers to cash in Zohran Mamdani and Nithya Raman are pursuing a once unthinkable housing alliance: tenant protections paired with pro-market policies that spur private construction.

Two rising leaders in New York and Los Angeles are pushing for a fundamental revolution in urban housing politics: A unified progressive movement centered on renters instead of homeowners www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Housing Unaffordability Soared to New Highs in 2024

As affordability continues to deteriorate, the number of cost-burdened households in the US rose to record highs in 2024, with 43.5 million households spending over 30% of their income on housing, and 21.6 million spending over half. @pjwhit.bsky.social

www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/housing...

🚨Postdoc alert!

@harvardpopcenter.bsky.social is now accepting applications for 2026-2028 Bell Fellowship! Apply by March 3: popcenter.harvard.edu/postdoctoral...

@popassocamerica.bsky.social @iaphs.bsky.social @societyforepi.bsky.social @ashecon.bsky.social @asanews.bsky.social

I voted no against a resolution to unilaterally oppose SB79 today, not because I am in total agreement with the design of SB79, but because our housing crisis is too dire for us not to engage constructively with this bill and its goals: to build more housing near transit in LA.

"This order does nothing to lower the cost of housing or help people make ends meet. The safest communities are those with the most housing and resources, not those that make it a crime to be poor or sick."

Full statement at homelesslaw.org/statement724...

Housing Discrimination is Illegal in California Landlords cannot discriminate based on race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, source of income, or other protected characteristics. Landlords are never allowed to harass or retaliate against a tenant by disclosing their immigration status to law enforcement. Tenants have the right to housing documents in a language they can understand.

Californians: remember it is illegal for landlords to discriminate and retaliate against tenants or push tenants to move out by threatening to disclose a tenant’s immigration status.
 
CA tenants — no matter their immigration status — have a right to safe housing.

Latino tenants sued their landlord. A lawyer told them they would be 'picked up by ICE.' When a Latino tenant filed a lawsuit against a landlord and real estate agent for selling the home she was evicted from, an opposing lawyer suggested she'll likely be deported by ICE before trial.

Latino tenants sued their landlord. A lawyer told them they would be 'picked up by ICE.'

Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t reduce it. A new national study proves that bans on sleeping outside don’t work.

Read: bit.ly/4nyBRPU

#housingpolicy #endhomelessness #shelterforce

A Year for the Record Books: The State of the Nation’s Housing in Perspective It has been a record year for housing. Our latest State of the Nation’s Housing report highlights an eye-popping list of milestones that were set in

✅ The highest monthly mortgage payment on record
✅ The highest median existing home price
✅ A record number of renters with cost burdens
✅ A record number of billion-dollar weather-related disasters in a 2 year span

2024 was a year full of housing records.

www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/year-re...

The Trump administration is working on a plan for time limits on rental aid A housing agency rule would also allow work requirements. Supporters say a time limit would help spread limited funds to more people, but critics warn it would leave some homeless.

"It would have a devastating impact on families.”

www.npr.org/2025/06/04/n...

By @npr.org's @jenniferludden.bsky.social
#housing+ #urbanism+ #urbanism

Expanded child tax credit helped middle-class families pay energy bills, but not the poorest

Press release here: www.uclahealth.org/news/release...

New from @dgsomucla.bsky.social National Clinician Scholar Program fellow Cecile Yama: The 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit reduced energy insecurity (difficulty paying utility bills) among US families. Open Access at @amjpublichealth.bsky.social ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/epdf/10....

📣 Poor housing conditions like mold, cockroaches, peeling paint, & dilapidation harm health. States have policies to protect tenants from those exposures, but until now, no one ever tested whether they work. In a new paper, we find these policies are failing: 🧵 #episky 1/

Excess US Deaths Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic This cohort study examines trends in excess deaths in the US before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

For 40 years, Americans have lived shorter lives than people in other rich countries.

For 10 years, that's been rapidly getting worse.

New research: in 2022-2023, there were 1.5 million "missing Americans," who died--but wouldn't have, if America didn't have such uniquely high death rates.

News outlets aren't doing nearly enough to sound the alarm about Trump's proposed decimation of federal housing programs.

We're talking catastrophic cuts that would put millions at risk of eviction and homelessness—making an already brutal crisis even worse.

And it's barely being covered.

By the Numbers: House Republican Reconciliation Bill Takes Food Assistance Away From Millions of People | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities The House reconciliation bill would dramatically raise costs and reduce food assistance for many millions of people by cutting federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ...

What would House Republicans' $300 billion #SNAP cut mean? Millions of low-income people would lose some or all of the food assistance they need to afford groceries.

We've started crunching the numbers on the deepest cut to food assistance in history:

How and Why Does Redlining Matter for Present-Day Health? Critical Perspectives on Causality, Cartography, and Capitalism | AJPH | Vol. 115 Issue 5 Recent years have seen an explosion of public health research on associations between historical redlining maps created by a US government agency, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), and present...

Belatedly introducing a new piece on racial capitalism, redlining, causality, and public health that I was lucky enough to work on with coauthors @snmarkley.bsky.social, Shannon Whittaker, and Amy Hillier! ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/... 1/

Prettier version of my chart + a Difference in Differences showing changes in the supply of market rate housing have large impacts on prices.

Areas that saw more homes destroyed during the Los Angeles fires have, on average, seen 4% larger post-fire price increases.

Trump budget would slash rental aid by 40% -- and let states fill the gap if they want The proposal would cut off rental subsidies after two years for able-bodied adults. Advocates warn if enacted, the White House plan would tip many low-income renters over the edge into homelessness.

Congress will decide. But housing aid takes a major hit in the White House budget request. www.npr.org/2025/05/02/n...

HOUSING IMPACTS EVERYTHING: Ammunition from the Research Literature for Fighting Federal Cuts to Affordable Housing ...and for seeking increased support from state, local, and philanthropic sources

New from me:

"...advocates should be prepared to make a compelling case against any cuts to housing programs. Unfortunately, merely arguing that there should be a right to affordable, decent, and stable housing will be insufficient to convince many to maintain federal funding for these programs."

Dr. Achyuth Sriram of @dgsomucla.bsky.social Pediatrics sharing his important work on the Child Tax Credit at #PAS2024

The impact of the PEPFAR funding freeze on HIV deaths and infections: a mathematical modelling study of seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa The sudden cessation of PEPFAR funding likely results in tens of thousands of HIV deaths and new infections. These losses of life and health should compel the United States government to rapidly and f...

“A 90-day [PEPFAR] funding freeze would result in 60K [95% UI: 49–71 thousand] excess HIV deaths”

This increases to 74K excess HIV deaths [95% UI: 63–89 thousand] for a more realistic scenario “assuming near-total system collapse due to program dependencies”

@thelancet.bsky.social

It's illegal, but many SoCal landlords still turn away renters who use housing vouchers Undercover testers were deployed to find out if landlords discriminate against Section 8 tenants. The results suggest voucher refusal remains common.

Undercover tests reveal Southern California landlords are still turning away tenants using Section 8 vouchers, five years after state law made such discrimination illegal.

My @laist.com story breaks down the results of recent fair housing testing.

Important new study by @gabeschwartz.bsky.social & colleagues!

Ok so yeah, this has quickly become the #1 misunderstanding about the canceled grants

the grants are not “subsidies” or “entitlements” to Harvard or Princeton or whatever

they aren’t going into universities’ endowments

they are competitive contracts won by these universities to do research