Shelterforce
Shelterforce is nonprofit news publication that covers affordable housing in the U.S., as well as community planning, racial equity, community development, and more. Here you can listen to authors read their latest Shelterforce articles, as well as our interviews with folks on the ground. For more, go to shelterforce.org. To support our nonprofit newsroom, make a tax-deductible donation at https://shelterforce.org/donate.
Episodes
January 5, 2026 • 2 mins
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.
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December 22, 2025 • 11 mins
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-in-the-70s/
℗ Music by ComaStudi...
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December 3, 2025 • 13 mins
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-propel-change/
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November 26, 2025 • 13 mins
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.
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November 25, 2025 • 18 mins
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.
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November 21, 2025 • 18 mins
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.
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November 19, 2025 • 5 mins
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: Fixing Our Housing Stock.
You can rea...
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November 18, 2025 • 26 mins
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-booster/
℗ Music by ComaStudio.
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November 17, 2025 • 7 mins
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 https://shelterforce.org/2025/11/14/...
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November 14, 2025 • 87 mins
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 Measure ULA, New York City’s take on ...
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November 13, 2025 • 4 mins
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 and hope for the beautiful city tha...
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November 12, 2025 • 11 mins
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-pinnacle/
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November 11, 2025 • 23 mins
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-income-seniors/?preview_id=53036&pre...
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November 10, 2025 • 8 mins
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/
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October 28, 2025 • 10 mins
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/
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October 23, 2025 • 13 mins
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://shelterforce.org/2025/10/14/denver...
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October 22, 2025 • 11 mins
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-decades/
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October 21, 2025 • 22 mins
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/
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October 20, 2025 • 1 min
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. Read by John Ludas.
Read the poe...
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October 17, 2025 • 24 mins
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/
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