Missouri

At a time when support for housing homeless people is under attack, preventing unnecessary evictions—which are costly as well as cruel—is more important than ever for local governments. Here are some of the approaches being tried.

The president floated cutting Community Development Block Grants entirely from the federal budget, which Congress has so far declined to do. How do these grants get used at the local level?

Stan Chisholm found housing stability through a local nonprofit that helps artists buy their first homes.

A victory in Kansas City suggests that the tactics of organized labor can work for tenants.

In Springfield, Missouri, organized tenants have filed a lawsuit against the past and present owners of their tax credit–financed properties, claiming that in exercising an opt-out provision they violated both state and federal requirements.

In Springfield, Missouri, senior and disabled tenants at one Millennia affordable housing building say they’ve gone about a year without a working elevator, but their organizing has gotten the city to threaten receivership if it’s not fixed soon.

Kansas City tenants launched a rent strike in October. With a new administration coming into office, it might be too late for a federal rent cap—but they’re still pushing for better conditions.

The decision to demolish Wellston’s public housing had already been made when residents and the mayor decided to fight for it, but persistence, luck, and a financing structure with some unusual twists brought them back from the brink.

Tenants are organizing together with increased urgency to get legal protections passed in their towns, cities, and states. What are the top protections tenants are fighting for?

Over the past couple of years, community development corporations have been popping up in sometimes-unexpected places across the country. Will this increased interest in CDCs last, or is it a trend that will end when the money runs out?

Two years after the pandemic began, community development organizations reflect on what’s changed and how they’re moving forward. Some are still in crisis mode; others are refocusing their work.

As COVID relief funds have flowed out across the country, state and local governments have so far allotted at least $13.8 billion of their discretionary dollars to housing efforts.