I put together some data on LA City Council Members' handling of encampments and housing policy. Tldr; the data show council members differ sharply in sweeps, arrests, and housing-based solutions. Some are following the science; others are not. Check it out! arcg.is/199qmv2

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...

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...

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...

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.'

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

✅ 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...

"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

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/

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.

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:

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.

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

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

“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

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

Families will die without LIHEAP.

Bee's home filled with ash during the wildfires. Holly pays $350/month to heat her studio apt. Desperate for safety & change, both turned to a trusted source: the tenant union. The climate crisis hits tenants hardest, but tenants are fighting back. I wrote about it in @shelterforce.bsky.social

I'm getting asked by people whether they should pivot from #healthequity work or somehow rebrand it. All I can say is that if you care about an issue you should continue to work on it. Further, it doesn't seem to matter what you call it. Those attacking this area don't care what you call it.

We've just launched a new resource that tracks the Trump Administration’s unlawful and harmful actions to reshape the government, highlighting the impacts on low- and moderate-income people and essential programs: www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

A tracker estimating deaths caused by the partial PEPFAR funding suspension: pepfar.impactcounter.com. Methodology here: pepfar.impactcounter.com/methodology.

#Data alert: US Census Household Pulse Survey ended in Sep 2024 and is being relaunched this month as the Household Trends & Outlook Pulse Survey. HPS has been a tremendous resource for policy evaluation. Hopefully HTOPS will be maintained moving forward. www.census.gov/newsroom/blo... #epitwitter

Beware of price gouging, #LosAngeles! The 6BR rental next door to me (which has been on the market and sitting vacant since August) just tried to increase the asking rent by over 50% ! Report bad actors at oag.ca.gov/report

Reminder! 💡 Articles for this special collection at Health Affairs Scholar are due by December 31. Submit your work on social policies and health. Details below. @kathrynp-phd.bsky.social @leifscience.bsky.social @anushamvable.bsky.social @mkushel.bsky.social

OK I last logged in 2 months ago but the talk on twitter is more folks are over here. Please RT me so I can rebuild my network! My content is health econ and my dog.

IAPHS is where I gave my first oral presentation. Super welcoming community and the annual meeting always brings together prolific researchers across all career stages. If you’re doing work in Population Health Sciences, you should submit an abstract! 🛟🧪 #MedSky #MedEd

I'm glad to see that disaster-induced housing instability is now routinely covered by the press. The next step is for states to actually have disaster programs for renters in place before disasters strike! www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Stable, healthy, decent affordable housing sets children up for educational success, and allows schools to be able to focus on what they do best. Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute breaks down the housing-education connection and what you can expect in our new series. bit.ly/4fGMFaI

📊 Voters approved more than $1B of funding for housing and homelessness efforts, but they also rejected tenant protections in multiple cities and passed measures that criminalize people living on the streets. Here's what we found: https://bit.ly/4eC9Hy6

As more folks come over from that other place--I started a starter pack for people working on #homelessness & #housing. Check it out! And let me know who I left off! Let's rebuild a community... go.bsky.app/JGmu7Nf