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October 2023 Newsletter
Issue #80
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There are currently about 142 million housing units in the United States.
The median price for an existing home is $410,200.
Homeownership rate is around 64%. Nearly 75% of white households own their homes outright. Black Americans are 40% less likely to own their homes than their white counterparts.
Since 1975, the average size of a single-family home in the United States has doubled in size to 2,522
square feet.
There are 7.5 million second homes in the U.S. accounting for 5.5% of the total housing stock
Approximately 9.7% (or 14 million) of all the housing units in the U.S. are vacant.
Renters
The median rent in US is $2,065.
Rent prices have increased an average 8.86% per year since 1980 -- consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin.
Only 25% of families who qualify for housing assistance receive it. Many families are paying up to 80% of their income and living unassisted in the private rental market.
In the U.S. 34% of non-homeowners do not currently own a home because they do not have enough money for a down payment.
Over 40% (19 million) of renter households in the country spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
The states that require the highest salary to afford a 2-bedroom home for someone working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year -- without paying more than 30% of their income -- are:
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California $42.25 an hour (or $87,880 a year)
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Hawaii $41.83 an hour (or $87,006 a year)
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Massachusetts $41.64 an hour (or $86,611 a year)
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New York $40.08 an hour (or $83,366 a year)
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Washington $36.33 an hour (or $75,566 a year)
The states that require the lowest salary are:
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Arkansas $16.27 an hour (or $33,841 a year)
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West Virgina $16.64 an hour (or $34,611 a year)
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Mississippi $17.21 an hour (or $35,796 a year)
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South Dakota $17.49 an hour (or $36,379 a year)
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North Dakota $17.79 an hour (or $37,003 a year)
No one working at the current national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour (or $15,080 a year) -- 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year -- can afford to rent a 2-bedroom home in any state without paying more than 30% of their income.
In a typical year, landlords file 3.6 million
eviction cases.
Last June, 2.1 million renters reported that they were "very likely" or "somewhat likely"
to be evicted.
Homelessness
Homelessness has increased nationwide. On a single night in 2022, roughly 582,500 people experienced homelessness in the U.S. 60% were staying in "sheltered" locations (those in emergency shelters, safe havens, or transitional housing programs) and 40% were in "unsheltered" locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not
suitable for human habitation.
Homelessness among older adults is increasing; among single homeless adults, approximately half are ages 50 and older. Of these, almost half first became homeless after age 50.
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Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law
By Richard Rothstein & Leah Rothstein. Offers programs that activists and their supporters can undertake in their own communities to address historical inequities, providing bona fide answers, based on decades of study and experience, in a nation awash with memes and internet theories. Shows how community groups can press firms that imposed segregation to finally take responsibility for reversing the harm, creating victories that might finally challenge residential segregation and help remedy America’s profoundly unconstitutional past.
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The Housing First Approach to Homelessness
A TED Talk, featuring Lloyd Pendleton, who shares how he went from skeptic to believer in the Housing First approach to homelessness -- providing the displaced with short-term assistance to find permanent housing quickly and without conditions -- and how it led to a 91% reduction in chronic homelessness over a ten-year period in Utah.
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Inside Out Network (ION)
A statewide network of service providers, churches, ministries, volunteers, and advocates that offers a way to help returning citizens navigate reentry. The ION website is an interactive platform and the key meeting place. After creating a personal or organizational profile (inmates can be enrolled and create a personal profile while in prison), users can log in and go to one of three main areas to interact: Search Center, Message Center, and the HUB.
For more on the Criminal Justice System,
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Catholic Women Preach, Raising Voices, Renewing the Church -- Cycle B
Edited by Elizabeth Donnelly & Russ Petrus. A resource from FutureChurch, this is the second is a series of three volumes, following the B Cycle of the lectionary, offering homilies by Catholic women from the around the world. The texts are taken from an ongoing project, “Catholic Women Preach,” which features videos every Sunday. Though the texts are available on the website, this series makes them available in print form. Read more.
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With the Best of Intentions:
Interreligious Missteps and Mistakes
Edited by by Lucinda Mosher, Elinor J. Pierce, and N. Rose. More than three dozen scholars and practitioners of many faiths explore cases of missteps and outright failures of interfaith encounters. Each case also provides critical discussion of what went wrong, and why. Read more.
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Pluralism in Practice: Case Studies of Leadership in a Religiously Diverse America
Edited by Elinor J. Pierce. A collection of twelve case studies in pluralism in practice that includes brief scenarios, framing questions, and updates on some of the key dilemmas and decisions in multi-religious encounters. It is an introduction to the case method created at Harvard University’s The Pluralism Project, inviting close reading, reflection, and discussion into the dilemmas and disputes of a multi-religious society for people who are professionally or passionately involved in developing and fostering a multi-religious future. Read more.
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Meditations on Creation
in an Era of Extinction
By Kate Rigby. Practices an ancient form of theological reflection―the hexameron―on creation and attends to current concerns for the wellbeing of creation amid changing climates, anthropogenic pollution, and, possibly, the next mass extinction event. Takes each day of the Genesis 1 creation narrative as the launching point for critical theological engagement with early writers like Basil of Caesarea and Ambrose of Milan, with contemporary concerns about the state of our planet’s well-being, and with faith-based initiatives from around the world that are contributing to the healing and restoration of the world. By attending to planetary well-being, captures both the devastation of current anthropogenic climate change and the precious hope for salvific healing in Shalom.
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How to Make Sure Materials Get Reused, Again and Again
A TED Talk, featuring circular economy builder Garry Cooper, who presents a vision for transforming cities into sustainable, circular economies, citing real-world examples of how repurposing materials from buildings to office furniture can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs and foster economic growth. Watch now.
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How to Be a Leader for Climate Justice
A TED Talk, featuring Member of Parliament in the UK David Lammy and Tennessee state representative Justin J. Pearson, who discuss how brave leadership can shepherd global movements and uplift historically marginalized communities in the face of humanity's greatest challenge: climate change.
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On Wars
By Michael Mann. Examines the history of war through the ages and across the globe—from ancient Rome to Ukraine, from imperial China to the Middle East, from Japan and Europe to Latin and North America, and the irrational calculations that so often lie behind them. Explores the reasons groups go to war, the different forms of wars, how warfare has changed and how it has stayed the same, and the surprising ways in which seemingly powerful countries lose wars. Concludes that it is a handful of political leaders—people with emotions and ideologies, and constrained by inherited culture and institutions—who undertake such decisions, usually irrationally choosing war and seldom achieving their desired results. Read more.
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Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
By Ibram X. Kendi & Joel Christian Gill. A graphic novel edition from the author of How to Be an Antiracist, offering a history of how racist ideas have shaped American life. Focuses on the lives of five key American figures and reveals how understanding and improving the world cannot happen without identifying and facing the racist forces that shape it. Explores the living history of America, and how we can learn from the past to work toward a more equitable, antiracist future. Read more.
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The Death of Public School:
How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America
By Cara Fitzpatrick. Shows how conservatives have pushed for a revolution in public education—one that threatens the existence of the traditional public school. Argues, that we must look back at the turbulent history of school choice to see how school choice evolved from a segregationist tool in the South in the 1950s, to a policy embraced by advocates for educational equity in the North, to a conservative strategy for securing government funds for private schools in the twenty-first century. As a result, education is poised to become a private commodity rather than a universal good. Read more.
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How to Solve the Education Crisis
for Boys and Men
A TED Talk, featuring Richard Reeves, who made a surprising discovery while studying inequality and social mobility: in some countries, like the US and UK, boys are drastically lagging behind girls across many academic measures. He explains why these struggles in school are indicative of the larger crises facing boys and men -- and outlines how society could thoughtfully tackle these challenges to work towards a more inclusive, equitable future.
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Grow and Hide:
The History of America's Health Care State
By Colleen M. Grogan. A sweeping history of the American health care state that reveals the public has been intentionally misled about the true role of government. Holds that the US created a publicly financed system -- while framing it as the opposite -- in what the author terms the "grow-and-hide regime." Points out that the state's role is larger than ever, yet it remains largely hidden because stakeholders -- namely private actors and their allies in government -- have repeatedly, and successfully, presented the illusion of minimal government involvement. The consequences of this narrative are scarce accountability and a highly unequal distribution of benefits. The author argues that America has never had a system that resembles a competitive, free-market model and given how much the government already invests in the health care system, means how these funds are distributed and administered are fundamental political questions for the American public -- not questions that should be decided by the private sector. Asserts that if we want to fix health care in America, we need to reimagine the way it is organized, prioritized, funded, and, perhaps most importantly, discussed. Read more.
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Enacting Catholic Social Tradition:
The Deep Practice of Human Dignity
By Clemens Sedmak. Provides an emphasis on the fact that Catholic Social Teaching stems not from arbitrary laws laid down by Church leaders, but rather from moral guidance directly inspired by Scripture, especially the command to love God and neighbor, even if doing so is extremely difficult in real-life situations. Through the use of multiple examples encountered both in parishes and in the world (e.g., racism, vegetarianism, taxation), the book gives counsel on being mindful of particularity and contextual concerns. Read more.
For more Catholic Social Teaching resources,
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There are not many songs
There is only one song
The animals lope to it
The fish swim to it
The sun circles it
The stars rise
The snow falls
The grass grows
There is no end to the song and no beginning
The singer may die
But the song is forever
Truth is the name of the song
And the song is truth
Robert Lax
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Important Dates This Month
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Individuals Honored This Month |
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October 2nd
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
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October 4th
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
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October 5th
One is called to live nonviolently,
even if the change one works for seems impossible.
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October 7th
If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies.
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October 11th
The solidarity which binds all people together as members of a common family makes it impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights. The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist.
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October 11th
Looking deeply requires courage.
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