The Chancellor has been urged to retain a tax scheme for listed places of worship, as a survey was published today showing the majority of the UK population backs Government support to help churches pay for repairs to their buildings.

A poll shows that two in five people, or 43 per cent of all adults, report having had contact with their local church, the majority of these, or 53 per cent, for services and worship but also 23 per cent – nearly seven million people in the UK – for community support such as parent toddler groups, lunch clubs and food banks. An estimated 2.8 million people – or 4 per cent of the UK population – have been in contact with their local church for a food bank. Church of England churches run or support 31,300 social action projects, including nearly 8,000 food banks, with emergency food provision and community cafés on the rise.

More than three quarters of the population – 77 per cent – said historic cathedrals and churches are local and national treasures. And two in five – 41% – said they had visited a church or cathedral simply to find a quiet space for reflection or prayer, with this figure rising to 50 per cent amongst young adults in the 18 to 34 age range.

Read it all.

Government urged to keep VAT grants for church repairs, amid survey showing millions in touch with their local churches. CofE news: https://t.co/nOJDKcPENE

— Church of England in Parliament (@churchstate) November 23, 2025

No one worries about the insurance industry quite like Tom Gober.

From his home office outside of Pittsburgh, the forensic accountant has been tracking, documenting and highlighting the weaknesses of the $9.3 trillion sector responsible for the financial well-being of millions of Americans.

“I’ve been seeing warning signs for years, and I’ve been very vocal about it,” Gober, 66, said in a recent interview in his living room. More recently, he’s been paying attention to what he says is the most troubling development yet: The influx of private equity’s billions.

The industry waves off its critics as needlessly alarmist, always predicting a disaster that never comes. But that mid-October afternoon, Gober’s phone began to light up. Josh Wander, the co-founder of 777 Partners, a private equity firm on Gober’s radar, had been charged with cheating investors and lenders out of almost $500 million — an alleged fraud enabled in part by its opaque and intricate ties with some US insurance companies.

Read it all.

Some great reporting from Bloomberg this week about how private equity is making a grab for life insurance money and hiding it away where traders are gambling it without much oversight. https://t.co/QNe2jf8OzO pic.twitter.com/AIwLA0GEQT

— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 19, 2025

 America’s huge mortgage market is slowly dying. In America’s foundation myths, the humble mortgage rarely features. There are no stirring ballads about the heroism of 30-year rates or credit-scoring. Yet mortgages have fueled the American dream, which centers on home ownership, ever since the federal government began subsidizing property loans a century ago. Now that fuel is running low. At $13.5 trillion, America’s current stock of mortgage debt is equivalent to 44% of the country’s GDP. That marks a drop of almost 30 percentage points since the global financial crisis of 2007-09, which was sparked by a binge on dicey housing debt, and the lowest level since 1999, before that property bubble got started. More striking still, mortgage debt has shrunk to just 27% of the value of American household property—a 65-year low. A great de-mortgaging is under way, with worrying consequences for the property market.

With Wall Street fretting about other corners of American finance, such as booming private lending to shaky mid-size firms, the tranquility of the mortgage market might seem like a sign of healthy restraint. In fact, it masks an insidious crisis. The median monthly principal-and-interest payment on an American home has surged from just above $1,000 to $2,100 in five years.

Read it all.

"Mortgage debt has shrunk to just 27% of the value of American household property—a 65-year low. A great demortgaging is under way, with worrying consequences for the property market" https://t.co/dJcHA6ehZQ pic.twitter.com/IGSoQOrQIH

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) November 20, 2025

Valerie Ferebee rummaged through the front seat of her car searching for a pack of cigarettes as she sat outside Tanger Outlets. Everything she and her husband Milton own is in their Ford EcoSport, so it took her a few minutes to find them.

The four-door crossover has been their home for more than a year.

Once she found the Newport Menthol Greens in a side pocket, she pulled one out to light. She took a drag and considered their living situation.

“Disgusting. Degrading. Shameful. Humiliating,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know what word to use … I feel sort of stuck.”

Valerie and Milton are just two of thousands who have been evicted in the Charleston area. North Charleston once had the highest eviction rate in the country in 2016 with more than 3,600 tenants being evicted, according to data from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.

In South Carolina, evictions are the ‘scarlet E’ that never go away https://t.co/9OutCBsLNF

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) November 2, 2025

America’s broken construction industry is a big problem for Trump–The Empire State Building, finished in 1931, was erected in just 410 days. That same year construction began on the Hoover Dam. It was meant to take seven years, but was built in five. Such feats now seem hard to imagine. Last year half of America’s construction firms reported that commercial projects they were working on had been delayed or abandoned.

In 2008 Californian voters approved a high-speed-rail line connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, to be finished by 2020. It will be at least a decade late. America’s inability to build is a problem for Donald Trump. Although he has again delayed levying “reciprocal” tariffs until August 1st, the president’s commitment to reviving American manufacturing through protectionism is as strong as ever. But can the country build the factories, warehouses and bridges needed to reindustrialize, and do so quickly enough? And if the administration is to achieve its ambition to win the artificial-intelligence race, it will have to ramp up the construction of data centres and electrical infrastructure, too.

Demand for projects is certainly soaring. Turner Construction Company, America’s largest commercial builder, reported that its order backlog rose by a fifth, year on year, in the first quarter of 2025. Yet delays and cost overruns remain inevitable. Productivity has gone from bad to worse. Since 2000, output per worker in the construction industry has fallen by 8%, even as it has risen by 54% for the private sector as a whole. The trouble is not limited to commercial projects. America’s housebuilding companies constructed the same number of dwellings per employee as they did nine decades ago, contributing to widespread shortages and soaring prices. Behind this dismal state of affairs is a combination of fragmentation, overregulation and underinvestment

Read it all.

America’s broken construction industry is a big problem for Trump (from @TheEconomist) https://t.co/uJ9VRbb1gF #construction #building #housing #infrastructure #design #architecture

— Marshall Leslie (@MarshallLeslie) July 11, 2025

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
James 1:17

Brothers and Sisters,

On April 20, 2021 the Supreme Court of South Carolina released a verdict which set us on a course of great change and uncertainty. Two years later, after filing an unsuccessful request for rehearing we were forced to vacate our home on MilesDrive. Since then we have been a tabernacling people.

Following God’s lead towards a new land that we believed he would show us, we have been blessed to
find a temporary dwelling place on the campus of Northbridge Baptist. Shortly after we lost our property, a kind and wonderful soul approached me with a simple offer. This friend of Good Shepherd told me, “we must find a new home for Good Shepherd, and I’m willing to help make it happen.”

In the two years that have past, this individual and a few others have made pledges and sizable contributions towards the acquisition of a new home. These contributions made it possible for your vestry to pursue several potential locations, most of which have not panned out. But the tide seems to be turning. I am ecstatic to report to you that as of Wednesday, May 21 we are under contract to purchase 2.7 acres of land in the heart of West Ashley. Just a stones throw from where we have made our home in West Ashley since leaving the peninsula of Charleston in 1974, this property is located at 1231 Fuseler Drive. It is embedded in what we have long considered our core area of ministry, and walking or biking distance to the homes of a good number of Good Shepherd faithful, including your rector.

Read it all.

The Church of the Good Shepherd, #CharlestonSC, announces they entered a contract to purchase new land–'It is embedded in what we have long considered our core area of ministry, and walking or biking distance to the homes of a good number of Good Shepherd faithful, including… pic.twitter.com/PVZrAI44mn

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 11, 2025

Churches are much more than buildings, and the Listed Places of Worship Grant (LPWG) Scheme is “beyond vital” to ensure that they can continue to be at the heart of communities, the Christian Funders’ Forum (CFF) has warned the Government.

These buildings are also often of significant architectural value, the CFF, a group of 50 grant-making charities say. They award grants totalling £70 million a year.

Churches such as St Michael-le-Belfrey, York, and St Mary Magdalene’s, Newark (News, 14 March, 4 April), where significant repair and restoration projects were already well advanced when the £25,000 cap on VAT exemption for repairs was announced in January, have been dismayed by the shortfalls in funding with which they are now confronted (News, 28 March).

Read it all.

Treasury warned of ‘devastating’ consequences for churches if LPWG scheme ends https://t.co/qGfxfgsYkJ

— John Inge (@BishopJohnInge) April 14, 2025

Fortifying the American home has become big business, selling escape tunnels, secret arsenals and even flammable moats. 

Ron Hubbard, the chief executive of Atlas Survival Shelters, runs one of many companies that designs and builds bunkers for wealthy clients. His business is booming.

A 2023 survey found that about one-third of American adults were prepping for a doomsday scenario, spending a collective $11 billion over 12 months.

Read it all

From underground bunkers to luxury panic rooms, doomsday prepping is no longer fringe — it’s a booming billion-dollar industry reshaping how Americans face the future.#US https://t.co/mKWKQFO9iK

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) April 14, 2025

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land that are under threat from encroachers.

The church’s initiatives involve venturing into coffee farming to transform unused land into productive agricultural spaces, registering mass tracts of untitled church land, issuing spiritual warnings and pursuing legal action against land grabbers.

The church said the initiatives will safeguard property and contribute to economic growth and social stability — ensuring that church land remains a valuable resource for future generations.

For nearly four decades under President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement government, land grabbing has remained a significant challenge, not only for the other sections of society but also for the church. This issue has led to the displacement of thousands of impoverished Ugandans and even the demolition of churches. In 2020, a renowned land grabber demolished 40-year-old St. Peters Church in Ndeeba, in Kampala, sparking outrage among Christians.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land: transforming unused land into productive agricultural spaces, mass registration of untitled church land, spiritual warnings and legal action.https://t.co/OWkv1YpB5H

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) February 13, 2025

While it’s true that traditional monasticism is declining in many historic Christian traditions, new monasticism—the contemporary reappropriation of monastic wisdom—is still very much alive. More than that, the movement is gaining a new and growing following among the next generation and is meeting universal human needs that are felt more now than ever.

In our global digital age, many Christians are rediscovering the importance of community, the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances, and the need for deeper commitment to spiritual formation. Over the past five years alone, the pandemic, incidents of racial injustice, and the church abuse crisis have led to a wake-up call. We are realizing that it may be worth sacrificing modern comforts and conveniences to live out our highest ideals and potential as God’s people and that we may need to look back in order to go forward.

Some believers have been sensitive to these needs for a long time—people who consider themselves “new monastics” (like me), who are fascinated by the desert elders’ courage to relocate to abandoned places. We are intrigued by the idea of living in a close community and making serious commitments to fundamental values. We wonder if establishing communal rules for life might tame the wild horse of late modern culture and help us better order our lives around the gospel.

Today, this reappropriation is taking the form of devotional apps like Lectio 365, introductory virtual classes on contemplative prayer, repurposed convents in Europe, and prayer spaces in alleyways and financial districts. It looks like Christian university campus houses establishing their own rules of life or communal discipleship programs, and small “colleges” of Christian students attending larger universities. It is happening through globally dispersed organizations like OMS, which takes prospective members through stages of preparation and vow-taking in a digital initiation process modeled after traditional religious orders.

Read it all.

Homeowners in places most exposed to climate disasters are increasingly giving up on paying their insurance premiums, leaving them exposed to financial ruin, according to sweeping new government data.

The numbers show how climate change is eroding the underpinnings of American life by making home insurance costlier and harder to hang on to, even as wildfires, hurricanes and other calamities increasingly threaten what is, for many people, their most valuable asset.

“Homeowners’ insurance is where many Americans are now feeling the financial effect of climate change directly, in their pocketbook,” said Ethan Zindler, climate counselor at the Treasury Department. “Nature doesn’t really care whether people are living in a blue state or a red state or another state, or whether you do or don’t believe in climate change.”

The rising cancellation rates are part of a broader trend captured by the Treasury Department, which analyzed information for 246 million insurance policies issued by 330 insurers nationwide from 2018 through 2022. The result is the most comprehensive look yet at the effect of climate change on the American home insurance market.

Read it all.

More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance https://t.co/kZjPynDbIU

— Heather Croshaw (@HeatherCroshaw) January 17, 2025

Katherine Lee Bates’ poem, “America The Beautiful,” is best known for being set to music and popularly performed at public sporting events in the United States. In it, she celebrates the grandeur of American geography and resources: “And crownthy good with brotherhood / From sea to shining sea.”

Two church parishes in the Anglican Church in North America, located in port cities on opposite coasts, richly blessed with the bounty of natural resources like salmon and lobster, have received unexpected blessings this past year in the form of church buildings and property.

Anglican churches in Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, 3200 miles apart on each coast of the United States, have both received, in the same year, church buildings and property of significant value! Of course, the physical properties God has blessed these two parishes with are the fruits of God at work
in unexpected ways in their respective communities.

Read it all (page 10 ff.).

Rise Church in Portland, Maine is an Anglican church drawn from three congregations: what was formerly the Church of the Holy Spirit, a Sudanese church, and the newer, Rise Church. Watch a short video here: https://t.co/9k86nfr7bW Read more about it here: https://t.co/luttGJvO7L

— ACNA (@The_ACNA) December 12, 2024

As US Election Day approaches, inflation is largely tamed and wage gains have lifted incomes. Yet the economy remains the most pressing issue in the presidential race for one big reason: Increasingly, for many Americans, the long-standing building blocks of middle-class life feel frustratingly unattainable.

The standard 20% down payment on a median-priced home now costs 83% of a year’s income for the typical family ready to buy a home, up from 65% on the eve of the 2016 election, according to Bloomberg calculations. Buying a new car takes almost two extra weeks of work for the median household compared to eight years ago. Child care then cost the same family about a quarter of its weekly income. Now it swallows up more than a third.

And while the cost of attending college has gone down as a share of income in recent years, a median household can expect to pay 75% of its annual income for a private college and more than third for a public in-state university. That is up significantly from when many of today’s parents went to college themselves — and, in turn, can make the price tag look unnerving.

Read it all.

The Math Says It’s Getting Harder to Break Into the American Middle Class

Some major milestones are becoming frustratingly unattainable for many families – Bloomberg https://t.co/ncqA4FJ6g4?

— Jose A. Briones (@Brioneja) October 18, 2024

Walking past empty pews and stained-glass windows, the Rev. Victor Cyrus-Franklin, pastor of Inglewood First United Methodist Church in Inglewood, Calif., talked about how housing prices were threatening his flock.

Congregants were being priced out of the neighborhood, he said. Many of those who remained were too burdened by rent to give to the church.

As Mr. Cyrus-Franklin spoke, a 78-year-old man named Bill Dorsey was a few yards away in an outdoor corridor that led to the chapel, amid tarps and piles of clothes. Mr. Dorsey’s makeshift residence, which the church tolerates, is one of several homeless encampments that sit in and around Inglewood First’s property, which is in a neighborhood of modest homes and small apartment buildings near Los Angeles International Airport.

“We know their stories and we know how hard it is to find housing,” Mr. Cyrus-Franklin said.

Read it all.

What Would Jesus Do? Tackle the Housing Crisis, Say Some Congregations. https://t.co/Hggl8Ggk1a #PMMilestone #Projectmanager #Projectmanagement #PMP #PMOT #constructionmanager #planning #businessplanning #management #projectmanagementtemplates #construction #engineering #PMO… pic.twitter.com/sXhuJQ5kyf

— Hassan Eliwa, PhD (@hassan_khe) April 28, 2024

The Dean of Ripon, the Very Revd John Dobson, is urging people in the diocese of Leeds to respond to an extended consultation on plans to build an annexe to the cathedral, which is said to be “bursting at the seams”…

Building plans for the renovation — Ripon Cathedral Renewed — have already been approved by Historic England and all the cathedral’s regulators, including the Fabric Advisory Commission. But about 2000 people have signed a petition opposing the annexe.

Ripon Cathedral was the first minster church since the Reformation to be given cathedral status, in 1836. Unlike those that came later, it was never adapted or extended in any way; consequently, it has no lavatories — the cathedral pays the council to keep open the public lavatories across the road in Minster Gardens — no safe space for choristers to change and rehearse, no refectory, no communal meeting space, and no storage space.

Read it all.

The Dean of Ripon, the Very Revd John Dobson, is urging people in the diocese of Leeds to respond to an extended consultation on plans to build an annexe to the cathedral, which is said to be “bursting at the seams” https://t.co/ner0Tgxd03

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 7, 2024

In 2020, Virginia Martin lived two and a half miles from her office. Today, the distance between her work and home is 156.

Ms. Martin, 37, used to live in Durham, N.C., and drove about 10 minutes to her job as a librarian at Duke. After the onset of remote work, Ms. Martin got her boss’s blessing to return to her hometown, Richmond, Va., in March 2022, so she could raise her two young children with help from family.

As an ’80s-born “child of AIM,” Ms. Martin said of AOL instant messaging, it hadn’t been hard for her to maintain co-worker friendships online. She drives back to the office several times a year for events, most recently for the December holiday party.

Ms. Martin is part of today’s growing ZIP code shift: She is one of the millions of Americans who, thanks to remote and hybrid work, no longer lives close to where she works.

Read it all.

"The economists studied employee and employer address data from nearly 6,000 employers across the country and found that the average distance between people’s homes and workplaces rose to 27 miles in 2023 from 10 miles in 2019." (via @nytimes) https://t.co/MqgQkbgsij

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) March 4, 2024

ST. GEORGE —The tiny town in northwest Dorchester County might be getting some new next-door neighbors, and more, in one residential influx than it has ever seen before.

If approved by the county, a “cluster” housing development proposed by the D.R. Horton, a national builder, would bring more than 330 new homes and a new zoning designation for roughly 300 rural acres near the “Town of Friendly People.”

While the development would land on Sugar Hill Road outside town limits, St. George would provide water to the development while Dorchester County Water and Sewer would provide sewer services, said Kiera Reinertsen, the county’s planning director. The development would also add an estimated 100 students to Dorchester School District Four and draw on services and amenities from St. George’s Fire Station Nine, Davis-Bailey Park and the town’s library.

“We’ve never had this many houses come in at one time since I’ve been here,” said Mayor Kevin Hart, who has lived in the town for 35 years.

Read it all from the local paper.

With housing demands on a sharp rise in Charleston's tri-county area, the small town of St. George in Dorchester County may see a "cluster" housing project just outside its town limitshttps://t.co/KG8oJtnpVQ

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) January 24, 2024

Homeownership has become a pipe dream for more Americans, even those who could afford to buy just a few years ago.

Many would-be buyers were already feeling stretched thin by home prices that shot quickly higher in the pandemic, but at least mortgage rates were low. Now that they are high, many people are just giving up.

It is now less affordable than any time in recent history to buy a home, and the math isn’t changing any time soon. Home prices aren’t expected to go back to prepandemic levels. The Federal Reserve, which started raising rates aggressively early last year to curb inflation, hasn’t shown much interest in cutting them. Mortgage rates slipped to about 7% last week, the lowest in several months, but they are still more than double what they were two years ago.

Typically, high mortgage rates slow down home sales, and home prices should soften as a result. Not this time. Home sales are certainly falling, but prices are still rising—there just aren’t enough homes to go around. The national median existing-home price rose to about $392,000 in October, the highest ever for that month in data that goes back to 1999.

Read it all.

"It is now less affordable than any time in recent history to buy a home, and the math isn’t changing any time soon."@ginaheeb: https://t.co/8LZYrIAleG pic.twitter.com/LPIdKWGDAU

— Eric Wallerstein (@ericwallerstein) December 12, 2023

America’s commercial property collapse is becoming a danger to the financial system.

Office blocks purchased with debt remain half empty, 18 months after the end of the pandemic. Thousands of buildings will have to be torn down. Hundreds of regional banks are sitting on crippling losses that they yet to acknowledge.

“It’s a trainwreck in slow motion,” said Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a property and finance expert at Columbia University.

“The return to the office isn’t happening. Data from turnstile swipes shows that occupancy levels are still just 49pc of where they used to be. It has been stable for a year and a half,” he said. Sensors tracking physical presence in offices tell the same story. Hybrid work is here to stay.

Read it all (subscription).

DT (£) A rising wave of property defaults threatens US banks. “We are starting to see distressed sales every day. Offices are selling for 50pc, 60pc or 70pc discounts. At these values the equity holders are wiped out, and lenders take a 30pc loss,” https://t.co/3JGKK29ku4

— Peter Bill (@peterproperty) October 27, 2023

A Walworth bakery and cafe is baking its loaves from the bowels of a Georgian church after saying its rent became unaffordable.

Independent eatery Louie Louie has renamed itself Saint Louie after relocating to the crypt inside St Peter’s Church, on Sunday, October 15.

The cafe’s owners have said they are “delighted” by the move and that its products will be cheaper thanks to a more affordable rent.

Read it all.

#Walworth cafe and bakery moves into church crypt@LouieLouie_Ldn @StPeterWalworthhttps://t.co/IA0r9isuFS pic.twitter.com/0mJIZ0BMti

— Southwark News (@Southwark_News) October 19, 2023

Nearly half of all young adults are living with their parents — and they’re not ashamed to say it.

Moving out and living on your own is often seen as a marker of adulthood. But dealt an onerous set of cards — including pandemic lockdowns, decades-high inflation, soaring student debt levels and a shaky job market — young people today are increasingly staying put. What’s more, it’s no longer seen as a sign of individual failure.

Almost 90% of surveyed Americans say people shouldn’t be judged for moving back home, according to Harris Poll in an exclusive survey for Bloomberg News. It’s seen as a pragmatic way to get ahead, the survey of 4,106 adults in August showed.

“We’re in an economy where it’s harder to live independently,” said Carol Sigelman, professor of social psychology at George Washington University. “Adults recognize that it’s tough these days.”

Read it all.

Nearly half of young adults in the US are living with their parents — they're not ashamed to say it https://t.co/V4VNmKsIe1

— Bloomberg (@business) September 20, 2023

As another legislative session draws to a close in Sacramento, the problem lawmakers failed to fix is one of the most urgent facing Californians: the slow-moving collapse of the property insurance market as costs from climate disasters mount.

It “is not even a yellow flag issue. This is a waving red flag issue,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday night when asked about the failure of the Legislature to act.

This year, multiple companies, including the state’s largest home insurer, State Farm, have announced they are no longer taking on new residential and commercial properties, citing wildfire risk. In fact, seven of the 12 insurance groups operating in California — together, responsible for about 85% of the market — have pulled back.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina Moving to Purchase Land for Camp and Retreat Center https://t.co/DldUEvojnd #faith #parishministry #anglican #religion #retreatcenters #realestate [Diocesan picture] pic.twitter.com/9KTEUErDPO

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 15, 2023

I am pleased to update you that we have crossed another important milestone in the progress we are making towards our church sanctuary construction. Since the beginning of the initiation of our contract with Habersham Land Company, the transfer of the property has been contingent upon the financing.

As you know, we have raised the pledge commitments over a number of years, therefore a bridge loan from a lending institution was needed. More specifically, we needed to provide a loan commitment letter from a Bank to prove we could, in fact, build the building.

We have believed for a few months now, that we had enough money in pledges and cash on hand to prove that a bank would want to enter into a loan relationship with us. However, this past Wednesday, the first bank did extend a commitment letter to us. Therefore, what we hoped for and saw good reason to believe would happen, has happened. We have satisfied the conditions to close on the property.

Read it all.

The Parish Church at Habersham in the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina nears groundbreaking for new Common Worship building https://t.co/CszGrBO217 #southcarolina #parishministry #anglican #acna #religion #lowcountrylife #stewardship #realestate #beginnings #worship pic.twitter.com/4KgndQ4GKl

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 27, 2023

A record number of children are living in temporary accommodation, as the level of homelessness in England soars.

The housing department revealed on Tuesday that 104,510 households were in temporary accommodation by the end of March this year — a 25-year high.

The total number of children in the same situation is at the highest level since records for that measure began in 2004, with 131,370 children living in temporary accommodation.

Read it all.

A record number of children are living in temporary accommodation, as the level of homelessness in England soarshttps://t.co/KOTwx7L29i

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) July 25, 2023

The Prince of Wales has described how his mother’s influence helped shape his attitudes to homelessness as he revealed three UK locations where he hopes to eradicate the issue.

William visited three contrasting areas – Newport, South Wales, three neighbouring Dorset towns and the south London Borough of Lambeth – where his ambitious initiative Homewards aims to bring together business, charities and local authorities to tackle the problem.

During his tour of the UK, he warned: “It’s the young I’m particularly worried about, the sofa surfing and the hidden homeless, there’s a lot we don’t see and we have to try and get those who are lost.”

Read it all.

https://t.co/r9wT97jMkY William cites mother’s influence as he unveils drive to eradicate homelessness https://t.co/dNRhzxDUDB

— UK Search (@UKSearch1) June 27, 2023

Janis Scaramucci’s bedroom is decorated with paintings of Disney castles. In her office, a recessed ceiling in the shape of a Mickey Mouse head is painted in black glitter. The feet of her dining room table are made from coffee mugs featuring Mickey and Winnie the Pooh. And in her closet hangs a series of colorful Disney outfits, including a red skirt appliquéd with characters from the movie “Ratatouille.”

Welcome to Golden Oak, the only residential community in the world located on Walt Disney Co. resort property.

Ms. Scaramucci, a divorced 63-year-old Disney enthusiast and art collector, bought a $2.52 million home in the Orlando, Fla., community a few years ago after feeling dissatisfied with life in her suburban neighborhood in Edmond, Okla. Now, she spends her days riding roller coasters, attending nature conservation programs at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, and traveling to destinations such as Antarctica on Disney cruises…..

But Mr. [Kevin] Tupy said that, in his experience, politics doesn’t come up much when Golden Oak residents get together.

“Disney is more of a religion,” he said. “We worship the mouse.”

Read it all.

Andy Vermaut shares:See Inside the World's Only Residential Community on Disney Resort Property: Over the past decade, this Orlando, Fla. neighborhood has become a mecca for Disney lovers, with home prices ranging from the low millions to $19… Thank you! https://t.co/Gdegzo10Eu pic.twitter.com/Y9spBQOyFs

— Andy Vermaut (@AndyVermaut) May 23, 2023

Debbie Sholley always imagined she would be living comfortably by the time she reached her golden years.

Instead, the 62-year-old former social worker worries she will soon be living on the streets of this growing city, after her landlord raised the rent more than she can afford.

“I think about what it would be like, and it’s scary. Where am I going to go?” said Ms. Sholley, whose ailing husband died of Covid-19 in 2020 and who suffers from various lung ailments that keep her from working anymore. “I never thought I’d be in this position.”

Ms. Sholley is one of a rising number of older people around the country who are on the verge of homelessness or now living on the streets after falling on hard times. Homeless shelters and aging-service groups in numerous cities say they are seeing more elderly people in desperate need of housing than in years past. A confluence of factors are driving the increase, they say, including soaring rents, a nationwide shortage of affordable housing and the winding down of pandemic-related aid programs such as the federal eviction moratorium.

Read it all.

Aging-services groups in numerous cities say they are seeing more elderly people in desperate need of housing than in years past https://t.co/bQACAOYH5y

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 11, 2022

In 1960, just 13 percent of American households had a single occupant. But that figure has risen steadily, and today it is approaching 30 percent. For households headed by someone 50 or older, that figure is 36 percent.

Nearly 26 million Americans 50 or older now live alone, up from 15 million in 2000. Older people have always been more likely than others to live by themselves, and now that age group — baby boomers and Gen Xers — makes up a bigger share of the population than at any time in the nation’s history.

The trend has also been driven by deep changes in attitudes surrounding gender and marriage. People 50-plus today are more likely than earlier generations to be divorced, separated or never married.

Women in this category have had opportunities for professional advancement, homeownership and financial independence that were all but out of reach for previous generations of older women. More than 60 percent of older adults living by themselves are female.

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More older Americans are living by themselves than ever before. That shift presents issues on housing, personal finance and how elder care will be managed in the coming decades. https://t.co/UN9r6VvRWA

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 28, 2022

…as The Times reported in July, San Diego has dramatically outperformed its neighbors to the north. Despite San Diego’s tight housing market, 100% of its emergency housing vouchers issued since June 2021 have placed people into permanent housing.

Two factors may have helped San Diego succeed where other cities are struggling, housing advocates and experts across the country told The Times.

First, fewer people fall through the cracks in San Diego’s system. In other cities, applicants may shuffle among as many as four organizations. San Diego’s housing commission minimized the number of agencies and individuals whom clients have to deal with as they apply for vouchers, wait for approval, and — the hardest part — search for housing. In San Diego, most voucher applicants interact with at most two agencies before they are placed in a home.

Second, the city calculates how much vouchers are worth on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, rather than using a flat rate across the city, making the vouchers much more flexible.

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How San Diego’s achieved surprising success housing homeless people https://t.co/47TDw6ZAHp

— willa percy (@willapercy) November 4, 2022