A passing mention of affordable housing “expiring” caught reporter Jesse Bedayn’s attention amid the current crisis in affordable housing in the United States. He discovered that many affordable homes built under a federal loan program were coming off their 30-year agreements that kept rents down.
He teamed up with data team intern Arushi Gupta to piece together a national image of affordable housing units that are at risk of disappearing, making it even harder to resolve the shortage of affordable housing. Their subsequent story, leading with a tenant whose rent went from $1,100 to $2,660, took a complicated issue and showed how it was impacting already struggling people.
One tenant activist said the story was “one for the bookmarks!”
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