This month Californians worried about the cost of housing were offered the rarest of gifts: a glimmer of hope.

New numbers released by the Newsom administration show that California added homes to its housing stock at a faster clip than any time since the Great Recession — 123,350 additional units, or an increase of 0.85%.

Over that same period, the state’s population declined, marking the third year in a row that it’s fallen from one new year to the next.

Put those two numbers together and a surprising statistic emerges: There are now more homes per person — 3,770 units for every 10,000 Californians — than there have been since at least 1991.

For a state that has long suffered from too many people trying to cram themselves into too few homes, that’s an encouraging number at first glance.

It’s also the kind of news that might lead a person to wonder: Does this California exodus mean the state’s perennial housing shortage is finally coming to an end?

The long answer is “it’s complicated.”

Though many analysts have tried, no consensus exists on just how many more homes the state would need to build (or how many more people would need to leave) before we can call an end to the crisis and start to see rents and home prices fall within reach of working and middle class Californians.

But the short answer is “almost definitely, no.”

Much of the outflow of residents is itself driven by the high cost of living. In March, the median price of an existing single family California home was $791,490, more than twice the national median of $375,700.

“When house prices go up, people leave,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said as much in a recent interview with UCLA’s Blueprint, naming the cost of living as the “principal driver” and its chronic shortage of homes “our original sin.”

And while experts don’t agree on exactly how much additional housing the state might need to attain an ill-defined “affordability,” they do agree on this much: it’s a whole lot more.

How Big Is the Housing Shortage?

In 2000, a report issued by California’s Department of Housing and Community Development estimated that the state would need to build 220,000 additional units each year for two decades to meet the needs of what was then still a growing population.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Even last year, a relative high-water mark for home construction, the total was roughly 100,000 units below that goal.

The department published another estimate in 2018 urging 180,000 units per year through 2025. And last year, in putting together housing goals for regions across the state, the department’s total prescription added up to 2.5 million new homes over the next eight years (or 315,000 per year).

The administration acknowledged the state’s sluggish population growth in its latest proposed budget for next year, which gauged the need at 148,000 new units per year.

One of the reasons these estimates vary is because there’s no single definition of a “housing shortage.”

In 2015, for example, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, an agency that serves as a think tank for state legislators, framed the issue with the following question: How many units would the state have had to build between 1980 and 2010 to keep the median value of an owner-occupied home increasing at the same rate as the rest of the nation, rather than skyrocketing so much higher, as it has for the last half century?

That definition of the state’s shortage led the office to estimate 210,000 each year. Alas, the state has only hit that annual mark five times since 1980 — and not once since 1990.

A year later, the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, put out its own figure — 3.5 million homes by 2025. Newsom took that eye-popping figure as a rallying cry during his first gubernatorial run, when the then-candidate vowed that California would reach that total by the end of his second term. He’s since scaled the pledge back to 2.5 million, a goal the state is still unlikely to reach.

McKinsey based its estimate on its own version of the state’s housing problem: the number of new units required to bring California’s houses-to-people ratio in line with that of the rest of the country.

The common thread behind all these estimates is they are all very, very big. And whichever shortfall estimate you choose, the state has never hit the mark.

A Moving Target

But the numbers have been moving in a more encouraging direction in recent years.

The totals since 2020: roughly 430,000 new homes and some 821,000 fewer Californians competing to reside within them. That necessarily narrows the gap, however we define it, said Hans Johnson, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.

If the shortage is relatively modest, he said, and “if we continue like this for another decade, with very slow population growth or essentially no population growth, and with fairly robust housing construction, then it should start to eat into that lack of housing,” he said.

But if the state needs to hit McKinsey-esque levels of new production, counted in the millions of units, “we’re still a long, long way off,” he added.

That’s in part because the size of the hole is so large. But it’s also because the shortfall is “a moving target,” explained Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. The building industry booms and busts. Young Californians grow old enough to live out on their own while older ones begin to die off. And people’s housing wants and needs change, too.

COVID Worsened the Housing Crisis

A particularly dramatic driver of such change: the pandemic.

Eager to keep COVID at bay and seeking more space to work from home, Californians dumped their roommates when they could and sought out places to live on their own, resulting in a great “spreading out,” as analysts at the Public Policy Institute of California put it. The trend toward fewer people living in each home is nationwide and long term. Over the last 40 years, the number of people living alone doubled across the country. But the pandemic put the trend on overdrive.

That worsened the state’s housing shortage. Even if the total number of Californians continues its gradual downward drift, more homes are needed to house the roughly 38 million sticking around.

Starting in June 2020, the median price of an existing single-family home shot up from $626,170 to a peak of $900,170 in May 2022, according to data compiled by the California Association of Realtors. That’s an increase of 44% in less than two years.

Since then high interest rates have brought California’s housing inflation back down to earth slightly. But the median price in March was still 29% above where it was three years earlier.

Whether Californians will begin clustering together again as COVID concerns ease is an open question. But there’s no sign that’s happening yet. By the beginning of 2023, with the worst of the pandemic presumably behind us, the number of Californians per household hit a record low of 2.77.

A shrinking population, driven largely by outward migration, provides an escape valve for some of that extra pressure, said Meyer, the USC demographer. But based on analysis he and his colleagues conducted for the California Association of Realtors, it’s easy to imagine demand for homes staying strong, given how large the millennial generation is and how many are now reaching a baby-having, roommate-jettisoning age.

Plus, if the California exodus is a cure to the state’s housing shortage, it’s also a symptom, said Dowell.

“The ones who are older are leaving because they’re (homeowners) cashing in their gains,” he said of the nearly 8 million ex-Californians who exited the state last decade.”The young people who are leaving, we now think, are leaving because they can’t buy a house here.”

And even if those departures do ultimately alleviate the state’s scarcity of homes, it’s not the solution to the problem that anyone should want, adds Johnson from Public Policy Institute of California.

“I don’t think any of us who have been advocating for building more housing in California — to help alleviate the shortage of housing we’ve had and to improve affordability in the state — thought that the best path was just to have the state start to depopulate.”

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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe is struggling to contain an energy crisis that could lead to rolling blackouts, shuttered factories and a deep recession.

The primary cause: Russia has choked off the supplies of cheap natural gas that the continent depended on for years to run factories, generate electricity and heat homes. That has pushed European governments into a desperate scramble for new supplies and for ways to blunt the impact as economic growth slows and household utility bills rise.

The crisis deepened when Russia’s state-owned exporter Gazprom said the main pipeline carrying gas to Germany would stay closed, blaming an oil leak and claiming the problems could not be fixed because of sanctions barring many dealings with Russia.

European officials say it’s energy blackmail, aimed at pressuring and dividing the European Union as it supports Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

Here is the latest on Europe’s efforts to avoid an energy disaster:

DID RUSSIA CUT OFF GAS TO EUROPE?

Just about. The halt in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline means Russian gas shipments have fallen 89% from a year ago. Russia used to supply 40% of Europe’s natural gas, and even more to Germany, where inexpensive energy was a pillar of the economy.

There’s still some Russian gas flowing to Europe through a pipeline passing through Ukraine into Slovakia, and another crossing the Black Sea to Turkey and then to EU member Bulgaria. Russia started cutting back gas as early as last summer, before the war in Ukraine started. That sent gas prices sharply higher.

Then Gazprom cut off a number of European countries after they responded to the outbreak of the war by banning many dealings with Russian banks, businesses and persons.

The reductions have led to soaring natural gas prices, which have hit records in the past few weeks. Given Russia’s slow constriction of supplies since last summer, experts say Europe needs to be ready for zero Russian gas this winter.

WHY IS RUSSIAN GAS SO IMPORTANT?

High energy prices are already threatening to cause a recession this winter through record inflation, with consumers having less to spend as costs rise for food, fuel and utilities. A complete cutoff could deal an even heavier blow to an already troubled economy.

Besides heating homes and generating electricity, gas is used to fire a range of industrial processes that most people never think much about — forging steel to go into cars, making glass bottles and pasteurizing milk and cheese.

Companies warn that they often can’t switch overnight to other energy sources such as fuel oil or electricity to produce heat. And, with everyone searching for alternate supplies, fuel oil and coal have also risen in price.

In some cases, equipment that holds molten metal or glass is ruined if the heat is turned off, and over the longer term, energy-intensive businesses may simply give up on Europe.

IS THE PROBLEM JUST ABOUT HIGH NATURAL GAS PRICES?

No. Electricity prices also have skyrocketed because gas is a key fuel to generate power. To make matters worse, other sources of power have lagged for reasons not connected to Russia.

Drought has undermined hydroelectric power from rivers and reservoirs. France’s fleet of 56 nuclear power plants is running at half-strength because of shutdowns over corrosion problems in key pipes and repairs, updating and safety checks. A heat wave limited use of river water for cooling power plants, and lower water levels on Germany’s Rhine River reduced supplies of coal to generators.

In a role reversal, France is talking about sending natural gas to Germany, while Germany is exporting electricity to France. Usually it’s the other way around.

Analysts at Rystad Energy say Europe could face a serious electricity shortage as soon as this month. This winter, a worst case of cold weather, low wind generation and a 15% cut in gas use “would prove very challenging for the European power system, and could lead to power rationing and blackouts.”

“Regardless of the exact scenario, the coming winter is certain to be the most challenging Europe has seen in decades — and consumers or governments are expected to pay the price,” said Carlos Torres-Diaz, head of power at Rystad Energy. “If gas demand needs to be cut, we expect to see power supply issues emerging this month and worsening into 2023.”

WHAT IS EUROPE DOING TO EASE THE CRISIS?

Europe has lined up all the alternative gas supplies it could: shipments of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that come by ship from the United States and more pipeline gas from Norway and Azerbaijan. LNG is much more expensive than pipeline gas, however.

Germany is keeping coal plants in operation that it was going to shutter to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also is keeping the option of reactivating two nuclear plants it’s set to shut down.

The 27-nation EU has approved a plan to reduce gas use by 15% by next March, roughly the amount experts say will need to make up for the loss of Russian gas. Yet those conservation measures are voluntary in member countries for now.

National governments have approved a raft of measures: bailouts for utilities forced to pay exorbitant prices for Russian gas, cash for hard-hit households and tax breaks.

For example, Germany has approved a third support package with 65 billion euros ($64.3 billion) in aid for consumers. That kind of spending will add to national deficits but also soften the downturn that economists are predicting for the end of this year and beginning of next year.

More steps are coming. The president of the EU’s executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, says a new proposal will include a price cap on natural gas and measures that could decouple the price of electricity from gas.

Perhaps most important in the short term, Europe has managed to fill 82% of its storage for winter with the help of LNG and diminished consumption because of high prices. Storage levels have kept rising even after the Nord Stream 1 cutoff.

Partly as result, gas prices have fallen to their pre-cutoff level, although they are still painfully high.

WHAT’S RUSSIA’S GAME?

Even as gas sales dwindled, skyrocketing prices helped maintain Russia’s income from those sales. Oil and gas imports were initially exempt from sanctions because Europe was dependent on Russian energy. Europe has banned Russian coal and will ban most Russian oil at the end of the year.

Russia’s revenue from fossil fuel exports reached 158 billion euros from February to August, according to the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

But oil has tended to be the Kremlin’s main moneymaker, and unlike gas in fixed pipelines to Europe, can be sold worldwide by tanker. And the gas relationship with Europe may be gone for good — and with it, any influence it might have brought.

“The gas flows from Europe no longer play a role in my calculations,” German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said. “The only reliable thing from Russia are lies.”

So if Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he has any leverage from gas, time is running out for him to use it.

“Russia has lost nothing now that it hadn’t lost already … this winter is the last chance to use the gas weapon, successfully or not,” tweeted Janis Kluge, an expert on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

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CECILIA, Ky. (AP) — For fourth-grader Leah Rainey, the school day now begins with what her teacher calls an “emotional check-in.”

“It’s great to see you. How are you feeling?” chirps a cheery voice on her laptop screen. It asks her to click an emoji matching her state of mind: Happy. Sad. Worried. Angry. Frustrated. Calm. Silly. Tired.

Depending on the answer, Leah, 9, gets advice from a cartoon avatar on managing her mood and a few more questions: Have you eaten breakfast? Are you hurt or sick? Is everything OK at home? Is someone at school being unkind? Today, Leah chooses “silly,” but says she struggled with sadness during online learning.

At Lakewood Elementary School, all 420 students will start their days the same way this year. The rural Kentucky school is one of thousands across the country using the technology to screen students’ state of mind and alert teachers to anyone struggling.

In some ways, this year’s back-to-school season will restore a degree of pre-pandemic normalcy: Most districts have lifted mask mandates, dropped COVID vaccine requirements and ended rules on social distancing and quarantines.

But many of the pandemic’s longer-lasting impacts remain a troubling reality for schools. Among them: the harmful effects of isolation and remote learning on children’s emotional well-being.

Student mental health reached crisis levels last year, and the pressure on schools to figure out solutions has never been greater. Districts across the country are using federal pandemic money to hire more mental health specialists, rolling out new coping tools and expanding curriculum that prioritizes emotional health.

Still, some parents don’t believe schools should be involved in mental health at all. So-called social-emotional learning, or SEL, has become the latest political flashpoint, with conservatives saying schools use it to promote progressive ideas about race, gender and sexuality, or that a focus on well-being takes attention from academics.

But at schools like Lakewood, educators say helping students manage emotions and stress will benefit them in the classroom and throughout life.

The school, in a farming community an hour’s drive south of Louisville, has used federal money to create “take-a-break” corners in each classroom. Students can rifle through a “self-regulation kit” with tips on deep breathing, squishy stress balls and acupuncture rings, said school counselor Shelly Kerr. The school plans to build a “Reset Room” this fall, part of an emerging national trend to create campus sanctuaries where students can go to decompress and speak with a counselor.

The online student screener Lakewood uses, called Closegap, helps teachers identify shy, quiet kids who might need to talk and would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Closegap founder Rachel Miller launched the online platform in 2019 with a few schools and saw interest explode after the pandemic hit. This year, she said, more than 3,600 U.S schools will be using the technology, which has free and premium versions.

“We are finally beginning to recognize that school is more than just teaching the kids reading, writing and arithmetic,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of the national School Superintendents Association. Just as free lunch programs are based on the idea that a hungry child can’t learn, more and more schools are embracing the idea that a cluttered or troubled mind cannot focus on schoolwork, he said.

The pandemic magnified the fragility of mental health among American youth, who had been experiencing a rise in depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts for years, experts say. A recent report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 44% of high school students said they experienced “ persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness ” during the pandemic, with girls and LGBTQ youth reporting the highest levels of poor mental health and suicide attempts.

If a silver lining exists, the pandemic raised awareness of the crisis and helped de-stigmatize talking about mental health, while also bringing attention to schools’ shortcomings in handling it. President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced over $500 million to expand mental health services in the country’s schools, adding to federal and state money that has poured into schools to cope with pandemic-era needs.

Still, many are skeptical schools’ responses are enough.

“All of these opportunities and resources are temporary,” said junior Claire Chi, who attends State College Area High School in central Pennsylvania. Last year, her school added emergency counseling and therapy dogs, among other supports, but most of that help lasted a day or two, Chi said. And that’s “not really a mental health investment for students.” This year, the school says it has added more counselors and plans mental health training for all 10th graders.

Some critics, including many conservative parents, don’t want to see mental health support in schools in the first place. Asra Nomani, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia, says schools are using the mental health crisis as a “Trojan horse” to introduce liberal ideas about sexual and racial identity. She also worries schools lack the expertise to deal with student mental illness.

“Social-emotional well-being has become an excuse to intervene in the lives of children in the most intimate of ways that are both dangerous and irresponsible,” Nomani said, “because they’re in the hands of people who are not trained professionals.”

Despite the unprecedented funding, schools are having trouble hiring counselors, mirroring the shortages in other American industries.

Goshen Junior High School in northwest Indiana has been struggling to fill a vacancy of a counselor who left last year, when student anxiety and other behavioral problems were “off the charts,” said Jan Desmarais-Morse, one of two counselors left at the school, with caseloads of 500 students each.

“One person trying to meet the needs of 500 students?” said Desmarais-Morse said. “It’s impossible.”

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per school counselor, which few states come close to meeting.

For the 2020-21 school year only two states — New Hampshire and Vermont — achieved that goal, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Some states face staggeringly high ratios: Arizona averages one counselor to 716 students; in Michigan, 1 to 638; and in Minnesota, 1 to 592.

Also in Indiana, the School City of Hammond won a grant to hire clinical therapists at all 17 of its schools but has not been able to fill most of the new jobs, said Superintendent Scott Miller. “Schools are stealing from other schools. There just aren’t enough workers to go around.” And despite more funding, school salaries can’t compete with private counseling practices, which are also overwhelmed and trying to hire more staff.

Another challenge for schools: identifying struggling children before they’re in emotional crisis. At the Houston Independent School District, one of the largest in the country with 277 schools and nearly 200,000 students, students are asked each morning to hold up fingers showing how they feel. One finger means a child is hurting deeply; five means she or he feels great.

“It’s identifying your brush fires early in the day,” said Sean Ricks, the district’s senior manager of crisis intervention.

Houston teachers now give mindfulness lessons, with ocean sounds played via YouTube, and a Chihuahua named Luci and a cockapoo named Omi have joined the district’s crisis team.

Grant-funding helped Houston build relaxation rooms, known as Thinkeries, at 10 schools last year, costing about $5,000 each. District data show campuses with Thinkeries, which sport bean bag chairs and warmly colored walls, saw a 62% decrease in calls to a crisis line last year, Ricks said. The district is building more this year.

But the rooms themselves are not a panacea. For the calming rooms to work, schools must teach students to recognize they feel angry or frustrated. Then they can use the space to decompress before their emotions erupt, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit that helps schools bolster mental health services.

In the last days of summer vacation, a “Well Space” at University High School in Irvine, California, was getting finishing touches from an artist who painted a mural of a giant moon over mountains. Potted succulents, jute rugs, Buddha-like statuettes and a hanging egg chair brought an un-school-like feel. When school starts this week, the room is to be staffed full-time with a counselor or mental health specialist.

The goal is to normalize the idea of asking for help and give students a place to reset. “If they can re-center and refocus,” said Tammy Blakely, the district’s director of student support services, “they can then, after a short break, go back into their classrooms and be prepared for deeper learning.”

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This story has been updated to restore first name and title of Tammy Blakely, the Irvine, California, director of support services.

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For more back-to-school coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/back-to-school

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Gecker reported from San Francisco. Associated Press reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Arleigh Rodgers in Indianapolis; Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Kavish Harjai in Los Angeles contributed.

Rodgers, Schultz and Harjai are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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David M. Greenwald | Contributed

A piece this week in the Atlantic lays out why housing is so expensive, pinning the blame on things like material costs, anti-building rules, NIMBY attitudes and other barriers.

This isn’t just about buying a housing—the cost of housing is at an all-time high both for home buying and rental.  And as Derek Thompson notes, part of the driver for that is the “inventory of available homes plunged to a record low” and the rental costs were related to the fact that “new housing construction relative to the total population was lower in the 2010s than in any decade on record.”

There are a lot of nuggets in this piece which combine to drive up the cost of housing.

For example, the cost of labor.  No, I’m not talking about union workers.

Thompson notes, “The construction sector hasn’t hired enough people to keep up with housing demand in this century.”

One problem—one third of construction laborers are immigrants, and “thanks to anti-immigration policies and the pandemic, annual immigration to the U.S. has fallen from about 1 million to 250,000 in the past five years.”

The housing crash in 2008 also wiped out all sorts of specialists.

He notes, “Since 2006 in California, the number of tile installers, carpenters, and rebar workers has declined by 23 percent, 30 percent, and 52 percent, respectively.”

Then there are onerous rules for building.

He cites the Terner Study which found, “The most significant and pointless factor driving up construction costs was the length of time it takes for a project to get through the city permitting and development.”

Thompson notes that the average project in San Francisco takes about four years to be permitted.  We know what it takes in Davis to get a project through to completion.  That doesn’t even take into account Measure J denials.  Take Bretton Woods in Davis, it PASSED a Measure J vote in November 2018 and will finally break ground… today.  Three and a half years later.

Never mind that it took a few years to get the project to a Measure J vote and never mind all of the projects that fall at the point of the vote.

The length of time it takes to get a project through drives up the cost.

As Thompson points out, each rule “has its reasons.”  There are also things like development fees and “local governments can directly benefit from new construction by collecting funds to be used for things like sewers, schools, or roads.

“These rules might not sound utterly diabolical,” Thompson writes.  “Who’s against money for schools? Who’s against safe low-income housing? No one, perhaps. But when you add them up, defensible rules can become indefensible barriers to new construction.”

He points out, “This is especially true for affordable-housing projects, which depend on many different financing sources and government agencies.”

Terner estimates that affordable housing projects cost about $48 more per square foot than market rate projects.

That means each apartment costs about $48,000 more to build (assuming 1000 square feet) or perhaps $4 million extra for an eight-apartment building.

“What happens when affordable housing isn’t affordable to build?” he asks.  “You get less of it.”

Recent estimates are that affordable housing now costs about $1 million per unit to build.  That’s a lot less housing that gets built because of it.

Then you have the NIMBYs.

Thompson cites “one angry, litigious neighbor. By filing an environmental lawsuit, this single person can delay construction for years by demanding that the planners conduct expensive and time-consuming research on the ecological impact of new development.”

Thompson calls this a vetocracy—“rule by veto.”

“Local vetocracy is expensive in two ways. It not only limits the supply of housing but also raises the cost of building,” he adds.  “When you turn over governance to the most litigious shouters, you implicitly allow older and richer homeowners to block construction for younger, poorer renters. That’s not a recipe for housing abundance. It’s a recipe for the status quo.”

Finally, Thompson laments the lack of innovation.  His comparison is fascinating.

He writes, “In the past half century, prices for TVs, electronics, computers, toys, clothes, and even cars have fallen in inflation-adjusted terms. But housing prices haven’t. Nobody has figured out how to do for housing what Henry Ford did for cars or Samsung did for flat-screen TVs.”

Indeed, he argues, “Around the world, construction appears to be one of the only commodity-producing industries that isn’t getting more productive.”

Why is innovation in housing construction lacking?

“I think the simplest, high-level way of explaining the lack of productivity [is] it’s hard to make money trying new ideas in construction, and strategies that improve productivity in other industries don’t really seem to work in construction very well,” he quotes Brian Potter of the Construction Physics newsletter.

The basic problem is, “Innovation thrives when entrepreneurs can experiment cheaply and fail without too much catastrophe. In housing, experimentation is expensive, and design failures can be fatal.”

So what are the solutions?

First, he suggests a change to immigration policy.  Second, ending single-family zoning, which makes building duplexes and larger apartments illegal.  Further, streamline the permitting process to make “development faster and easier.”  Third, “don’t let loud, angry neighbors demand infinite environmental reviews.”  He notes, “When construction policy is left to the loudest neighbor, the common answer to new units is no. But when the state is in control, it can serve the broad public’s need for more housing.”

Finally he looks at ways to innovate.

He concludes: “the short answer to the question “Why is it so expensive to build a house in America?” is: There is no short answer. Housing costs are complex because nearly half the cost comes from local rules and preferences rather than just materials and labor.”

He adds “the failures of U.S. housing policy aren’t mysterious error codes. They’re design flaws. This is what happens when a bad blueprint is built to plan.”

While I like this piece and agree with a lot of it, I would argue that the reason housing is so expensive is that, implicitly, too many people want it that way and too many people are advantaged by the status quo.

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Have you ever had to make a decision about whether to buy food or tampons? Use a sock as a pad? Or to wear tight-fitting pants to bed so your makeshift pad doesn’t move around too much and stain your sheets? 

These are some of the experiences for those facing period poverty, the inability to afford menstrual products and manage menstruation effectively and comfortably. If you don’t have a period, these situations might come as a shock to you. If you do have a period, they may resonate with your own experiences. While period poverty in the United States is increasingly being seen as a problem, the day-to-day experiences of those facing period poverty are only just beginning to be researched and understood. Additionally, new research has been conducted to understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on period poverty. 

It is evident that the impacts of the pandemic are gendered, with women bearing burdens like high unemployment, increased childcare and home responsibilities, and worsened mental health. For those experiencing period poverty, the lack of resources, like access to free products, is a problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic but is by no means a new public health issue. While supports like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and its counterpart, WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) help to support low-income women, many public assistance programs do not cover purchasing period products (more on this later).

For my summer 2021 practicum as a Columbia Public Health student, I worked with the Gender, Adolescent Transitions, and Environment (GATE) program as a Menstrual Health Research Fellow where I worked to understand how the pandemic impacted period poverty. This mixed methods study involved GATE partnering with the City University of New York, which administered a nationwide survey to assess how the pandemic was impacting many facets of people’s lives, including a few questions on menstruation. From answers to these menstruation questions, a sample of people participated in a series of qualitative interviews led by the GATE team to gain a deeper understanding of their menstruation management experiences during the pandemic.

The research team published the quantitative findings from the study, which showed the gendered implications of COVID-19, namely the effect on managing menstruation and securing menstrual products. The study highlighted:

1.     the negative economic impacts that COVID-19 had on women;

2.     that income loss had a high association to product insecurity; 

3.     how often someone changed their product;  

4.     the use of makeshift materials to soak up blood.

Overall, the study found that income loss was a strong predictor of product menstrual insecurity. Product insecurity is the inability to consistently afford or have access to necessary products to manage menstruation effectively. It can result in a number of physical, mental, emotional, and financial challenges that can make monthly menstruation a crisis.

During my first year at Mailman I completed a qualitative data analysis class about the process of collecting data, transcribing, coding, and finding themes and findings to report on; all skill sets which served me well for the work I did on the qualitative portion of the study. This included supporting the qualitative analysis of interviews collected with US women (ages 18-45), examining the relationship between income loss and menstrual product insecurity, and how women coped with these challenges.

Translating the skills I gained in class to a real-world example was rewarding and further emphasized the importance of understanding day-to-day experiences when problem-solving. This research has real implications for policy and program implementation that address period poverty and increase the support and resources available to people. 

I feel incredibly grateful to have been able to hear people’s firsthand stories about managing their periods during a crisis. Given the stigma that menstruation still faces in our society, the openness and honesty of study participants is even more impactful, and it often reflects the experiences of many. The women interviewed were relieved to hear that others were going through the same things and they hoped that being part of this research could help shed light on the important yet overlooked issue of period poverty.

Making Progress in Ending Period Poverty

Despite the period poverty challenges found across our country, some recent progress has been made to lessen the burden. These efforts are focused in policy reform and the non-profit sectors, as illustrated by the  passage of new period-friendly legislation like mandates that schools and government buildings provide free period products. More specifically, this includes Illinois’ inclusion of period products under SNAP and WIC and the historic win in Ann Arbor, Michigan that enacted the provision of free products in all public bathrooms. More cities and states are starting to pass similar legislation, with 27 states passing laws removing the tampon tax, and many others ensuring that free products be made available in federal buildings and publicly funded schools and universities.

Some initiatives are also donation-based, like the nationally operating Alliance for Period Supplies, run through the National Diaper Bank Network. In New York City, the Woman to Woman campaign provides free products and other necessities through the New York Food Bank. In addition to the legislation mentioned above, it is also important that free products are available on larger scales. Further research could help identify if product provision through donation is sustainable in reducing product insecurity. There are lessons to be learned from how the non-profit sector has mobilized to ensure their communities are provided with the necessities they need.

While I’ve had my own “oh no” period moments, I have never had to worry about affording products and for that I am grateful. Through my experience at GATE I learned that by better understanding what people go through to manage their periods with limited resources, we can aid in creating sustainable and far-reaching solutions and policies that help people manage menstruation confidently and comfortably.

I am excited that this research will contribute to the relatively new conversation about period poverty and the pandemic and that it will shed light on potential pathways to reduce the burden of period poverty for so many menstruators. No person should have to decide between food or tampons or be dependent on makeshift supplies, or feel that their period holds them back in any way. 

Katie Dimond is a 2022 MPH candidate in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health and a certificate in Sexuality, Sexual, and Reproductive Health. She received her BA in Anthropology from Trinity College, where she conducted research on women’s birth experiences. Prior to Columbia Public Health, Katie worked at the Cancer Support Community where she developed psychosocial support programs for patients and families impacted by cancer.

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In a discussion with Transmission, Zard, a professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, shared her expert insights into the situation on the ground and what lessons can be drawn from the crisis.

WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN UKRAINE? WHY ARE PEOPLE LEAVING THEIR HOMES?

It’s a dangerous situation in many parts of the Ukraine. Civilians have been targeted and caught in crossfire. Residential areas have lost electricity and water, and can’t access food or medical treatment. So far, more than 2 million people have fled the country. There may be many more who are internally displaced people, and we know little about their physical condition. Women and children have been some of the first to leave, alongside third country nationals. Ukraine requires adult men to remain and fight. We also need to be concerned about those civilians who remain in place. Often elderly people opt to remain behind; people with disabilities find it difficult to flee; and sometimes civilians think they can ride it out and they become trapped in appalling conditions. This is giving impetus to the request for “humanitarian corridors” out of cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol for these populations to be able to reach safety.

WHERE ARE REFUGEES GOING? WHAT SUPPORT ARE THEY GETTING?

About 1 million Ukrainian refugees have gone to Poland; the rest have gone into neighboring countries—all areas with existing Ukrainian populations. European countries have largely waived their entry requirements for arriving refugees. This policy is undoubtedly saving lives. There is an incredible mobilization of popular support for the refugees. Refugees are receiving food, clothing, shelter, health care. They are housed by family, friends, and everyday Poles. The EU for the first time ever has applied its Temporary Protected Status Directive, allowing Ukrainians to access one-year residence permits—and thereby access education, social supports, the right to work—all without having to go through lengthy asylum procedures.

We need to channel the solidarity we are seeing into strengthening the refugee systems we have for all people.

HOW DOES THE SITUATION COMPARE TO PREVIOUS RESPONSES TO REFUGEE CRISES?

It’s heartening to see the outpouring of help by everyday people for Ukrainian refugees. They are being welcomed and cared for by communities and countries that are relatively well-resourced. Cross-border communities and ties foster empathy, as we have seen in places like Jordan and Uganda. But the international refugee protection system should apply regardless of nationality, ethnicity, and creed. Russia also made the bombs that fell on Syria and led millions to flee. Just months ago, Poland said they had no space to absorb any more refugees from the Middle East. Today their borders are wide open to those fleeing Ukraine. That is sobering and should make us reflect. We need to channel the solidarity we are seeing into strengthening the refugee systems we have for all people.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER CONFLICT AREAS?

The world has more than 80 million people who have been forcibly displaced, of which 26 million are refugees. There are massive humanitarian needs related to conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Eritrea. While the world’s resources and attention are focused on Ukraine, these other conflicts haven’t gone away. Russians are also protesting the war in Ukraine, at considerable risk to themselves; there may also be Russians who need to seek political asylum in other countries. I hope the situation in Ukraine provides important lessons on why asylum matters. The U.S. has extended temporary protections to Ukrainians who are already in the U.S., but at the same time, it continues to use COVID-19 as a pretext to block asylum seekers from crossing the southern border and seeking protection. It is irrational and unreasonable and a sad indictment of U.S. leadership when it comes to human rights.

THERE ARE REPORTS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST REFUGEES OF COLOR FLEEING UKRAINE. WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

The UN High Commissioner of Refugees has acknowledged instances of differential treatment for people of color fleeing Ukraine. The country is a big locus for students from developing nations because it is financially accessible. There are troubling reports that they have been denied access to bomb shelters; made to wait longer and in separate lines for transportation and while attempting to leave via the Ukraine/Polish border. This treatment isn’t state policy, as such; it is carried out by individual non-state actors. But that makes it no less disturbing. Harassment has been reported on the Polish side as well, and I am sure we’ll hear more. I am not surprised because we have been seeing the growth of populist and far-right movements in Europe in recent years. It is a sad reminder that racism does not pause for conflicts, and we have a lot of work to do to tackle systemic racism, including in our refugee protection systems.  

WHAT ARE SOME PUBLIC HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS FOR REFUGEES IN THIS CRISIS?

The UN estimates that as many as 4 million people may eventually flee the country. In this first wave of departures we’ve seen many women and children, and although they have arrived exhausted, cold and hungry, their needs have been relatively straightforward. As the conflict stretches on, however, we’re likely to see people arriving with more complex health needs as they flee under bombs and shelling. We also need to be mindful of COVID-19 risks. Ukraine has a vaccination rate of 35 percent for COVID 19 and it has low vaccination rates for other infectious diseases compared to the EU. Ukraine has an aging population and so care for chronic health conditions is important to consider. And there are mental health and psychosocial support needs which refugees might have. It is a particular type of anguish to leave your homeland without knowing what happened to the people you left behind or when, if ever, you might be able to return.

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Efforts to seek community volunteers continue

The County of Riverside is moving the 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count by 30 days due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases. The count is now scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 23, while the Youth Count is scheduled to run from Wednesday, Feb 23 through Friday, Feb 25. County staff from the Department of Housing and Workforce Solutions will continue their community planning efforts with local cities in preparation for the new date.

“Due to the ongoing pandemic, we made the decision to postpone the count,” said Heidi Marshall, director of the department of housing and workforce solutions. “Our goal is to conduct a comprehensive and accurate count while ensuring appropriate safeguards for all involved. It is critical that we have current data on the local homeless population to assess the impact the pandemic may have caused.”

The PIT Count is an annual count of all sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals within Riverside County. The PIT is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a condition of funding. The data is used by HUD to determine funding levels, assess regional needs and to monitor local progress in reducing homelessness. The effort is led by the Riverside County Continuum of Care, a community body comprised of over 200 individuals and organizations actively involved in planning and coordinating efforts to end homelessness in Riverside County.

The new date will allow additional time to recruit volunteers and county staff to participate in the count. Currently there are approximately 380 volunteers registered to participate and efforts are ongoing to recruit an additional 400. Training is required prior to the count. Volunteers must also have a smart phone or tablet to conduct the survey, be able to walk up to two hours and must be 18 or older. Volunteers ages 16-17 must be accompanied by an adult. Interested participants can register at www.MoreThanACount.org or www.YouthCount.MoreThanACount.org.

The last time the county conducted a PIT Count was in 2020, with help from more than 800 volunteers and staff. During the 2020 count, 2,884 homeless individuals were identified in Riverside County; 2,155 of these individuals were unsheltered and 729 were sheltered.

A complete report on the Riverside County 2020 PIT Count can be accessed online at https://www.harivco.org/ContinuumofCareDivision/. If you or anyone you know needs homeless assistance, please contact the HomeConnect line at 800-498-8847 or by emailing homeconnect@ruhealth.org.

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Californians — particularly politicians and we in the media — talk a lot about the state’s housing crisis and how it could be resolved.

Simply put, we haven’t been building enough to meet the demand, even though the state’s once-robust population growth has slowed to a near-standstill, and the supply-demand mismatch drives up costs for both renters and would-be homeowners.

High housing costs are the major reason California has the nation’s highest rate of functional poverty and the second lowest rate of home ownership, just ahead of New York.

If anything, the pandemic has exacerbated the crisis. Distress among renters, many of whom suffered job losses, has increased while home prices have risen dramatically, with a median second only to Hawaii’s. Although the housing shortage has received much media and political attention in recent years, it actually has been developing for decades, despite periodic spurts of production, as a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California underscores.

Citing data from the 2020 Census, PPIC researchers calculated that “the state added 3.2 times more people than housing units over the last 10 years. There are now 2.93 Californians for every occupied housing unit, behind only Utah (3.09) and Hawaii (2.93), and far above the average of all other states (2.53).”

“Though coastal housing is the most expensive, the biggest percent change in housing values has actually occurred in inland regions,” PPIC continues. “To avoid higher coastal prices, many residents have moved to the Central Valley, east of the Bay Area, and the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles. In the process, they have driven up prices in their new neighborhoods as well.”

The PPIC report cites a 2015 study by the Legislative Analyst’s Office that delved into the underlying reasons for the housing crisis. The LAO said that to avoid extreme cost increases, the state should have been building at last 70,000 more units a year, and perhaps as many as 110,000, from 1980 to 2010. It estimates the shortfall over that 30-year period at about 3.5 million units.

Gavin Newsom cited that figure while running for governor in 2018 and pledged that the gap would be closed by 2025. It was a fanciful promise, requiring construction to roughly quintuple to a half-million units a year, but if anything it has remained static or even declined.

“Average annual production has actually slowed, from 147,000 per year in the first decade of the century to just 71,000 per year since,” PPIC notes. “Construction dropped almost everywhere, but the drop was larger outside the expensive coastal counties (Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego, as well as the Bay Area). And while the pace has picked up recently, it is not enough to overcome the years of lag.”

The state’s official housing production goal is 180,000 units a year and the Department of Housing and Community Development imposes numerical quotas on regions, which then become quotas on local governments, to zone enough land for their projected needs.

The department recently gained new powers to enforce its quotas and to block cities from bowing to local opposition to specific developments. The current state budget also boasts of spending $10 billion to spur housing for low-income families and another $7 billion to battle homelessness.

“These changes signal a more pro-housing stance, but it remains to be seen whether they are enough to boost production to the levels many consider necessary,” PPIC concludes.

There are no magic solutions. Given the scope of the crisis and decades of construction shortfalls, making even marginal progress would be nothing short of miraculous.

Dan Walters | Calmatters

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The City of Needles worst fears were realized In July when the onlywell that supplies the community with portable drinking water failed.  The city was able to identify the replacement part and repaired the well within 24 hours. The city relied on storage tanks during this outage to get through the day in temperatures exceeding 115 degrees. By the time the spare part was installed, and the well was returned to operations approximately 16 feet of water remained in the storage tanks. The city’s distribution system has over 200 leaks a year and they continue to increase.

The city of Needles has received $1.9 million from the State Water Resources Control Boards to fund a much-needed well to provide drinking water to Needles. The city has officially accepted these funds. On Monday, August 30^th. Rebuild SoCal Staff will be on site to be on hand for the announcement as well as record a multi-episode version of the podcast and to produce a video. 

An additional $1.1 million in funds has also been approved for a booster station. Though the city is grateful for this much needed funding, there is still much work to be done on behalf of its citizens.

“We are very pleased that our persistent efforts helped the City of Needles receive this much needed funding,” said Rebuild SoCal Partnership Executive Director, Jon Switalski. “Our belief is that water rights are at the heart of equity in California and that it is a human right.”

“While we are grateful that the California State Water Resources Control Board will be funding a new well for the City of Needles, there is still so much work to be done,” said Rainie Torrance, Assistant Utility Manager for the City of Needles. 

Current needs for the City of Needles include:

1. The city does not have adequate storage for emergency preparedness of fire protection
2. There is no backup generator for the only well. 
3. The City’s mains are primary Asbestos-cement (AC) pipe that dates to the early 1960s and service laterals are a mixture of copper and orange berg that dates to the 1950s. The city has over 200 service lateral breaks and has experienced major main breaks.

The fight in the City of Needles for water funding is gaining statewide publicity and was highlighted last month in a front-page article in the Los Angeles Times. A link to the article can be found here.

ABOUT THE CITY OF NEEDLES – Needles is a city in eastern San Bernardino County, California. It lies on the western banks of the Colorado River in the Mohave Valley subregion of the Mojave Desert, near the borders of Arizona and Nevada and roughly 110 miles (180 km) from the Las Vegas Strip.

It is the easternmost city of the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area. Needles is geographically isolated from other cities in the county. Barstow, the nearest city within the county, is separated from Needles by over 140 miles of desert and 2 mountain ranges.^[5] The city is accessible via Interstate 40 and U.S. Route 95. The population was 4,844 at the 2010 census, up from 4,830 at the 2000 census.

Needles was named after “The Needles”, a group of pinnacles in the Mohave Mountains on the Arizona side of the river to the south of the city. The large Mohave Native American community shares the nearby Fort Mojave Indian Reservation and the town. Needles is a gateway to the Mojave National Preserve.

ABOUT REBUILD SOCAL PARTNERSHIP – The Rebuild SoCal Partnership, (RSCP) is an organization that represents 2,750 construction firms and more than 90,000 union workers in all 12 Southern California counties. Based in Anaheim, California – RSCP is dedicated to working with elected officials and educating the public on the continued need for essential infrastructure funding including airports, bridges, ports, rail, roads, and water. 

Rebuild SoCal Partnership is the producer of the Rebuild SoCal Zone Podcast which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms where podcasts are available.

To learn more about the RebuildSoCal Partnership please visit www.RebuildSoCal.org. 

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Hundreds of farmers who rely on a massive irrigation project that spans the Oregon-California border learned Wednesday they will get a tiny fraction of the water they need amid the worst drought in decades, as federal regulators attempt to balance the needs of agriculture against federally threatened and endangered fish species that are central to the heritage of several tribes.

Oregon’s governor said the prolonged drought in the region has the “full attention of our offices,” and she is working with congressional delegates, the White House and federal agencies to find relief for those affected.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation briefed irrigators, tribes and environmental groups early Wednesday after delaying the decision a month. The federally owned irrigation project will draw 33,000 acre-feet of water from Upper Klamath Lake, which farmers said was roughly 8% of what they need in such a dry year. Water deliveries will also start June 1, two months later than usual, for the 1,400 irrigators who farm the 225,000 acres (91,000 hectares).

“The simple fact is it just hasn’t rained or snowed this year. We all know how dry our fields are, and the rest of the watersheds are in the same boat. … There is no easy way to say this,” Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, told several dozen irrigators who gathered in Klamath Falls on Wednesday morning to hear the news.

“We all know what this is going to mean to our farms, our families and our community as a whole. For some of us, it may mean we’re not in business anymore next year.”

Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement that Oregon water regulators are reviewing a plan to allow irrigators to pump more than twice as much groundwater per acre for their crops as allowed last year when drought reduced water supplies to a lesser extent.

“My message to the people of the Klamath Basin today is this: You are not alone,” said Brown, who has also declared a drought emergency in the region.

The Bureau of Reclamation set aside $15 million in immediate aid for irrigators, and irrigation districts at Wednesday’s meeting said they could expect some additional water from two other reservoirs and groundwater wells.

The seasonal allocations are the most dramatic development in the region since irrigation water was all but cut off to hundreds of farmers in 2001 amid another severe drought — the first time the interests of farmers took a backseat to those of fish and tribes.

The crisis made the rural farming region hundreds of miles from any major city a national political flashpoint and became a touchstone for Republicans who used the crisis to take aim at the Endangered Species Act, with one GOP lawmaker calling the irrigation shutoff a “poster child” for why changes were needed. A “bucket brigade” protest attracted 15,000 people who scooped water from the Klamath River and passed it, hand over hand, to a parched irrigation canal.

“My hope is we can all stick together and look to help each other where we can,” said DuVal, who added that his biggest fear is “outsiders coming in and using what we do here and using our crisis as a soapbox for them.”

The Yurok Tribe, one of the tribes affected by the water decision, said that even with the slashes to farmers’ water, they were facing a “catastrophic loss” of salmon this year.

“The Yurok Tribe is suffering significant economic damage on top of the extreme cultural and social impacts of failing fish runs,” said tribal Vice Chairman Frankie Myers.

Jay Weiner, an attorney for the Klamath Tribes, said the tribe was pursuing legal action over water releases that will impact fish and accused the federal government of precipitating the crisis by mismanaging water in the basin for decades.

“What we’re seeing with climate change increasingly — year after year after year — is that there is not enough water to go around. This crisis should not come as a surprise to anyone,” he said. “We have over-drafted our account, essentially, and now we have to deal with the consequences.”

The situation in the Klamath Basin was set in motion more than a century ago, when the U.S. government began drawing water from a network of shallow lakes and marshlands and funneling it into the dry desert uplands. Homesteads were offered by lottery to World War II veterans who grew hay, grain and potatoes and pastured cattle.

The project turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse — some of its potato farmers supply In ‘N Out burger — but permanently altered an intricate water system that spans hundreds of miles from southern Oregon to Northern California.

In 1988, two species of sucker fish were listed as endangered under federal law, and less than a decade later, coho salmon that spawn downstream from the reclamation project, in the lower Klamath River, were listed as threatened.

The water necessary to sustain the coho salmon downstream comes from Upper Klamath Lake — the main holding tank for the farmers’ irrigation system. At the same time, the sucker fish in the same lake need at least 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 centimeters) of water covering the gravel beds that they use as spawning grounds.

In a year of extreme drought, there is not enough water to go around. This year, those on all sides of the issue predict a summer as bad — or worse — than 2001 as climate change takes hold.

Beyond the farmers’ concerns, the Klamath Tribes sued the Bureau of Reclamation on Tuesday to ensure minimum water levels in Upper Klamath Lake for the sucker fish and asked for a temporary restraining order from the court. That order, if granted, would mean less water flowing down the Klamath River for the coho salmon that are critical to the Yurok Tribe. The tribe is already documenting a proliferation of worms that carry a bacteria fatal to salmon in the lower river because of historically low water levels.

The Klamath Tribes said in a statement after filing their lawsuit that it was “beyond repugnant” that the mismanagement of the ecosystem in the basin forced them to court, potentially jeopardizing a fish key to another tribe’s heritage.

“Our hearts break that we have been forced into this position,” Klamath Tribes council member Clay Dumont said. “We know how important the salmon are to our tribal brothers and sisters.”

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