The lessons learned after spending months embedded with unhoused communities in Oregon.
Housing
Posted inArticles
Could building on public land address the housing crisis?
The West has a plethora of land and a shortage of houses. Some are wondering if a solution lies within.
Posted inMarch 2024: Fertile Ground
Can affordable housing for Indigenous communities work?
The question looms large as Denver breaks ground on its first affordable housing project for Indigenous people.
Posted inArticles
Alaska is short on gravel and long on development projects
The state’s North Slope communities need rocks, and they’re hard to come by.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2024: January 2024
Homeowner’s insurance is going up in smoke
A Q&A with California’s former insurance commissioner about coverage in the age of climate change.
Posted inArticles
Stories that made us green with envy in 2023
A roundup of the articles we wish we’d written ourselves this past year.
Posted inArticles
Mountain towns are trying all sorts of solutions to the housing crisis
A new report details the many ways that high-altitude communities are wrestling with ballooning housing costs.
Posted inDecember 1, 2023: December 2023
North Denver’s green space paradox
Will a billion-dollar infrastructure project heal a Colorado community — or displace its residents?
Posted inDecember 1, 2023: December 2023
Sagebrush Sasquatch, irritable elk and spiders that aren’t from Mars
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
Bozeman’s next mayor on housing, tattoos and the West
The 28-year-old mayor-elect, Joey Morrison, shares his plans for boosting community engagement and building neighborhoods for all Montanans.
Posted inDecember 1, 2023: December 2023
Has Montana solved its housing crisis?
A spate of new state laws will spur housing development. Will anyone be able to afford what’s getting built?
Posted inNovember 1, 2023: November 1, 2023
California’s affordable housing contested under the guise of environmentalism
In Eureka, the California Environmental Quality Act is used to target projects that benefit low-income people.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice
The twin crises of climate and addiction
Extreme temperatures and natural disasters push harm reduction workers to find new ways to keep communities safe.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice
Who owns the West?
Increasingly, land is shifting into the hands of billionaires.
Posted inArticles
Q&A: Sacramento Homeless Union fights to end encampment sweeps during extreme heat
Activists are invoking emergency legal measures to protect unhoused communities.
Posted inArticles
How a mobile-home park saved its community from a corporate buyout
In southwest Colorado, a cooperative and a land trust partnered to preserve affordable housing.
Posted inArticles
The West sizzles — even at midnight
Climate change and the urban heat islands take their toll from Phoenix to Portland.
Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water
As Newtok, Alaska, crumbles, residents are left in a dangerous limbo
The town is supposed to move, but federal funding and complex logistics mean most residents are stuck.
Posted inArticles
Western resort towns risk being ‘loved to death’
A new report details the downsides of tourism and population booms – and what communities can do about it.
Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire
Can Denver live up to its reputation of being a ‘sanctuary city’?
The city’s response to migrant ‘surges’ endangers both newcomers and its long-standing unhoused population.