Housing

NPR -A group of current and former employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development is accusing the Trump administration of blocking enforcement of federal fair housing laws. Last fall, two HUD civil rights lawyers were fired after going to Congress with concerns that the agency was unlawfully restricting fair housing enforcement. One of the lawyers, Paul Osadebe, says "it's still happening" six months later. "We're not being allowed to help the people that we're supposed to be serving," he tells NPR

The Hill - Young adults are struggling to break into the housing market, facing historically high barriers to homeownership and falling behind previous generations. A survey released by real estate brokerage Redfin in January found that 38.3 percent of 28-year-olds owned their home last year, less than the 42.5 percent of Gen Xers and 44.4 percent of baby boomers who owned their home at that age.

“They’re just having trouble affording housing in general, and that just makes the prospect of owning a home feel unachievable for them,” Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather told The Hill Wednesday, referring to young adults.

A report released this week by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) found that homeownership rates declined for every five-year age group from 21-25 to 66-70 from 2000 to 2023. That includes a 5.1-percent drop for ages 31-35 and a 5.4-percent decline for ages 36-40.