Originally published in Vox on July 27, 2023.
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When federal lawmakers expanded the child tax credit (CTC) in 2021 as part of President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief program, some 35 million parents across the US began receiving hundreds of dollars monthly.

With the expanded credit, nonworking and extremely poor families were eligible for the credit’s full value for the first time since its passage in 1997, and the federal government increased the value of the subsidy itself — up to $3,600 per child. Almost 3 million children were lifted out of poverty as a result, and families used the funds to help them afford gas, food, and school expenses.

But when Democrats failed later to approve an extension of this program — it carried a price tag of $100 billion per year and Sen. Joe Manchin wanted to see a work requirement reinstated — the federal CTC returned back to its pre-Covid form, with a maximum of $2,000 per child for working families only. Economists at Columbia University estimated that making the expanded federal credit permanent would have resulted in a more than 10 times return on investment, measured in terms of increased future tax revenue and less future spending on health care, criminal justice, foster care, and other welfare programs.

While gridlock and partisanship hobbled Congress from expanding this consequential cash-assistance program, state governments have since used the success of the federal experiment to push forward their own versions of the subsidy. All told, since the expanded federal CTC expired, 11 states have passed or expanded their own child tax credits available to families earning $0, or what policy wonks refer to as “refundable.” The subsidies range from up to $180 per child (in Massachusetts) to $1,750 per child (in Minnesota).

The new child tax credits have passed in states that currently hold Democratic majorities, but the policies have been markedly less polarized on the state level compared to Congress. An analysis of the new laws from the Jain Family Institute, a progressive think tank, found that, on average, 40 percent of Republican state senators and 30 percent of Republican state representatives have voted in favor of fully refundable child tax credits. In Montana, it was the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, who proposed a new $1,200 child tax credit for every kid under age 6, and it was Democrats there who helped sink the idea’s passage.

All of these legislative wins bode well for families — especially because the odds of expanding a child credit once it’s established are relatively high. Of the 11 states with refundable child tax credits, six have already raised their benefit amount or broadened eligibility, per the Jain Institute. Plus, even modest child tax credits have been shown to make real differences: One study found quarterly cash payments of just $150 to low-income families led to increased household savings, fewer late fees on bills, and more spending on health and education.

Perhaps most importantly, this state trend is encouraging because in our byzantine, kludgy tax system — replete with exemptions, deductions, work requirements, and nonrefundable credits — refundable child tax credits have the potential to be one of the most inclusive and progressive social assistance programs for parents and kids. Unlike the other benefit options, refundable child tax credits offer cash that can be spent on a range of needs, and they can benefit even families with no earned income.

How the new state child tax credits vary

When policymakers consider passing or refining a child tax credit, they have to make a number of design trade-offs, weighing the financial and administrative implications of each choice. Will the credit apply to all children or just younger children? Will it be a large credit or a smaller credit? Will the benefits phase out quickly or slowly? Will eligible families receive the benefits annually? Quarterly? Monthly? What do they need to do to claim it?

Some states, like New Jersey, require beneficiaries to fill out just a quarter page of additional questions on their tax filing to get the new cash assistance. By contrast, in Colorado, beneficiaries have to fill out three additional pages of paperwork, which could deter some from applying for or receiving the aid.

States have also taken different approaches to funding new child tax credits. One financing path is through consolidating existing benefits into a more simplified child credit, which is the approach Massachusetts and Minnesota embraced. In Massachusetts, prior to 2021, the state offered a tax deduction for children under 12, but since deductions only help families with tax liability, the lowest-income families were excluded. Now Massachusetts lawmakers have replaced that with a refundable tax credit so that all families can benefit. In Minnesota, lawmakers combined an existing earned income tax credit (EITC) into one new child tax credit, making it the largest state CTC thus far in the country.

Another approach is financing state child credits through state revenues from economic growth, rather than new taxes. New Mexico, for example, authorized a new child tax credit this way, using new revenue from the oil and gas industries (though as the Jain Institute warns, oil and gas revenues can be volatile and could create budgetary strain during a recession). A third path for financing is through new progressive tax increases, which is how Colorado first advanced its child tax credit, though ultimately it relied on increased revenue instead.

How state CTCs could be improved further

While these new policies are significant, advocates say there are ways the child tax credits could be improved upon.

If more states were to create or expand child tax credits, one option is phasing out existing benefits that are currently geared toward high-income earners. According to Jack Landry, a researcher at the Jain Institute, Minnesota’s CTC would have been far more expensive — possibly prohibitively so — if it hadn’t been paired with EITC consolidation. “A lot of other states have these earned income tax credits so that’s a possible path forward for them too,” he told Vox.

States can also work to ensure their policies are as inclusive as possible for families where parents or children may not be American citizens. Most states already allow parents with individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) to receive the benefit, but ITINs themselves are not always easy for families to obtain, and states can design other ways to verify residency for child aid.

Another way to improve the effectiveness of state CTCs is by expanding their uptake among those who are already eligible — whether through awareness campaigns to potential beneficiaries or through administrative tax reforms that make claiming the aid easier. In terms of awareness campaigns, the Jain Institute suggests using data from other welfare programs like SNAP and Medicaid to alert parents of their eligibility for new state programs. To distribute the funds more easily, states could also create simplified web portals for applicants, or even just send the money out to eligible families automatically. (The expanded federal CTC was sent automatically to eligible families who had previously filed their taxes or who had signed up to receive an IRS stimulus check.)

The flurry of bipartisan progress on state-level refundable child tax credits is a silver lining to the federal government’s failure to expand its generous pandemic-era credit. Even in Washington, DC, though, advocates and federal lawmakers are once again turning their attention to improving the federal CTC, in part because of looming Trump-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2025. That tax deal negotiated in 2017 included an expansion to the federal CTC to make it more generous, and without further federal action, the already shrunken child tax credit could diminish further to pre-2017 levels.

The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a centrist group of 32 Republicans and 32 Democrats, recently signaled its interest in negotiating a new deal on the credit, though little enthusiasm exists for reviving the expanded CTC wholesale, and Republicans remain staunchly committed to the idea of work requirements. Senators, too, have recently voiced interest in working together on the federal credit. “I think we will find far more areas of agreement and learn from each other,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) during a subcommittee hearing this month.

Originally published in Vox in July 12, 2023.
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Last election cycle, abortion rights won in all six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kentucky and Montana that otherwise elected Republican lawmakers.

Now, this fall and in next year’s election, national liberal groups are planning to invest more heavily in ballot measure campaigns, seeing them as vehicles both to protect access to abortion care and to amplify their broader political message that abortion bans are out of step with voters.

Advocates in at least 10 states are considering ballot measure campaigns over the next two years to codify abortion rights. In some states — including Florida, South Dakota, Ohio, Arizona, and Missouri — the measures could help restore rights that have already been lost. In other states, such as Nevada, Maryland, Colorado, and New York, voters could enshrine existing state protections.

Anti-abortion activists, in turn, have vowed to spend millions more dollars to defeat them.

The results last year were “a wake-up call that taught us we have a ton of work to do,” Kelsey Pritchard, the state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Politico in March. “We’re going to be really engaged on these ballot measures that are often very radical and go far beyond what Roe ever did.”

Some abortion rights activists do hope to codify protections beyond what Roe v. Wade guaranteed — sparking internal debates among reproductive rights advocates about tactical ballot measure language.

Most of these measures would be on the ballot in 2024. The exception is Ohio, where reproductive rights advocates are organizing for a new constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights during the upcoming election this November.

As campaigns to get abortion on the ballot begin, fights are also brewing about ballot measures themselves, which provide voters with opportunities to weigh in directly on state policy changes.

In some states, citizens can collect petition signatures to get measures on the ballot; in others, lawmakers have to first approve the proposals. The recent success of abortion rights measures has catalyzed efforts by Republican lawmakers to restrict these voter initiatives. As of late June, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive group that supports state referendum campaigns, 14 states are considering a total of 50 pending measures that raise new hurdles for ballot measures.

Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, for example, recently passed new requirements for ballot measures to have signatures of support from 50 counties, rather than just 15. (Three years ago, Arkansas voters had rejected a similar requirement.) Republican lawmakers in other states are seeking to raise the number of votes needed for a ballot measure to pass.

GOP elected officials say they want to protect the integrity of the ballot initiative process, which they argue is too easily influenced by out-of-state interests.

But abortion rights advocates see a direct response to their past victories. In Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan, and Montana in 2022, between 52 and 59 percent of voters cast their ballots in support of reproductive rights. If their referendum thresholds had been 60 percent, as some states now propose, all those initiatives would have failed.

While Republicans mostly deny their proposed changes to ballot initiatives are motivated by opposition to abortion rights, some of their less guarded remarks and contradictory behavior have suggested otherwise.

The fight over abortion rights and access to the ballot is playing out right now in Ohio. Advocates are organizing there for a new constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights, and last week filed more than 700,000 signatures to place it on the upcoming November ballot. They’ll need 413,487 valid signatures to qualify.

It’s not yet clear how many votes the referendum will need to pass. State Republican lawmakers, who voted last year to repeal August special elections as low-turnout wastes of money, recently authorized one anyway: This August, Ohio voters will determine whether to raise the vote threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority, as has been the case for 100 years, to 60 percent.

For months, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose denied he had switched positions on August special elections because of abortion rights. In June, though, video footage reported by News 5 Cleveland and the Ohio Capital Journal showed LaRose admitting abortion was motivating his stance. “Some people say this is all about abortion. Well, you know what?” he was recorded saying. “It’s 100 percent about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution — the left wants to jam it in there this coming November.”

Ohio Republican state Senate President Matt Huffman separately went so far as to say that holding a $20 million August special election would be worth it “if we save 30,000 lives as a result.” (There were 21,813 abortions performed in Ohio in 2021.)

Anti-abortion groups are casting Ohio’s abortion rights amendment as about parents’ rights and youth transgender health care instead

Ohio’s is the only abortion rights referendum battle expected this year, which means the messaging and campaign tactics for and against reproductive rights are being closely watched by leaders nationwide.

Since polling continues to suggest the proposed amendment for reproductive freedom has popular support — a poll last month found nearly 60 percent of Ohioans support the idea — opponents have been working to change the subject to health care for transgender youth, something they hope voters will find more politically objectionable.

Ohio’s proposed amendment would affirm that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.” Opponents claim the language is so broad that it would create a new right to gender-affirming surgery, and therefore invalidate the state’s current requirement for parental consent.

Opponents organizing under the banner of “Protect Women Ohio” have made the trans youth health care argument central to their strategy, spending over $5 million on TV and digital advertising this past spring. They are regularly referring to the measure as an “anti-parent” amendment.

Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law professor at Case Western University, said it’s a “bogus” and “dishonest” interpretation of the amendment, noting that many things can have bearing on one’s ability to reproduce. “If you drink too much alcohol, if you ingest certain drugs, if you drive too fast — all of those things could have shorter or longer term implications for your ability to reproduce,” Entin told News 5 Cleveland. “That doesn’t mean that speed limits and drug laws and alcohol regulations are somehow going to be affected by this amendment if it’s adopted.”

Other experts say it could only affect parental consent laws if someone were to successfully challenge the rules as unconstitutional, though opponents allege that is the long-term goal of the ACLU. The civil liberties group has long opposed parental consent laws, and an ACLU Ohio lawyer in February said existing laws that conflict with a constitutional amendment “should not be enforced.” Andrew Everett, an ACLU spokesperson, told Vox they “currently have no plans to challenge parental consent laws in Ohio.”

Coalition leaders pushing for the abortion rights amendment say the focus on transgender issues is a desperate attempt to distract from the unpopularity of abortion bans, and that Ohio case law generally requires parental consent for youth medical care.

Nationwide, activists organizing for other abortion rights measures are preparing for similar opposition campaigns.

In May, activists in Florida launched a new campaign to place a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the ballot in 2024. To preempt some of the attacks being deployed in Ohio, activists kept their proposed wording more narrowly tailored to abortion, and explicitly say that their proposed amendment “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

In Arizona, where activists are considering launching a constitutional ballot campaign to protect abortion rights in 2024, leaders are strategizing on how to word their proposal in light of the kinds of attacks being fired elsewhere. “We expect all those tactics in Ohio and other states to be exported here,” said Susan Shapiro, the director of Indivisible Northern Arizona.

Abortion rights leaders are debating whether to codify Roe v. Wade standards or push beyond them

The major ballot campaigns that have launched so far are mostly seeking to restore the rights that existed under Roe v. Wade, where women could end pregnancies up to 24 weeks, or the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb — known as the “viability standard.”

More than 90 percent of US abortions occur within the first 13 weeks of a pregnancy, and those occurring later are typically due to a fetal complication, a life-threatening risk to the pregnant person, or an inability to pay. The ballot measures so far have generally sought to preserve exceptions for abortion beyond viability if a doctor recommends it.

In Florida, for example, activists are collecting signatures for an amendment that would ban restrictions on abortion “before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” In Ohio, the amendment says “abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability” except in cases when “the pregnant patient’s treating physician” deems it necessary to protect their life or health.

And in South Dakota, a state that has a long track record of winning progressive ballot measures, a group of activists who formerly led a winning campaign to expand Medicaid are now looking to pass a referendum that would ban restrictions on abortion during the first trimester, and allow regulation beyond that in consultation with the medical judgment of the pregnant patient’s physician. They are calling their campaign an effort to “restore Roe.”

But some advocates say it’s not worth investing time, money, and energy into codifying the viability framework that existed under Roe v. Wade, given that the exceptions to abortion often proved too difficult for women to use in practice. Many activists see an opportunity to fight for stronger protection now that the overturn of Roe has wiped the slate clean, similar to what activists passed on the ballot in Vermont last fall, which added language about reproductive autonomy to the state’s constitution, and made no mention of viability or restrictions at stages of pregnancy.

These tensions are evident in Missouri, a state that bans nearly all abortions. Activists have filed 11 versions of a proposed initiative petition to codify abortion rights in the state’s constitution. All versions would permit restrictions after fetal viability, or 24 weeks of gestation. (Some also make clear the state can enact parental consent laws for minors; others make no mention of that.) The precise version advocates might rally behind is not yet clear, but back in March, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri withdrew its support due to the proposals’ language around viability.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate argued in a memo that viability “is not a medical construct and has no relevance to clinical care. It is a political construct set under Roe v. Wade. We now know that the viability standard tried and failed to balance state and personal interests, and it did not work.” Pamela Merritt, the Missouri-based executive director of Medical Students for Choice, likewise told Politico in April her group would never advocate for a viability limit. “It’s a legacy of Roe that we don’t need to resurrect,” she said.

Colleen McNicholas, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, told Vox they believe people deserve abortion access “locally where they are,” but that “we can not forget that the Roe framework did leave so many people behind.” On whether they would support a constitutional ballot measure if one emerged from the 11 proposed, McNichols said the group will “continue to stay engaged and will reassess our engagement every step of the way.”

Supporters of using the viability standard say advocates need to be practical about politics. According to Pew, just 22 percent of adults say abortion should be legal after the fetus can survive outside the womb, though most say there should be exceptions if the pregnant person’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities.

The ambivalence over these questions has led to muted support from national organizations for the ballot campaign in South Dakota — a red state with a real shot at overturning its abortion ban. A poll last year found 65 percent of South Dakotans thought their state’s restrictions on abortion were too strong, and that the question should be decided at the ballot box. In the last decade activists have won voter referendums on campaign finance, payday lending, medical and recreational marijuana, and most recently, Medicaid expansion.

Planned Parenthood North Central States, which represents Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota, has also not issued any public statements on the campaign, and did not return requests for comment.

Some pro-choice states are looking to ballot measures to strengthen abortion rights further

Following on the heels of Michigan, Vermont, and California in 2022, more blue and purple states are considering ballot measures as ways to both protect existing abortion rights and expand them further.

Maryland lawmakers have already voted to put abortion rights on their 2024 general election ballot, in a constitutional amendment that affirms every person has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to decide to prevent, continue, or end one’s own pregnancy. A poll from last year found 78 percent of Maryland voters supported the idea of a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion.

New York lawmakers also plan to put before voters an amendment to the state’s equal protection amendment that would bar discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes” or “gender expression.” While they could put it on the upcoming November ballot, lawmakers are holding it until 2024 to boost its chances.

Nevada is a third state that is likely to place an amendment on the ballot to protect abortion rights, though not until 2026. A majority vote is required by the Nevada legislature in two successive legislative sessions, and a proposed abortion rights measure received its first round of approval this past spring. The next time lawmakers could vote on it would be in 2025. An April Nevada Independent poll found 62 percent of respondents said they’d support adding the right to obtain an abortion to the state’s constitution.

Whether Colorado activists will pursue an abortion rights ballot measure remains an open question, though leaders have been exploring the idea for the last nine months. “A decision has not been made about pursuing it,” Olivia Cappello, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Vox. In 2020 Colorado voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have banned abortion after 22 weeks, and last year Colorado lawmakers enacted the Reproductive Health Equity Act, a statutory right to abortion.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion activists in Colorado are eyeing the ballot box once again for their own ends. Last month, the Colorado Life Initiative filed an amendment for 2024 that would define a “living child” as “any living human being during any developmental stage.” The proposal adds that anyone who intentionally causes the death of a “living child” would be held to “equal penalties” as those for “causing the death of any other living child.”

Originally published in Vox on July 5, 2023.
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While unsheltered homelessness in the US has grown conspicuously worse over the last decade, understanding the experiences of those living without housing remains logistically difficult. So much of what researchers know about the daily lives of the non-homeless population is through household research, like the Census Household Pulse or the American Community Survey. A lack of clear data on those without housing makes it harder to understand how they lost their shelter, how they survive — or don’t survive — and easier for half-baked theories and myths to spread about homeless individuals themselves.

That’s what makes an ambitious new study out of California — where 30 percent of the nation’s homeless population lives — so significant. Led by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) at the University of California San Francisco, researchers sought to reflect the experiences of all people ages 18 and older experiencing homelessness in the state.

Their final report, the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness, or CASPEH, includes nearly 3,200 administered questionnaires and 365 in-depth interviews collected between October 2021 and November 2022, including from urban, rural, and suburban areas.

“It’s incredibly difficult to do representative studies of people experiencing homelessness, so the fact that this study was able to obtain a large and representative sample of adults experiencing homelessness in California is impressive,” Elizabeth Bowen, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo who studies unhoused people, told Vox. The last large representative study of homelessness in the US was conducted nearly 30 years ago.

The CASPEH research provides firmer evidence for some things long associated with homeless individuals — namely, that lacking housing serves as a meaningful barrier to health care and income benefits, and is a key driver of discrimination in one’s daily life.

A quarter of participants reported an inability to access prescription medications for physical health conditions, and almost half reported their overall health as poor or fair. Nearly two-thirds had at least one chronic health condition.

The study also provided clarity on other experiences for those living without housing. Almost half reported symptoms of depression or anxiety, and 12 percent reported experiencing hallucinations. Participants cited frequent interactions with the police, with one-third of respondents spending at least one night in jail during their current episode of homelessness. Over a third reported losing belongings to confiscations in the prior six months, including important personal documents and medication.

One of the most staggering findings, even to experts on homelessness, was just how little notice most people said they had before they lost their housing, and precisely how low their incomes were at that point. In the six months prior to their homelessness, the median monthly household income of respondents was just $960. Leaseholders — meaning those who had a rental lease or a mortgage — reported a median of just 10 days notice that they were going to lose their housing. Non-leaseholders — referring to those living with family or friends — reported a median notice of just one day.

Most CASPEH respondents said they believed a monthly rental subsidy of $300 to $500 would have prevented their homelessness for a sustained period, or a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000. Nine in 10 respondents believed a housing voucher would also have staved off their slide into homelessness.

“I was really surprised by how little people thought it would have taken to prevent their homelessness,” Margot Kushel, the principal investigator of the study, told Vox. “Do we know if people are overly optimistic? Sure, they might be. But I sort of believe people are experts in their own lives and people really felt that, had they interrupted that cycle, they could have hung on, but once they became homeless everything else fell apart. Once they lost their housing, then their job opportunities declined and they got to a hole they couldn’t pull out of.”

What researchers learned about the demographics of homelessness in California

CASPEH interviewed people between the ages of 18 and 89, with a median age of 47. Researchers found an aging homeless population in California: 44 percent of those surveyed were 50 and older, which is consistent with separate state data that found between 2017 and 2021, the number of people 55 and older who sought homelessness services increased significantly — more than any other age group.

Compared to the overall California population, researchers found non-white groups overrepresented among the homeless, with 26 percent of participants identifying as Black and 12 percent identifying as Native American or Indigenous. Thirty-five percent identified Latino/x as their sole racial identity or one of their racial identities.

The vast majority of those homeless in California (nine out of 10) had been living in the state before losing their homes — bucking the idea that maybe people are flocking to the sunny West Coast to live outside in the nicer weather. Seventy-five percent of those homeless adults, in fact, live in the same California county as their last stint in housing.

Many of those experiencing homelessness had been homeless before. Only 39 percent said this was their first episode, and the median length of all respondents’ current bout of homelessness was 22 months. More than a third met the federal criteria for being chronically homeless.

In terms of gender and sexuality, most respondents (69 percent) identified as cisgender men, and 30 percent identified as cisgender women. One percent identified as nonbinary, transgender, or gender nonconforming, though that rate was higher (6 percent) for participants ages 18-24.

Researchers also learned that prior experiences of violence and substance use were common among the homeless: Nearly three-quarters reported past experiences of physical violence, and 24 percent said they had experienced sexual violence. Sixty-five percent reported having had a period in their life in which they regularly used illicit drugs, and 62 percent reported having had a period in their life with heavy drinking.

What it’s like to be homeless in California today

Among those experiencing homelessness, 78 percent said they spent the majority of the previous six months unsheltered — meaning living on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, or anywhere not meant for humans to live. Ninety percent said they had spent at least one night in the past six months unsheltered. Forty-one percent said there had been a time when they wanted a homeless shelter but couldn’t access it.

One of the more astounding findings was how many women of reproductive age — 26 percent — reported experiencing pregnancy during their current bout of homelessness, including 8 percent at the time they were interviewed. “I have to admit to you that when those numbers came in I was so shocked,” Kushel told Vox.

To cope with homelessness, many respondents used drugs, and particularly methamphetamine (31 percent). While 6 percent of participants reported receiving any current drug or alcohol treatment, 20 percent said they wanted treatment but were unable to receive it.

“People talked to us really plainly about how they couldn’t possibly stop using drugs until they were housed,” Kushel said. “Many were using drugs to stay awake, because they were scared of violence if they fell asleep, or their stuff being taken away again. And if you can’t fall asleep and you’re hungry, then yeah, meth can help you.”

Few people experiencing homelessness were working, though many were looking for work. Just 18 percent reported income from jobs, and 70 percent reported it had been at least two years since they had worked 20 hours or more weekly. Nearly all participants expressed interest in obtaining formal housing, though fewer than half had received any formal assistance to do so. Just 26 percent received assistance monthly or more frequently in the six months before they were interviewed.

What BHHI researchers recommend as a policy response

While the research was requested by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s secretary of health and human services, the study was not funded by the state, giving BHHI, as Kushel put it, “the autonomy to say what we wanted.”

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Based on their findings, the researchers say California should increase access to housing for those with extremely low incomes by boosting production, expanding rental subsidies, bolstering housing navigation services, and enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

Researchers also encourage more federal and state investment, not only in assistance to those experiencing homelessness, but also in homelessness prevention — such as financial and legal aid targeting social service agencies, domestic violence clinics, community organizations, and health care settings, where vulnerable people are most likely to go. Given how little notice people report having before they lost their housing, finding ways to provide aid faster should be a priority.

To support those dealing with mental health and substance use issues, the researchers recommend expanding low-barrier treatment options for those experiencing homelessness, and for those who transition into permanent supportive housing.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, the secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency, said in a statement that “this study reinforces the importance of comprehensive and integrated supports,” though as CalMatters reported, Newsom has criticized local governments’ efforts to address homelessness as lacking urgency, and has yet to make long-term funding commitments to them.

Kushel told Vox that ultimately, there needs to be more housing in California to address the acute statewide shortage and bring down the high prices. But even if California does build more housing generally, Kushel says that, to address the state’s homelessness crisis, there needs to be more subsidized housing specifically provided for people with extremely low incomes. “I do not believe the market is going to solve for this given how incredibly poor everyone was,” she said.

Originally published in Vox.com on June 14, 2023.
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Every year, more than 600,000 people leave US state and federal prisons. Then they need to find a place to live.

Researchers have found that formerly incarcerated individuals are far more likely to be homeless than the general public. Many landlords simply reject renting to applicants who’ve been to jail or prison — and given that one in three US adults has a criminal record, this creates a significant housing crisis.

But those released with stable housing are more likely to reintegrate into their communities and less likely to end up back in prison than their formerly incarcerated peers in more precarious housing situations.

Enter “fair chance” laws: legislation that limits how landlords can use criminal records when screening prospective tenants. While the ordinances vary from place to place — some cover all rental housing while others just apply to subsidized housing — the goal is to limit how criminal histories can be used and ensure due process for prospective tenants when applying.

Think of it as a “ban-the-box” policy, which prohibits employers from asking about criminal records, but for landlords. The movement has picked up steam in liberal localities over the last decade, first in cities like Oakland, Berkeley, Seattle, and Portland. In Richmond, California, landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers are barred from rejecting applicants based on criminal history alone. Minneapolis restricts the use of background checks, eviction history, and credit history in rental applications, and New Jersey restricts how far back in time a specific crime can be considered.

Early research suggests fair chance ordinances may have some unintended consequences: One study found landlords in Minneapolis became more likely to discriminate by race after the policy took effect. But by and large, there hasn’t been much research into how fair chance laws are working, as proponents have been focused on raising awareness about the new protections and implementing them.

“It’s been just two years since New Jersey’s passage, and in full transparency, a bill like this does take time,” said James Williams, the director of racial justice policy at the New Jersey-based Fair Share Housing Center. “There’s a tremendous amount of education required and the education piece is still something that’s being actively done.”

For now, most advocates have their eye on a pending legal battle in Seattle, which in 2017 passed the most progressive fair chance ordinance in the country, prohibiting landlords from asking about “any arrest record, conviction record or criminal history” or refusing to rent to them because of that history. Landlords sued in 2018, arguing the statute violated their free speech and due process rights, and this past March a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the part of the law banning landlords from asking about criminal histories was unconstitutional. The Court upheld other aspects of the law, though, and both sides have filed for an appeal.

“I think the results from that case will have far-reaching implications,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, a senior attorney at the National Housing Law Project, which has promoted fair chance ordinances around the country.

What we know about fair chance ordinances in practice

For now, the only rigorous study on fair chance housing ordinances comes from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, where two economists looked at the effects of a law the Minneapolis city council passed in 2019.

The local law caps security deposits at one month’s rent, bans the use of credit scores in rental applications, and restricts landlords’ ability to reject people based on evictions that occurred more than three years prior. For criminal records, landlords can no longer reject applicants due to misdemeanors older than three years, felonies older than seven years, and certain more serious convictions older than 10 years.

The economists submitted fake email inquiries to publicly listed rental ads using names chosen to sound like Black, white, and Somali people. (Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the US.)

The researchers found that after Minneapolis’s fair chance ordinance took effect, discrimination against Black and Somali applicants increased by over 10 percentage points for both groups, relative to those in neighboring St. Paul, which did not have such a law. Differences were largest for emails sent from Black and Somali male-sounding names, for apartments that were at least two bedrooms, and for units in historically Black neighborhoods. (The researchers couldn’t identify individual companies that discriminated, but could observe discrimination based on overall contact rates to randomized emails sent to large groups of properties.)

Marina Mileo Gorzig, one of the economists, told Vox that their study helps show causal impact of the fair chance ordinance, though it’s impossible to tell which aspect of the law — be it limiting eviction history, credit history, or criminal records — might be causing the effect.

Similar unintended consequences have been found for ban-the-box policies in the employment context. Research published in 2016 found employers were actually more likely to discriminate based on race following the passage of ban-the-box, thus increasing racial disparities in job interviews. More recent studies suggest the policies seem to have done little to increase employment for ex-offenders in the private sector.

Deborah Rho, the other economist to study Minneapolis’s fair chance ordinance, suggested outcomes might have been different if Minneapolis had a greater supply of housing, or if the city removed certain barriers to new housing development. “Economic theory would tell us landlords would have less room to discriminate if they were competing with more landlords,” she said.

Jeremiah Ellison, the Minneapolis council member who led the push for the city’s law, largely dismissed the conclusion that a tight housing market might be a factor. “That’s a free market solution, like saying the free market will solve racism,” he said.

Ellison told Vox he was reviewing the study and planned to meet with the researchers to ask questions, but felt their findings didn’t detract from the policy’s necessity. “From my vantage point, I don’t think they analyzed how the policy works at all,” he said. “And it’s a relatively young policy … it could take many, many years until tenants learn their rights.”

Meanwhile, in Seattle, city officials have been arguing that researchers find no empirical basis for the claim that a criminal record might indicate a future problematic tenancy or threat. Landlords, for their part, tend to argue such relationships exist and that they need to screen tenants’ criminal backgrounds.

Seattle points to two large-scale, rigorous studies that evaluated the efficacy of supportive housing programs that helped people at risk of homelessness, including tenants with criminal histories. One study found no significant difference between those formerly incarcerated and those never incarcerated in terms of supportive housing program outcomes. Another found a criminal record was not statistically predictive of failure in supportive housing. The researcher looked at detailed data like a program participant’s specific criminal history, time elapsed since their last conviction, number of prior offenses, and the seriousness of their past offenses, and found none were statistically predictive.

Coupled with the research showing how crucial stable housing is for successful re-entry, advocates have argued these studies “raise important questions about the validity of standards of risk estimation, screening practices and admissions policies related to criminal records in the general rental housing context.”

But lawyers representing landlords say the fact that Seattle can only point to relevant studies in the supportive housing context matters. “This is at the heart of our appeal,” Brian Hodges, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, said. “Seattle is not relying on studies that look at the private rental market, they’re looking at public supportive housing, which are either government-run or NGO housing that provides not just affordable housing but also drug and occupational counseling.”

Some Seattle landlords argue their experience dramatically changed following the passage of the fair chance law, and that denying them the ability to screen applicants makes it impossible to protect other residents and the property itself.

In one amicus brief, owners of a federally assisted building said following the law taking effect, conditions rapidly declined. The number of 911 calls more than doubled, more fights broke out in the lobby, used needles, trash, and feces were left in stairways, and fire alarms were repeatedly set off at night. They cited increased negative reviews online and average occupancy declines.

When one tenant stabbed his guest in the chest during an argument in November 2019, it was only after they were arrested that managers learned they had several outstanding arrest warrants.

New Jersey has a model that landlords say is reasonable

In 2021, New Jersey passed a statewide fair chance housing law with bipartisan support, and with backing from landlord groups. It doesn’t go as far as Seattle’s ordinance in restricting how criminal histories can ultimately be used, but it comes with a strong enforcement mechanism.

The New Jersey Apartment Association, an industry group that represents landlords and housing managers, originally opposed the bill, but eventually endorsed it following a series of amendments. The original version, for example, proposed fines up to $25,000 for a first offense, and the final version landed on $10,000.

David Brogan, the group’s executive director, told Vox that since the law was passed, the real estate industry has had to train staff, reprogram systems, and update old paperwork, materials, and online data. “It’s a process,” he said, “but I have been impressed by how quickly the industry has moved to comply.”

With the exception of convictions related to producing methamphetamine and being listed on a sex offender registry, landlords can never ask about an applicant’s criminal history in the first round of applications, and they can only evaluate a criminal record after a conditional housing offer has been made. If a landlord finds a serious crime committed relatively recently, they can withdraw the offer, explaining to the applicant in detail why, and the applicant has the right to appeal it or file a complaint with the state. A housing provider can never rely on arrests that didn’t result in convictions to reject an applicant.

Brogan said his members think the bill is “reasonable” and “balanced” because people should not be punished for the rest of their lives for something they did years ago, but at the same time, landlords have an obligation to provide safe housing. The balance, he said, was struck by providing liability protection, creating reasonable penalties, and “banning the box” from an initial renter application but allowing it in later inquiries.

“Some fair chance in housing acts in other areas of the country don’t acknowledge the severity of the crime [and] simply ban background checks altogether,” Brogan said. “We felt that was unfair and unsafe.”

Williams, of the Fair Share Housing Center, said they’re most proud of the fact that the law puts responsibility for enforcing the rules within the state attorney general’s office, bringing more serious investigative powers than other states and cities had thus far embraced. He thinks his state’s law would be less likely to face the kind of constitutional challenge Seattle is dealing with because they don’t abolish the practice of landlords reviewing criminal records entirely, they just move those reviews to the back end of the process.

“There’s no bulletproof piece of legislation, but if it gets challenged, we’re ready,” he said.

Hodges, from the Pacific Legal Foundation, said the Seattle landlords he represents are willing to rent to people with criminal records, so long as they’re not violent, cooking meth, or past sex offenders. He suggested the government should provide housing for them, and excluding those kinds of applicants is not discrimination but a “business and property” decision.

“Being a criminal is not an inherent characteristic, this is not like race and religion or gender, it’s not a protected class,” he argued, and pointed to past court decisions that established landlords’ duty to other tenants to screen for violent crimes. Yet without more ample public supportive options, people with those kinds of backgrounds have nowhere to live.

As for potential unintended consequences, national advocates think that the existence of a housing shortage is not a reason to avoid pursuing more fair chance laws around the country and that the broader fight against racism will need to continue.

“Taking away what many landlords are using as a proxy for race helps reveal the underlying race discrimination,” said Tran-Leung, of the National Housing Law Project. “But I don’t think there’s any notion that taking away problematic screening criteria is going to cure it.”

Originally published in Vox on May 8, 2023.
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Democrats know that Republican attacks on abortion rights will be central to their efforts to reelect Joe Biden and regain full control of Congress in 2024.

And for good reason — Democrats won competitive midterm races last fall while running on protecting reproductive freedom. Last month, in another high-stakes election in Wisconsin, the judicial candidate who staunchly supported abortion rights beat her anti-abortion opponent by 11 points.

Polls conducted over the last few months indicate that abortion remains top of mind for voters, who seem to have grown even more supportive of abortion rights than they were before the Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last June.

“I don’t think Democrats have fully processed that this country is now 10 to 15 percent more pro-choice than it was before Dobbs in state after state and national data,” pollster Celinda Lake said recently.

But there is one worrying sign for Democrats in the polling data. Over the past two weeks, for example, two new national polls and data from three focus groups conducted in swing states (Ohio, North Carolina, and Michigan) indicated that significant numbers of independent voters remain confused and skeptical about where Republicans and Democrats stand on protecting abortion rights. The upside for Democrats is they may have substantial room to grow with these voters.

One survey, conducted in mid-April by Marist Poll in partnership with NPR and PBS NewsHour, found 38 percent of independent voters think neither Democrats nor Republicans handle the abortion issue well, compared to just 10 percent of Democratic voters and 21 percent of Republican voters who felt the same. And when the progressive polling group Navigator asked voters in April what they thought came closest to the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, 34 percent of independents said they didn’t know enough to say, compared to just 9 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of Republicans.

These gaps are significant, as most US adults self-identify as independent voters — 41 percent, according to Gallup, compared to 28 percent of adults who ID as Republican and 28 percent as Democrat. “Since 2009, independent identification has grown and reached levels not seen before,” Gallup reported this year.

The surveys come as some abortion rights activists continue to raise frustrations with the president for what they see as his lackluster support for keeping abortion legal. While the Biden administration has done much to defend abortion rights since the Supreme Court issued its ruling last summer, the president himself has struggled to talk about abortion, relying largely on surrogates and euphemisms like “protect women’s health care” and “a woman’s right to choose.” In Biden’s recently released reelection launch video, he did not say “abortion” himself — though a woman was featured holding an “abortion is healthcare” protest sign. In February, Biden used the word “abortion” explicitly for the first time in a State of the Union address, though many activists were still upset he devoted just four sentences to the topic, and almost an hour into his speech. “It was, to be blunt, offensive,” feminist writer Jessica Valenti said after.

The Biden administration did not return a request for comment.

Bryan Bennett, a pollster with Navigator, said independents broadly report pro-choice attitudes, so the two new surveys suggest Biden and Democrats “have a real opportunity to talk more and crystallize” where they stand on abortion.

Bennett noted that among independent women, the gaps were even higher, with 43 percent in their latest survey saying they weren’t sure what Democrats’ position on abortion was. “Focusing on that, and trying to reach that 34 percent of independents who don’t have a position, represents a real chance to drive that [pro-abortion rights] advantage,” he said.

What we know about independent voters and abortion rights

A majority of independent voters back abortion rights, though public opinion research indicates there may be some notable differences between their views and those of self-identified Democrats. For example, while a post-Dobbs Navigator survey found 84 percent of Democrats identified as “pro-choice,” the pollsters found just 54 percent of independents did. Thirty percent of independents in the same survey identified as “pro-life,” compared to 11 percent of Democrats.

Heading into the 2022 midterms, pollsters found abortion rights to be a significantly motivating issue for independent voters, though again less motivating than for Democrats. A quarter of independents told Navigator the Dobbs decision made them “much more motivated” to vote in November, compared to 56 percent of Democrats. And 41 percent of independents told KFF the decision made them “more motivated” to vote, compared to 64 percent of Democrats. A Wall Street Journal poll found 9 percent of independents ranked the Supreme Court ruling as the top issue among five choices motivating them to vote, compared with 77 percent of Democrats.

In days immediately following the midterms, NARAL Pro-Choice America led exit surveys of voters in battleground states and found that while Democrats ranked abortion a top priority for Congress and the White House, independents did not.

Still, independents definitely reported broad pro-choice attitudes in NARAL’s exit survey, with 54 percent saying they’d be less likely to support Republicans if they tried to pass more abortion bans, and 74 percent of independents said women and their doctors should make decisions about abortion, not politicians.

When asked about the Marist/NPR survey finding high levels of distrust among independents for both Democrats and Republicans, Angela Vasquez-Giroux, NARAL’s vice president of research, noted that many voters support abortion access because they distrust politicians generally. “Voters don’t want politicians involved in their personal freedoms and personal medical decisions,” she told Vox.

New focus groups suggest some voters are very confused

In late April, Navigator hosted three focus groups with women voters to learn more about how abortion issues continue to motivate Americans politically. The participants in Ohio and North Carolina were suburban women who identified as either weak Democrats, independents, or weak Republicans; the participants in Michigan were women of color who identified as either strong Democrats, weak Democrats, or independents.

Each group had between seven and nine participants, and all had previously stated they either support the right to abortion or do not believe the government should prevent access to abortion even if they are personally against it. While these are tiny samples, researchers say the qualitative data from a focus group helps clarify voter beliefs and signals questions to more rigorously study in the future.

Vox reviewed video footage and transcripts from the three focus groups and found in each some women who support abortion rights had significant trouble identifying Democrats’ and Republicans’ stances on abortion.

“I think Democrats are pro-life and Republicans are against it,” said one participant in Ohio, when asked what Democrats and Republicans believe on abortion.

In Michigan, a woman was asked how the two parties differ on abortion and how she would describe each party’s position.

“I’m not sure,” the woman answered. “I really haven’t basically heard anything about which party is leaning toward it and which one isn’t.” When the focus group moderator pressed her to guess, she answered: “If I had to guess, I would say Democrat would probably be against it and Republican probably would be for it.”

In North Carolina, a participant said she wasn’t sure where the parties stand on abortion and had been surprised Roe v. Wade was overturned under a Democrat.

“Okay, but did Joe Biden have a say in whether or not it was overturned?” the focus group moderator asked.

“No, but he helped get the Supreme judges where they are.” The moderator then informed the woman that the most recent judges came in under Donald Trump.

Confusion among independents has been reflected in some other polling data. For example, in a survey conducted in the two weeks after Dobbs, 23 percent of independents said they don’t know if abortion rights were at risk in their state, compared to just 5 percent of Democrats who said the same. Likewise, while a majority of independents said in the same survey they would support a nationwide law that protects the right of a woman to have an abortion, 18 percent of independents said they weren’t sure either way, suggesting there might be more need to clarify for voters what that means.

One Democratic pollster, speaking on background, said the data about independents was great to have and provides “actionable information” for campaigns ahead of 2024.

Other leaders have been more hesitant to suggest Democrats could benefit from new tactics to target pro-choice independents — saying the recent election results in Democrats’ favor speak for themselves.

“Time and time again, whether it was the 2022 midterms, ballot initiatives, or special elections in Virginia and Wisconsin, voters continue to prove that they will support the candidate who will protect their reproductive freedom,” said Jenny Lawson, the vice president of organizing and electoral campaigns at Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “The data is clear and we have the receipts: Anti-abortion politicians are on the losing side of the issue.”

Vasquez-Giroux of NARAL also defended Biden’s rhetoric. “I think the president is doing a pretty good job of being clear about where he stands, and [regarding] the reelection video — taking one example out is not fully representative,” she said. “And you do have [Vice President] Kamala Harris out on the road talking about abortion. It should be clear where the administration stands.”