“No society may be absolutely understood aside from the residences of its members.”

I’ve that quote (from “Crabgrass Frontier,” the seminal historical past of America’s suburbs) taped to a wall behind my desk. It summarizes why I like overlaying housing for The New York Occasions and appear by no means to expire of issues to jot down about. Housing is the whole lot. It’s the place we reside and lift our households. It’s most individuals’s largest retailer of wealth. Whether or not you personal, you lease, otherwise you sleep outdoors, the place you grasp your head defines a lot of your existence.

Over the previous few many years, and particularly because the pandemic, housing has gone from an emblem of American power to an on a regular basis disaster. Aspiring householders have gotten ceaselessly renters. Individuals reside in more and more crowded households, the availability of unlawful housing has surged and homeless camps have multiplied. Persons are fleeing costly states for cheaper ones — which has in flip created housing issues within the cities the place they find yourself.

There have additionally been new alternatives: The rise of at-home places of work has allowed many individuals to relocate to cheaper housing markets and prompted quite a few households to give up their 9 to 5s and redevelop property or turn into landlords. In California and elsewhere, the legalization of yard houses has impressed quite a few householders to turn into builders by creating small rental models on their properties.

For the previous a number of years, I’ve coated just about each side of America’s housing disaster, from the general public officers making an attempt to sort out it in statehouses to the folks residing its penalties. I write about tenants in addition to landlords, builders in addition to environmentalists, public housing in addition to non-public — even an try and construct a brand new metropolis from scratch.

My tales vary in subject and are available from across the nation, however the frequent thread is that they’re rooted within the accounts of individuals and the locations that make them. Which is why I wish to hear from you. I wish to know what sorts of housing pressures you’re coping with and the way they’ve affected your life, household, friendships and group. And I wish to know what tales or matters you suppose want extra consideration. The articles I write are impressed by the tales folks inform me.

I learn all submissions. I additionally at all times attain again out to ask extra questions and ensure I’ve acquired my information proper earlier than I publish something. I received’t publish something with out your express permission, and I received’t use your contact info for every other goal or share it outdoors the newsroom. If you need to submit info anonymously, please go to our ideas web page.