Illinois Newsroom has been covering the struggle to find affordable housing around the state. The lack of funding to build housing for people with low-incomes is one challenge. But city governments can influence where and how housing is built through their zoning rules. Allowing more multi-family structures opens neighborhoods up to people who cannot afford…
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services will soon allow gender confirmation surgery to be covered by Medicaid. That procedure, most…
Melissa Esparza fled her home in west suburban Chicago two years ago. Then 16, she said her parents became physically violent after years of verbal…
A Silicon Valley startup is pitting itself against major seed companies, alleging that those companies are price gouging in the Heartland. Farmers…
News & Brews: Why does affordable housing matter? event on Tuesday, March 26 at Riggs Beer Company in Urbana.
In the course of reporting my previous story on the gap between wages and the cost of housing, I spent time following a case manager with the Southern…
In Illinois, there are only 35 affordable housing units for every 100 families considered extremely low-income, according to Housing Action Illinois, a…
From bees to butterflies , a worldwide decline in pollinators has entomologists trying to figure out how to help those bugs and the plants that rely on…
An estimated 10,643 people in Illinois are homeless according to federal data. Many of those are working – but still can’t make ends meet. For the…
A small but growing number of U.S. women are choosing to have their babies at home. In more than 30 states, including most of the Midwest, it’s legal for certified professional midwives–trained specifically in home birth–to assist them. Illinois is not among them; but the state Senate wants to study the issue. Carrie Vickery, vice president of the Illinois Friends…
Across much of the Midwest, maternal and infant death rates are high—especially among African-Americans. So doctors, public health agencies and non…
Many communities in Illinois have rules that say renters can lose their housing if someone in the home is connected to a crime. City leaders who back…
Experts often blame the painkiller fentanyl for skyrocketing overdose deaths among illegal drug users. Now a series of deaths at an Ohio hospital is…
Farm income has taken a long, hard fall, dropping 50 percent since hitting a high point in 2013. Add to that near-record levels of farm debt, and you…
President Donald Trump’s 2020 budget proposal is getting a lot of attention for its call for more border protection, but it also makes major changes to…