Apartment Choice

By Sarah Butrymowicz and Meredith Kolodner Alduha Leon and Jared Sanders, roommates at Savannah State University , dined on hot dogs in their apartment on Thanksgiving Day of their sophomore year. They had decided to skip feasting with family in Atlanta to pick up extra hours at their airport jobs loading luggage onto planes. Payday wasn’t until Friday, though, and Leon only had $5 left on his food stamps card . During the three years they spent at Savannah State , Sanders and Leon struggled to pay their tuition, fees and living expenses. They accumulated more than $50,000 in loans between the two of them, despite working up to 40 hours a week. After exhausting themselves working late or overnight shifts so they wouldn’t have to miss class, and finding their grades suffering, they dropped out in 2015, joining a growing pool of Georgians who have debt but no degree. More than 108,000 students who had taken out federal loans withdrew from Georgia’s public colleges and universities bet...

For most Americans, retirement is a long-awaited rest, and some locations are more comfortable than others. Caring.com's 2017 "Best and Worst States to Grow Old" study ranked all 50 states based on cost of living, healthcare, and quality of life, including senior care . The best states for retirement were Utah, Iowa, South Carolina, Washington, and Nebraska, ranked respectively, and the worst included West Virginia , Indiana, New York, North Dakota, and Wyoming.  Settling down in your golden years requires a lot of commitment, and it's imperative to weigh your options carefully. Make an informed choice by asking yourself these questions as you enter retirement. How much have you saved?  Whether you're dreaming of life on the beach or in a remote mountain cabin , the first (and less picturesque) step of retirement is practicality. Choosing your dream location often comes down to how well you can live off your savings. The table below compares Caring.com's best...

For most Americans, retirement is a long-awaited rest, and some locations are more comfortable than others. Caring.com's 2017 "Best and Worst States to Grow Old" study ranked all 50 states based on cost of living, healthcare, and quality of life, including senior care . The best states for retirement were Utah, Iowa, South Carolina, Washington, and Nebraska, ranked respectively, and the worst included West Virginia , Indiana, New York, North Dakota, and Wyoming.  Settling down in your golden years requires a lot of commitment, and it's imperative to weigh your options carefully. Make an informed choice by asking yourself these questions as you enter retirement. How much have you saved?  Whether you're dreaming of life on the beach or in a remote mountain cabin , the first (and less picturesque) step of retirement is practicality. Choosing your dream location often comes down to how well you can live off your savings. The table below compares Caring.com's best...

A decade after the crash, Shannon Valley housing estate , on the outskirts of Ballaghaderreen, in Co Roscommon, remains unfinished and partly in ruins. Although the number of “ unfinished housing developments ” has fallen sharply since 2010, Shannon Valley is one of hundreds that still dot the country. The Guls: ‘Every day I put rats in the bin’ Fatima Gul says her little brother, Yousaf, doesn’t like the rats. He jumps up on the sofa or the table in the living room when they come into the house. Their parents don’t allow Fatimar, who is 10, or her nine-year-old sister, Maryam, or Yousaf and his twin, Zohra, who are five, to play near the houses on the other side of their green. It’s too close to the rats and the rubble. Shannon Valley “ ghost estate ” outside Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. Photograph: Simon Carswell" height="349" src="https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3181475!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg" width="620...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...