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...

The U.S. economy is the largest in the world, topping a GDP of $18.6 trillion in 2016. An economic powerhouse as massive and diversified as the United States depends on a network of highways, bridges, airports and dams to thrive. And while the economy has grown every year since the recession officially ended in 2009, our nation’s infrastructure is not fairing as well. An estimated 17% of American dams -- 15,500 in total -- are categorized as high hazard potential , meaning their failure would almost certainly result in loss of life. Meanwhile, 11.2% of roads are in poor condition, which ultimately lead to vehicle damage and traffic delays. Vehicle repairs, fuel and wasted time cost motorists an estimated $272 billion in 2014. Perhaps most troubling is the state of disrepair of bridges across the country as tens of thousands are classified as structurally deficient by the federal government. Infrastructure repair is one rare issue that often garners bipartisan support in Washington....

An aerial view of Manchester. Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery . Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department , for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (better known as t.e.j.a.s.). Part of his work is leading tours past the heaping piles of scrap met...

SUBHEAD: The Texas capital plan for sustainability does not include some minority neighborhoods. By Raj Mankad on 15 August 2017 for Grist - (https://grist.org/article/the-newer-greener-houston-isnt-for-everybody/) Image above: In some cases, little more than a fence separates Manchester homes from neighboring fossil fuel industry . Photo by Paul Hester. From original article. Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery. Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a ci...

Lisa Eckelbecker Telegram & Gazette Staff @LisaEckelbecker WORCESTER – The company building 365 luxury apartments downtown plans to spend about $90 million on the development and thinks Worcester is ripe for such construction. Nearby highways, bus transportation, commuter rail lines and employment opportunities make the area perfect for development, and no one else is building the kind of high- end housing units that Mack- Cali Realty Corp . of Edison, New Jersey, is constructing, Ivan M. Baron, the company’s chief legal officer said Wednesday. “We’re providing a niche that we think we can fill,” Mr. Baron said. He spoke after a celebration that drew Worcester politicians , government workers and business people to the CitySquare neighborhood between City Hall and Union Station for a ceremonial groundbreaking. Some said the rise in private investment in Worcester development provides the opportunity to connect the city’s neighborhoods, attract residents and change...

SOUTH BEND — The city's historic preservation agency Monday rejected a request by South Bend schools officials to demolish the old Marquette School building , a plan that has been in the works for years but has met with resistance from preservationists. The South Bend-St. Joseph County Historic Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the South Bend Community School Corp .'s request to demolish the 1937 building to create more outdoor space for the current Marquette Primary Montessori Academy . Elicia Feasel, the commission's executive director, recommended that the panel deny the request. In a report to the commission, she concluded that the school corporation had failed to prove the types of safety issues that would justify demolishing a local historic landmark . The commission agreed and voted 4-1 to deny the district's request for approval to demolish the building. Several members faulted the school corporation for building the new Marquette school in...

The struggles of the impoverished are well documented. But how about the unique pain and struggle associated with being wealthy in New York City? In her research for “ Uneasy Street : The Anxieties of Affluence” ( Princeton University Press , out Sept. 5), Rachel Sherman interviewed 50 New York-area parents of young children, whose household incomes ranged from $250,000 to $10 million and with assets totaling up to $50 million. These locals live pampered lives — with multiple high-end properties, teams of household employees and frequent, lavish vacations — but still, they do impressive mental gymnastics to avoid identifying themselves as truly rich. For instance: Helen, a stay-at-home mom with an annual family income of $2 million, describes herself as “in the middle, in the sense that there are so many people with so much money. They have private planes. They have drivers. They have all these things.” This kind of creative (and self-serving) logic is prevalent among Sherman’s su...

August 24, 2017 Millennials are creating their own definition of financial success . | Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images Facebook knows how you feel about money. The company has been listening in on young people ’s online conversations, as well as analyzing audience data and conducting surveys, in order to learn more about how users between the ages of 21 and 34 think about financial matters. What it discovered is likely to surprise some people, though probably not millennials themselves. “Millennials are misunderstood — famous for their impulse for instant gratification. But when we stop to observe their financial behaviors and listen to them describe their relationship with money in their own words, a new millennial emerges,” according to the report, Millennials and Money: The Unfiltered Journey. ")}; Once you brush aside the stereotype of the lazy and entitled millennial, a picture of a financially responsible generation comes into focus. Millennials want to pay down debt...