This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Renaissance Children's Center, which serves low-income families and those experiencing homelessness with infants and children up to the time they enter kindergarten.

Susan Dunn, director of the center, said many kids who have spent time in the 6,600 square-foot facility in Lakewood have lived in transitional housing, in cars, or have camped out with their parents as they work to get back on their feet.

"The children are coming here while the parents are looking for work, and going to school, and just rebuilding their lives. And it's a safe place for the children to be and learn and grow," she explained.

Launched in 2005 and operated by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the center has eight naturally-lit classrooms and two outdoor play areas. Kids get breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack prepared onsite by a professional chef. Children have space to direct their own learning experience. And a social-skills curriculum helps prepare kids to succeed in school and beyond, by building emotional competence and strengthening their ability to play and solve problems with others.

The center's staff is trained in trauma-informed education, and mental health services are available for children and parents. Dunn said most of the trauma kids experience stem from living in poverty. Many have been separated from their parents because of behavioral-health issues or incarceration, and adds that consistency is key to their recovery.

"They know when meals are served. Everybody sits down at the table and eats together, so there's that community. And then our classrooms are very home-like. It doesn't look like a schoolroom as much as it looks like a living room and a home," Dunn continued.

The center's woodsy outdoor spaces serve as a natural-learning classroom, which promotes math, science, literacy and other skills. Dunn said children get to connect to nature and experience new ways of learning.

"A lot of the kids, they don't really have a big backyard, and so our playgrounds are their big backyard. They get to use their muscles and their skills to climb and check out bugs and rocks and all kinds of things like that," she said.

Homelessness in South Dakota may be down overall, but the state's urban areas are an exception. New programs in Sioux Falls aim to address it.

The most recent point-in-time data show the number of people unhoused in Sioux Falls rose by 20% between 2022 and 2023. Native people experience homelessness at a disproportionately high rate, making up nearly 40% of the unhoused population in the area. So, South Dakota Urban Indian Health launched the Wo'Okiye program last year, with case management services and help making and getting to medical appointments.

Monica Bailey, program manager and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe member, said these wraparound services give staff a variety of options to respond.

"If they want to go to treatment or if they want to talk. We also provide smudging, therapeutic beading and sewing. We just meet people where they're at on their journey," she said.

Bailey added the organization is averaging 1,300 contacts a month -- an increase from about 260 last September, after launching its initial street outreach efforts a year ago.

The City of Sioux Falls also hired its first Homelessness Services Coordinator in April. Bailey said Wo'Okiye will work closely with the coordinator, and has partnered with others in the city.

"For example, we have a great relationship with downtown Sioux Falls Library, where they can call us and we can go in and check on someone, and bring them to our space or see if we need to do a warm handoff," Bailey said.

The unhoused population in Rapid City also grew last year, although homelessness across the state has decreased nearly 8% since 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.


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As Virginia evictions rise, one group is helping low-income renters fight back.

Before the pandemic, evictions peaked at 16,000 in January 2020. An eviction moratorium kept renters housed during part of the pandemic but evictions are growing again.

Phil Storey, director of the Eviction Defense Center at the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said his office helps people navigate housing court.

"We wanted to provide not just information about things they can bring up to the judge to try and affect what happens but also some tools that'll help them do that without having to act as if they were experienced lawyers," Storey explained.

He added eviction laws are better for tenants, although they still give landlords an advantage. Affordable housing significantly declined in the state leaving many people unable to afford housing. The Eviction Defense Center operates on two websites. English speakers can use FightMyEviction.org and Spanish speakers can use NoDesalojo.org.

While the Eviction Defense Center is still relatively new, Storey is looking for ways to improve and build on it. He added they want to learn from the users taking advantage of the tools being offered.

"Obviously, we'll be able to go sort of peek behind the curtain and see which paths people are following through the information," Storey noted. "If some of them end up as dead ends or if people end up backing out of the decision tree, or things like that. We'll learn things about how to make that all better."

New York's 2025 budget takes proactive steps to address rural housing.

In the budget, $10 million was allocated for improvements to rural housing built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Section 515 program. Rural housing organizations asked for $25 million but are grateful the state is taking action.

Mike Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition of New York, said another bill the Legislature should pass makes the Mobile and Manufactured Home Replacement Program permanent.

"Basically what that does is provide grants to low- to moderate-income people to replace their mobile homes that are dilapidated and unsafe," Borges explained.

He would also like to see administration fees increase for nonprofits taking part in the Access to Home Program, which provides accessibility modification for low- to moderate-income residents. Reports showed it got requests totaling $12 million but only got enough funding for $1 million in improvements. The Senate is poised to pass both bills, leaving the Assembly as the final hurdle.

However, the budget was not perfect for rural housing. Borges said one shortcoming of the 2025 budget were cuts to the RESTORE program, which provides emergency repairs for low-to-moderate-income seniors. He said New York should take action now to continue improving rural housing preservation and development.

"We need a comprehensive housing initiative that looks at the obstacles to building and renovating, repairing housing in rural communities," Borges contended. "The three main obstacles to that are local capacity, infrastructure and targeted programs for rural housing."

He added rural areas do not often have the same resources and capacity as urban communities. Because rural housing is in short supply because of the aging housing stock, there have been stark population declines from rural New York communities.