GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - As Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched a major statewide initiative to combat racial discrimination in housing, a Long Island village is reforming an exclusionary policy.

Residents and activists celebrated in Garden City on Tuesday as the village trustees convened to prohibit using zoning to deny housing opportunities to minorities. Lucas Sanchez, Long Island director of New York Communities for Change, said the move is the result of a court challenge to a 2004 zoning ordinance that prohibited the construction of multi-family housing units.

"What the judge found was that this decision had a disparate impact on African-American people that were looking to live within the village," she said.

A federal court has ruled that Garden City, where more than 90 percent of the residents are white, had acted "with discriminatory intent."

According to Sanchez, the kind of racial imbalance found in Garden City has a long history in many suburban communities on Long Island and throughout the state.

"In many ways, that's continued to be the case on Long Island," she said. "So many communities continue to be primarily white communities with very, very low percentages of people of color."

Last week, a court-appointed monitor presented the village with concrete steps it can take to remedy its discriminatory practices. It's now up to the village to follow through and make real change happen, Sanchez said, "to be proactive in doing everything it can do in good faith and take concrete, tangible steps that will actually create affordable housing and bring more diversity to that community."

Sanchez said she believes that with adequate resources and commitment, the governor's initiative will help to end housing discrimination statewide.


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Nebraska is among the states with the sharpest increases in housing prices between 2021 and 2024, according to a new report.

The hike has been accompanied by dramatically higher homeowners' insurance premiums.

Only four states saw home prices spike more dramatically than in Nebraska in the three-year period - three of them in the West. More expensive homes bring higher insurance costs.

The Consumer Federation of America's Director of Housing Sharon Cornelissen said it's often not the cost of the house, but the cost of insuring it that keeps some potential home buyers out of the market.

"Our insurance crisis is increasingly also a housing crisis, right?" said Cornelissen. "These are not separate. We know for example that first-time homebuyers already struggle to afford a mortgage today, and with spiking insurance costs, many may feel that they can never own a home."

The housing price hike and increase in insurance costs come despite Nebraska having among the lowest costs of living in the nation.

The CFA report shows Nebraskans have seen a 35% increase in homeowners' insurance prices in the three-year period.

While many people are trying to qualify for a mortgage, the Federation's Director of Insurance Doug Heller said insurance companies are making it increasingly difficult for buyers by hiking premiums - and denying coverage based on "perceived risk."

"The crisis is also a reflection of some brazen bullying we have seen from insurance companies around the country," said Heller, "as they put customers that have paid premiums for decades on the chopping block, and turn their back on communities that have relied on them for generations."

The report says insurance companies claim they're still trying to recover from $11 billion in losses caused by damaging derecho winds that leveled parts of Nebraska and other Midwest states in 2020.




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It is estimated more than 2,600 people live on the streets across Arkansas.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has proposed a "treatment first" plan, which includes moving unhoused people into camps.

Neil Sealy, senior organizer for Arkansas Community Organizations, said the proposal does not address the root cause of homelessness.

"There are a lot of homeless people who have addiction problems and they need help, but they also need to have a safe place to live," Sealy pointed out. "Putting them in an internment camp is outrageous and it's punitive and it needs to be stopped."

Sealy noted Arkansas has been in a housing crisis since the 1980s and additional cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development will make things worse. The number of unhoused people increased 6% between 2022 and 2023.

The president has not made a formal announcement about his homelessness plans but cuts have been made to programs supporting efforts to help unsheltered people across the country. During his campaign, Trump said unhoused people would be moved into tent cities and required to undergo mental health or drug treatment. Sealy emphasized not everyone who lives on the streets needs such services.

"That is not the only cause of homelessness," Sealy underscored. "There are all kinds of situations in life that -- when your money is gone -- and when you're now going to cut subsidized housing and you're not going to build more housing, but if they find you on the streets you're going to stay in a tent."

The president said the administration will work with people who are down on their luck to reintegrate them into a normal life. He added those refusing treatment would be jailed.

Sealy contended with fewer federal dollars, the Arkansas economy will worsen and lawmakers need to hear from their constituents.

"Call their House of Representatives, their Congressman or woman, or their Senator and keep calling," Sealy urged. "Then seek out organizations like ours who are building a resistance. We just have to push back hard."


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Housing that's both affordable and ready to rent is out of reach for many Hoosiers.

The 2025 Indiana Housing Profile says for every 100 low-income households, only 38 affordable rental homes are available.

And Indiana saw almost 5,000 eviction filings in the last month, according to the nonprofit Eviction Lab at Princeton University, which tracks eviction trends nationwide.

Amy Nelson, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, advised tenants facing eviction to reach out for help from a knowledgeable source.

"For those who may be experiencing an eviction or eviction filing, we always recommend that you get legal advice so that you can ensure that you are protecting your rights," said Nelson. "Those lawyers could also help you in negotiating with your landlord, or understanding if the action being taken against you may be unlawful or not."

A full-time worker in Indiana must earn an hourly wage of $22 to afford the average fair market rent of $1,200 for a two-bedroom home.

When rent and utilities are factored in, a household needs to earn almost $46,000 to pay the average rent without spending more than 30% of their income.

The federal Fair Housing Act, signed into law in 1968, protects renters and home buyers from discriminatory practices in lending, insurance, and zoning.

Twenty years later, protections were expanded to include discrimination based on disability or familial status, or having kids under 18.

But in February, the Trump administration started cutting grant funding to groups that enforce fair housing laws. Nelson said discrimination is real - and may be very blatant.

"You are told that you won't be rented to because you have children or because you're Latino, or because you need an accommodation for a disability," said Nelson. "But very often, it's much more subtle than that. We always tell people to trust that internal voice if something doesn't feel right, and report it to the Fair Housing Center."

Indiana landlords filed more than 73,000 evictions last year.




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