Consider This from NPR - Covering the affordability crisis

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

President Trump has called the affordability crisis a hoax, but the data shows the burden of rising costs really matters to Americans. NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks about covering affordability issues and meeting people who struggle to find secure housing - or enough food to eat. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Henry Larson. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

No conversation about politics this year is complete without affordability. They have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. President Trump has called the affordability crisis a hoax, but the data show it really matters. Jennifer Ludden is an NPR correspondent who talks to Americans who cannot find affordable housing. And the word comes up a lot.

Affordability. Everyone is talking about it now. Everyone is concerned about this. With housing specifically, there's a record. number of people for whom rent or the mortgage is out of whack with their income. It is unaffordable. Consider this. It's getting harder to live with less in America.

We hear what it's like covering the people impacted the most by the Trump administration's cuts the choices they're forced to make and what it means for all of us. From NPR, I'm Rob Schmidt. It's Consider This from NPR. Jennifer Ludden has reported across many countries and countries. continents. Now she covers folks who do not have stable housing or food. For the past year or so, the Trump administration has cut back a range of federal assistance programs. I started by asking Jennifer how she reported on one of those programs. So early on, I got a tip, actually. I think it was

the first to report on a program that was completely eliminated. It had been started under the Biden administration. It was to upgrade affordable housing, make it energy efficient. and climate resilient. This is part of a historic investment and a bigger picture push. And so I'm like, okay, but it's this wonky program with acronyms. Like, how do I become real? How do you make this interesting?

Yeah. So where are the people being affected by this? And I learned through a nonprofit that works with seniors that there was this senior residence down in a tiny town in Virginia on the North Carolina border. their air conditioning had conned out three years ago. And they were so excited they were going to get air conditioning. And now it had been taken away. So I'm like, okay, I'm going there.

And I drove down and I met one of the residents, Linda Morgan, took me up to her apartment. It was April. It was already starting to get pretty warm. And she showed me how she manages to keep herself cool during the hot months. This is my portable air that I'm going to hook up this weekend in that window. And this is what you call the swamp cooler that I just put water in. Then she opened her closet and there were like three more fans stuffed in there that she had like a fan for the kitchen, a fan for the other part of the living room.

I mean, six or seven in all. You know, she was a nurse and said she really worries for all the people with asthma or lung issues. And then I talked to a lot of other people, and it turned out the community room was also a real issue. Their community room was too large to cool with the fans. They're like, we can't even play our bingo in the summer. You know, here you are talking about the lack of air conditioning in an area of the country that gets really, really hot and humid during the summer months. You used to cover and edit climate reporting. This is a climate issue as well.

Is it not? Absolutely. The solar panels that this program would have put on, would put on, bring down people's utility bills. Right. Look at what, look how high utility bills are now. People are really stressing about gas and oil and solar. It's an investment, but then it makes it cheaper for the people living there. And I should say there have been tons of lawsuits. And I'm told that some of this funding for this program is being restored. How did you approach her? I mean, I'm curious. How did she first respond to it? You know, this is a thing. I walked in and several people who had volunteered to speak were at a table in that community room. I just walked in and all of a sudden, I just started making introductions and then they started talking and going on and on and on about. I'm like, oh, wait, wait, let me get my headphones on and let me get my microphone. They came very prepared. They were eager to share. They just started talking immediately telling you what was wrong, what needs to be.

Yeah, and one guy was like, you know, I didn't have a home before I came here. And I can't lose this one. You know, this is very important to us. It affects us every day. Now, you know, in that situation where you have a room of five folks and they're eager to tell you their stories, what are their expectations of how your story is going to impact them? I think they like the idea that other people are going to relate. and or maybe learn that something they hadn't thought about before, that is what we want, right?

We're reflecting. We're reflecting what is going on in the country and trying to bring to our stories what a lot of people are grappling with. And we all need that. That's what story is. That's what community is. It helps people connect with completely. complete strangers. So Jennifer, part of your job is also to talk to people who are trying to find solutions. What's it like to talk to them right now? I went to recently a Petersburg, Virginia. I'd found a developer who is making putting in manufactured homes. I kept hearing how manufactured homes. You know, it's like the modern version of the old mobile home. They've really been updated. These are prefab homes, prefab homes. Prefab homes. And they're just, they're really exploding. They're doing a lot. They're tweaking laws to a little.

allow them in more places so they're not confined to trailer parks. And this developer is putting them all over this town of Petersburg where there's been just really economic collapse. So I go down and we timed it so that I could be there when a home arrived on these two big trucks, kind of two halves of home, arrive on the trucks from Pennsylvania. That's an awesome scene. We'll get some photos, do some video, and show like, what? it just drives in and poof, you put it there. And I meet him. And across the street, I go to interview and I'm thinking, oh, there's a lot of noise going on. What's up?

And I look, and there's this incredible scene. I didn't know it was going to be happening. It looks like this house has been like ripped apart right down the middle. But it turns out it was the opposite. It was being pushed together. Two sides of a manufactured home were being squeezed together. Tom Hideman, the developer, explained to me how this was going to work. And then they're going to take off the wheels.

you can see them under there and then low it on to block piers. And then by the time they'd be done, it would not be a mobile home and it would be able to be rented out or sold with the land underneath just like any other home. And it was just incredible to see. You know, this is why we travel because you can know something or read about it, but there's nothing like seeing it. Yeah, that's right. So Jennifer, is affordability the most important story in your beat now?

Yes. I mean, everyone is concerned with it now. It's a political buzzword. And we think about affordability as making ends meet. Obviously, that's important. You have people who are buying food with credit cards, right? Deciding which bill not to pay. But it's really so much more than that.

It's do you feel like you can afford to have children? If you have children, can you afford child care? Are you going to have to leave your career for a while to raise kids? Are you going to be able to live in the place where you grew up close to your family? Or have you been priced out? are you going to be able to buy a house ever to retire, stop working? These are questions that really get to affordability and the ripple effect it has. The more you're spending and all these things, the less and less you have left over.

And there's just no room to save, save up, to do other things in life. And these are questions more Americans are asking. Absolutely. That's NPR's National Desk correspondent, Jennifer Ludd. Jennifer, thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Henry Larson. It was edited by Sarah Robbins.

Our executive producer is Sammy Yenningin. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Rob Schmitz.