“No society will be totally understood other than the residences of its members.”

I’ve that quote (from “Crabgrass Frontier,” the seminal historical past of America’s suburbs) taped to a wall behind my desk. It summarizes why I like masking housing for The New York Instances and appear by no means to expire of issues to put in writing about. Housing is every part. It’s the place we stay and lift our households. It’s most individuals’s largest retailer of wealth. Whether or not you personal, you lease, otherwise you sleep outdoors, the place you cling your head defines a lot of your existence.

Over the previous few many years, and particularly for the reason that pandemic, housing has gone from an emblem of American energy to an on a regular basis disaster. Aspiring owners have gotten eternally renters. Individuals stay in more and more crowded households, the availability of unlawful housing has surged and homeless camps have multiplied. Individuals are fleeing costly states for cheaper ones — which has in flip created housing issues within the cities the place they find yourself.

There have additionally been new alternatives: The rise of at-home places of work has allowed many individuals to relocate to cheaper housing markets and prompted plenty of households to give up their 9 to 5s and redevelop property or change into landlords. In California and elsewhere, the legalization of yard properties has impressed plenty of owners to change into builders by creating small rental items on their properties.

For the previous a number of years, I’ve lined nearly each facet of America’s housing disaster, from the general public officers making an attempt to sort out it in statehouses to the individuals residing its penalties. I write about tenants in addition to landlords, builders in addition to environmentalists, public housing in addition to personal — even an try and construct a brand new metropolis from scratch.

My tales vary in subject and are available from across the nation, however the frequent thread is that they’re rooted within the accounts of individuals and the locations that make them. Which is why I wish to hear from you. I wish to know what sorts of housing pressures you might be coping with and the way they’ve affected your life, household, friendships and group. And I wish to know what tales or subjects you assume want extra consideration. The articles I write are impressed by the tales individuals inform me.

I learn all submissions. I additionally all the time attain again out to ask extra questions and ensure I’ve acquired my details proper earlier than I publish something. I received’t publish something with out your express permission, and I received’t use your contact data for every other goal or share it outdoors the newsroom. If you want to submit data anonymously, please go to our suggestions web page.