Giant companies, backed by an unending stream of private equity dollars, are buying up American homes at a pace that stuns you, me and also the United States Congress. It’s happening in Omaha, too, as we revealed recently — some of the city’s largest buyers of homes, and largest landlords, are out-of-state companies. They have helped to superheat the housing market. They have jacked up rents. They have contributed to making housing less affordable for the people who most need affordable housing.
So…Should we do something about this? And if so, what?
That’s the point of our newest story, by intern extraordinaire Emma Schartz, focused on a few potential solutions being tried around the country that could blunt the impact of real estate behemoths like Vinebrook Homes.
We’re gonna keep on this story. It’s a crucial one.
Grocery stores are so 2002: Twenty years ago, you could barely find a community garden or urban farm in Omaha. Today? There are hundreds.
What’s old is new again, as freelancer Kim Carpenter notes. Increasingly, people want to grow the food they eat, and grow things you can’t find in the big-box grocery store, and grow things like they did in the old country, and grow things that can feed people living in food deserts, too.
The popularity of community gardens and urban farms continues to explode.
Partying with the First Amendment: It’s Independence Day weekend. A perfect time to grill, narrowly avoid catastrophic injury while firing off low-rent explosives and to take a few moments to think about freedom, democracy — and how we can preserve it.
I believe it crucial that a viable independent media needs to grow stronger after decades of decline. I believe it crucial because we need that independent media — your local newspaper, your local TV newscast, your public radio station and also Flatwater Free Press — to serve as a watchdog for all levels of government.
In D.C. And also in Alvo, Nebraska. And also in the big cities and in small towns and on the Native reservations of this state we call home.
So on this 4th of July, I’m thankful for the First Amendment.
We’re 10 months in here at FFP, and 921 of you have already given to support our mission. Thank you so much. Because of your support, we have several super exciting announcements coming later this summer.
Want to help build our capacity to do good journalism and help us get to a cool 1,000 donors? Do so right here.
Have a wonderful Independence Day weekend,
—Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- Mike Flood is Nebraska’s newest congressman after winning a special election Tuesday. But that election with Patty Pansing Brooks was closer than expected — in fact, closer than any election in the Lincoln-based 1st Congressional district in decades. The Associated Press’ Grant Schulte analyzes the race that came hot on the heels of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
- Our very own Flatwater Free Press correspondent Roseann Moring appeared on Nebraska Public Media this week, talking about her recent story on how Long COVID is affecting the lives of thousands of Nebraskans. Listen here.
- This morning, the FFP office has been atwitter about Nebraska’s newest resident: A lone limpkin. I’d tell you more, but I am fresh out of bird puns. Let the Omaha World-Herald’s always-curious Marjie Ducey tell you the tale.
