How to solve Arizona’s housing shortage, which has reached crisis levels
Jenn Daniels and Sean Bowie – January 23, 2023
Arizona is short at least 100,000 housing units to keep pace with demand.
As you read this, 300 Americans have just decided to move to our beautiful state. And it keeps happening every day.
Quality of life, low cost of living, climate, low regulatory environment and a simplified tax structure continues to draw people and businesses to Arizona.
Yet keeping up housing supply with this population growth has been challenging. While numbers vary, the Common Sense Institute Arizona estimates a shortage of about 100,000 housing units.
Barriers to development at the local level, bureaucracy within state agencies and preemptive state laws have limited the building of more housing units at a pace that keeps up with our growing population. Often unnecessary, burdensome rules and regulations have delayed project start times and increased costs for developers and homebuilders.
These costs ultimately get passed on to the buyer.
It’ll take steady, deliberate policy to solve this
Simply put, Arizona has a housing crisis – we need more housing, and we need it now. To be clear, there is no fast and easy button that will make the housing shortage go away. The solution is steady, intentional, deliberate policy and collaboration between all levels of government and the private sector.
We are of different political parties, but we have come together to find solutions to the challenges before us. After careful study of the data, dozens of stakeholder interviews and analysis of policy from other states, we have developed a menu of bipartisan solutions as part of a report for the nonpartisan Common Sense Institute Arizona (CSI).
We believe this can be a roadmap for state and local policymakers.
1. Expedite zoning and approval processes
Current processes for obtaining municipal approval to develop a piece of property vary from city to city. The process is burdensome, costly and takes far longer than is practical for builders.
The consistency achieved by establishing a universal, streamlined process for all Arizona cities will enable for a more objective approach. The development of a uniform process at the state level should be collaborative in nature among cities and consider cities of all sizes. Builders and developers would go through the same process regardless of the jurisdiction and get more houses to market more quickly.
In essence, the ideal process to go from empty lot to home for sale would be the same in every municipality. By creating a uniform process, a homebuilder in Surprise would follow the same steps, checklist and timeline as a homebuilder in Chandler or Yuma.
2. Let state Housing department grade cities
Once the state has designed and implemented statutory guidelines around streamlined entitlement, review and permitting processes for residential development, the Department of Housing would review and monitor local processes and grade municipalities using objective standards like how long, expensive and onerous an entitlement and permitting process was.
In reviewing the onerousness of this process, the department would compare the cities performance relative both to other cities and towns in Arizona, and national benchmarks and standards.
Top-performing jurisdictions would have greater opportunity to use the novel tools, and receive some of the new state funding, recommended elsewhere in our report – we believe that when a city knows better, they also want to do better. Having true benchmarks and measurable data that can be tracked and shared openly is the best indicator.
3. Develop statewide zoning definitions
Zoning definitions vary from city to city. Identifying logical and predictable zoning definitions at the state level allows for comparison of zoning between municipalities, transparency in the process, and clarity for developers. Additionally, defining new or innovative types of housing, diversifying the types of housing within a municipality, and providing a cohesive way to update municipal codes will benefit cities, regions and developers.
Housing opportunity zones – which use a percentage of existing tax revenue within a municipality to help fund development – can improve the supply of housing where the market alone is unable to meet demand.
4. Form local ‘Housing Opportunity Zones’
For instance, in Arizona, we utilize a manufacturing Transaction Privilege Tax incentive, wherein we divert state sales-tax dollars to cities to support manufacturing project infrastructure costs, so developers don’t have to front those costs. This played a large role in TSMC’s development of their new $12 billion fabrication plant expanded here in our state.
Likewise, housing opportunity zones would likely be most popular in areas that are ripe for development where there are already significant resources being invested in bringing more housing supply onto the market. Like all policies of this nature, it should have a sunset date and be reviewed by the Legislature.
Developers who construct housing and meet accountability benchmarks could retain a proportion of local sales or property taxes otherwise owed on the project, as a way to compensate for costs associated with building and selling the affordable units. A city or town could also use the monies to reimburse itself for capital costs associated with providing public infrastructure that supports these projects.
5. Help cities fund more affordable housing
The state should encourage cities to create their own affordable housing funding. One way to do this is to create a statewide grant program that incentivizes cities to create dedicated funds that would go towards more affordable housing development.
The city of Tempe has been a leader in this regard, creating its Hometown for All program in 2021. Fifty percent of several development permitting fees paid to the city go into the fund and help finance land acquisition and redevelopment within city borders.
Our full report outlines a total of 19 solutions. These aren’t Republican ideas or Democratic ideas. These are Arizona ideas.
It’s important for everyone address this critical issue together. The success of our state depends on remaining an attractive and affordable place for new businesses and new residents. Together, we can ensure Arizona stays that way.
Jenn Daniels, a Republican, is former mayor of Gilbert and Sean Bowie, a Democrat, is a former Arizona state lawmaker. They served as housing fellows at Common Sense Institute Arizona.
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Republicans in Congress are threatening once again to force the US to default because they lack the votes to enact their preferred fiscal vision.
Yes, it’s debt ceiling season once again. For those not following along at home, US law imposes an arbitrary limit on the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow. Historically, this was intended to make borrowing easier. Today, it is a tool for brinksmanship, with Republicans threatening to block paying the bills they already voted to incur unless GOP demands for unspecific spending cuts are met.
Right now, the US is at the limit, and the Treasury Department is moving money around to delay a conflict until later in the year. But if the limit is not raised, the US faces a constitutional crisis: How can the president execute the laws set by Congress if those laws are contradictory? (Here’s a flow chart for your consideration.)
The last time a real debt ceiling face-off happened in 2011, the US had its sovereign debt rating downgraded and incurred more than a billion dollars in economic losses. So let’s set aside the hypocrisy and political posturing and ask a simpler question: Is there a debt crisis that would justify holding the economy hostage?
And the answer is no. Markets are not worried about the US paying its debts, and there are no bond vigilantes appearing out of the woodwork.
That’s because the US is an enormously wealthy nation with a growing economy. The US has a lot of debt, about $22 trillion, equal to about an entire year’s economic production. But the US also has a lot of wealth—about $137 trillion (pdf). It’s true that interest rates are rising, but only because the Federal Reserve is pushing them up. Investors are still betting that rates will fall soon, with the interest paid on ten-year Treasury bonds lower than on government debt due in two years. That yield curve inversion reflects expectations that the Fed will cut rates during a potential recession. But even absent a downturn, the Fed isn’t likely to hike more than expected next year thanks to slowing inflation.
Public debt is stabilizing. How do you shrink it?
And what’s the trend for federal public debt? After a huge surge driven by pandemic-driven public spending, borrowing is set to shrink as a share of the economy in the years ahead. These Congressional Budget Office forecasts are from May 2022, and don’t include changes from legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act or updated economic data, but the figures do offer a best guess at what we can expect:
Many policymakers and economists fret that publicly-held debt approaching 100% of annual GDP is too high. The “correct” level of debt is difficult to assess; researchers think too much debt can be a drag on growth, but only if it crowds out private spending or leads to higher interest rates. The global economy, however, is in many ways dependent on a steady supply of US debt. Perhaps the biggest reason to push down current borrowing is to make sure the US has the fiscal capacity to weather the next emergency. One thing that won’t help reduce the debt, however, is a financial crisis caused by debt ceiling brinksmanship.
Despite the Fed’s tightening, growth remains strong and unemployment is low. That’s arguably a good environment to reduce government spending after the enormous surge in pandemic aid. Spending is already falling faster, as a share of the economy, than it did after the 2008 recession.
There are ways to keep driving spending down (pdf), but they require delivering pain to somebody: Eliminating subsidies to everyone, from agribusiness to defense contractors, leads to lobbyists for affected industries pounding down lawmakers’ doors, while cutting benefits to children, the sick or the poor remains broadly unpopular. Tax hikes can be more palatable but can generate political repercussions among influential upper class voters.
The last time anyone tried to hash out a compromise on all of this—the 2011 glory days of the Bowles-Simpson commission—Republicans backed out because of proposed tax increases, and Congress wound up cutting spending 10% across the board. (Republicans reversed many of the cuts when President Donald Trump took office in 2017.)
Debt politics are different in 2023
Absent the specter of the European debt crisis or a Republican party united on fiscal issues, the politics of debt reduction sit differently. Some Republican politicians, like Trump and Senate leader Mitch McConnell, are already warning that the cuts for popular but expensive programs such as Social Security and Medicare implied by a debt default aren’t going to help the party gain power in the next election. Republican member of Congress Nancy Mace told NBC over the weekend spending must be cut but couldn’t name a single target for reductions. Instead of cuts, conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is pushing to lift the limit on taxable Social Security wages.
It’s easy—it’s always easy—to imagine the Biden White House coming together with Republicans in Congress to find a moderate deficit reduction package that raises taxes and cuts some spending. The White House certainly imagines it, since administration spokespeople such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have made clear it won’t engage with novel plans to avoid a debt ceiling crisis like minting a platinum coin or various other finance shenanigans. Still, the patience—or complacency—about the debt ceiling might leave Washington in an uncomfortable place come this summer: It remains to be seen if the hardliners among Republicans have the patience for bipartisan legislating. If global investors won’t give them the debt crisis they want, they seem eager to create it.
Ukraine’s battlefields look like World War I but with a new and terrifying addition that leaves troops with almost nowhere to hide
John Haltiwanger – January 22, 2023
Ukraine’s battlefields look like World War I but with a new and terrifying addition that leaves troops with almost nowhere to hide. A Ukrainian paratrooper takes shelter in a trench from a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher attack on July 5,2022 in Seversk, Ukraine.Laurent van der Stockt/Getty Images
The conflict in Ukraine has emerged as the first major war involving drone use on both sides.
Experts say that drones have made artillery even more lethal, and are changing the face of warfare.
The debate over whether drones would matter in a conventional war is now over, one expert said.
Trench warfare, relentless artillery, gains measured in mere meters, and heavy casualties on both sides. The battlefields of Ukraine resemble those of World War I, but with a new and terrifying reality — the incessant buzzing of drones, harbingers of death and destruction that are constantly watching from above.
The Ukraine war has essentially become “World War I with 21st century ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance],” Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Insider.
Ukrainian soldiers work in their artillery unit in the direction of Marinka, 15 January 2023.Diego Herrera Carcedo/Getty ImagesUkrainian soldiers in a trench on the Vuhledar frontline in Donetsk oblast, 5 January 2023.Diego Herrera Carcedo/Getty Images
Both Ukraine and Russia have used drones of all shapes and sizes to spy on each other and to strike targets on a scale that’s never been seen before, and it’s changing the face of warfare. Drones are being used to locate enemy positions and direct fire, crash into and destroy buildings in “kamikaze” attacks, and drop bombs on tanks.
With much of the fighting occurring in rural areas with large open fields that are often dangerous to cross — a modern equivalent of WWI’s horror-filled “No Man’s Land” — drones have proven to be an extremely useful and deadly tool. Both sides are using drones equipped with cameras or other sensors that offer a livestream that can be watched on a laptop or digital tablet to scout out the enemy and coordinate attacks from afar.
Drones have played an important role in adjusting artillery fire and confirming that targets were hit or destroyed. They’re an eye in the sky on the battlefield in Ukraine that’s making artillery even deadlier.
As fighting rages in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Russian forces near the city of Bakhmut are said to be exhausted. Ukrainian troops rely on their air reconnaissance. A drone unit known as The Wings of Madyar provides real-time information to Ukrainian artillery batteries. pic.twitter.com/xJhysmsxIb
“Unmanned systems have been used in greater and greater numbers in conflicts over the last decade, but the Ukraine war took it to a new level. But it is not just about the numbers, but the type of war. Up to last year, there was an active debate as to whether drones could play a role in conventional war, instead of just missions like Afghanistan,” P.W. Singer, a leading expert on modern warfare and senior fellow at the New America think tank in Washington, told Insider.
“That debate is now over,” Singer added.
‘The future of warfare’
Ukrainian servicemen fly a drone on the outskirts of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine on December 30, 2022.Sameer Al-Doumy/Getty Images
Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, have been used in various capacities in warfare for generations. Some researcherspoint to Austria’s use of pilotless hot-air balloons to bomb Venice in 1849 as the first example.
The US began developing unmanned aircraft as far back as World War I. Remotely piloted aircraft were used for surveillance during the Cold War, and unmanned technology gradually advanced over the 20th century. By the late 1990s, Predator drones were being used by the US and NATO for reconnaissance missions in the Kosovo War.
But it was the onset of the war on terror that saw the use of drones rise exponentially and move away from primarily being employed for reconnaissance. In the years since the 9/11 terror attacks, the US military and CIA have used drones for the surveillance and targeted killings of suspected terrorists in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
Armed drones have also been used in other conflicts, including in fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Drones have become increasingly attractive to militaries worldwide as the technology has advanced and gotten cheaper. These systems can gather intelligence and execute missions that might otherwise risk the life of a pilot and cost less than building a traditional air force.
The war in Ukraine, however, marks the first time that we’ve seen drones employed in a conflict involving major powers and modern armies on both sides and used so “extensively and over an extended period of time,” Cancian said.
Ukraine has in many ways emerged as a guinea pig for drone warfare. A wide array of unmanned aerial vehicles produced everywhere from the US to China and from Turkey to Iran have been used in battle.
In the early days of the fighting, Ukraine saw success using the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone to rain hell from above on key Russian assets like armored vehicles. A Bayraktar — which has a range of 186 miles, is the size of a small plane, and is capable of carrying laser-guided bombs — was involved in the attack that sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone has been a key instrument used by the Ukrainian military to repel Russian forces.Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Later in the war, Russia began launching swarms of Iranian-made Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones, striking targets across Ukraine. The Shahed-136 is a loitering munition — designed to linger or loiter before locating a target and crashing into it. It’s less than 12 feet long, can fly at 115 mph, contains an explosive warhead in its nose, and explodes on impact. These single-use drones are relatively cheap ($20,000 each) and have been used by Russia to destroy vital civilian infrastructure and make life even harder for Ukrainians.
The US has also provided Ukraine with hundreds of Switchblade drones, a type of loitering munition or kamikaze drone, which can be carried in backpacks. Switchblades can be used to strike infantry, armor, and artillery.
“We’re seeing the first use of swarm drones with what have been called ‘kamikaze’ drones, these Iranian Shahed-136s and all of their various relatives — that’s new,” Cancian said, adding, “A lot of people have pointed to that as the future of warfare.”
Ukraine’s Air Force says it shot down six of Russia’s Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and one Su-25 in the south. But two Shahed-136 drones did strike a building in Odesa, destroying it and killing one person. Video below shows the drones over the city. pic.twitter.com/mLR4d2H0kd
Singer said the Russian military’s use of drones to strike civilian targets sets a dangerous precedent for the future of war.
“It is a parallel to the German use of V-1 missiles towards the end of World War II,” he said. “A nation hoping a new technology will make up for its losses on the battlefield, by terrorizing the home-front.”
Firefighters work after a drone attack on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.Roman Hrytsyna/Associated Press
‘They’re always being watched’
The most prevalent drone on the battlefield in Ukraine can fit in your hand. Indeed, military analysts have been particularly surprised by the heavy reliance on small civilian or commercial drones such as the Chinese-made DJI Mavic 3, which cost less than $3,000 online.
These drones are being used for reconnaissance but have also been weaponized, with soldiers rigging them with improvised explosive devices or grenades.
“Both Ukraine and Russia are now using them in literally hundreds. Every small infantry unit now has one or more flying for them. It was not something that militaries had been training for,” Singer said of the use of cheap commercial drones in Ukraine.
Drones are not necessarily the most important or impactful tool being used in Ukraine, but they’re making other weapons more accurate.
“If you wanted to seek out enemy positions in the past, you would have had to send out special forces units… and you might have lost some troops,” Marina Miron, a defense researcher at Kings College London, told BBC News in early January. “Now, all you’re risking is a drone,” Miron added.
The surveillance element has been significant, with troops on the front line in Ukraine reporting that drones are “always around,” Cancian said, adding, “They’re always being watched.”
A Ukrainian serviceman poses with a drone on the outskirts of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine on December 30, 2022.Sameer Al-Doumy/Getty ImagesA Ukrainian serviceman shoots at a Russian drone with an assault rifle from a trench at the front line east of Kharkiv on March 31, 2022.Fadel Senna/Getty Images
“We’ve had overhead reconnaissance for a long time, but the scale of it is new and also the ability to connect that with fire support,” Cancian said. “It’s one thing to get a picture of a target and be able to do something about it 24 or 48 hours later, as opposed to being able to do something in 10 minutes.”
Drones have significantly shortened the so-called kill chain, Cancian explained, helping troops swiftly locate targets and provide coordinates for artillery. “Kill chain” is a military phrase or concept referring to the stages of an attack, from identifying a target to engaging it and assessing the damages.
The war in Ukraine has shown that drones are “as essential” in battle as artillery or tanks, Singer said, adding that “drones have arguably been most valuable not in launching their own missiles, but in making Ukrainian artillery so lethal, in pinpointing their fires.”
Native Hawaiians flock to Las Vegas for affordable living
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher – January 22, 2023
Doreen Hall Vann walks with son Zaiden after tryouts for a club baseball team Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. In 2019 Vann moved from Hawaii to Las Vegas to be closer to her daughter in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Locher)Doreen Hall Vann wathes her son Zaiden during tryouts for a club baseball team Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. In 2019 Vann moved from Hawaii to Las Vegas to be closer to her daughter in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Locher)
KAPOLEI, Hawaii (AP) — Kona Purdy never wanted to live anywhere but Hawaii. As a Native Hawaiian, he wanted his children to grow up like he did: rooted in their culture, and nourished by the mountains and ocean.
But raising a family in Hawaii meant squeezing nine people into a four-bedroom house — rented with extended family — in Waipahu, a Honolulu suburb. It felt cramped, but the Purdys accepted that this was the price to survive in their homeland.
“We stuffed ourselves into one room,” Purdy said of his four-member family’s living arrangements.
Their share of the monthly rent was $2,300. When rent increased, the Purdys realized that they could no longer afford to live in Hawaii.
“I was so busy working, trying to make ends meet,” he said. “We never took our kids out to the beach. We didn’t go hiking.”
It’s increasingly common for Hawaii residents to be priced out of the Aloha State, where the median price for a single-family home topped $900,000 during the pandemic. On Oahu, the most populous island and where Honolulu is, the median price is more than $1 million.
Many residents work in low-wage service jobs, and the financial strain is especially significant for Hawaii’s Indigenous people. A state analysis published last year showed that a single person working 40 hours a week would need to earn $18 an hour to pay for housing and other necessities in Hawaii, but the state minimum wage is currently $12 an hour.
Many, like the Purdys, have headed to Las Vegas.
According to 2021 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the biggest growth of Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander populations was in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, and Sacramento County, California. The biggest decline of Native Hawaiian residents was in Honolulu.
Hawaii residents are spending on average 42.06% of their income on rent, which is the highest of any state, according to a Forbes Home analysis. California ranks second, but at a much smaller proportion of income going toward rent: 28.47%.
Estimates from the American Community Survey showed that in 2011, there were about 296,400 Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and about 221,600 on the continental U.S. Just a decade later, those numbers flipped. In 2021, there were about 309,800 Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and about 370,000 in other states.
“There’s no Hawaii without Hawaiians,” said Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters, who is Native Hawaiian. His five siblings have all moved to the continental U.S. “That’s just incredibly sad to me, that Hawaiians cannot afford to live in Hawaii.”
Las Vegas was desirable to the Purdys because it’s a popular vacation destination for Hawaii residents, which meant family would likely visit often. Also, the cost of living is significantly lower.
So in 2017, they uprooted their family and moved to Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb in Clark County, where they could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment for $1,000 a month.
Far from Hawaii’s shores, they felt like “fish out of water,” Purdy said.
“So it’s real ‘eha,’” Purdy said, using the Hawaiian word for painful, “because you do get disconnected from the land, which we’re so connected to, being born and raised here.”
But even though they were nearly 3,000 miles from home, Hawaiian culture was all around them. Thanks to many other transplants, the Las Vegas area is full of restaurants catering to Hawaiian taste and cultural events expressing Hawaiian pride.
There’s even a real estate brokerage that helps families relocate from the islands — run by mostly former Hawaii residents.
“You go into any store in any part of the valley and you’ll find someone from Hawaii working there or shopping there,” Purdy said.
A three-bedroom home priced at $300,000 in a Las Vegas suburb would be $1.2 million in Honolulu, said Terry Nacion, a Native Hawaiian realtor. She left Hawaii for Las Vegas in 2003 because home ownership felt unattainable. “Back home, you either had to have your home passed down to you or you have to work four jobs,” she said.
A few months after they moved, about 20 other relatives, including Purdy’s mother, uncle and sister Lindsay Villarimo, followed them.
“Over time, it just became exhausting trying to make ends meet,” said Villarimo. “It’s heartbreaking that’s the choice we make. The majority of us, I think we just got priced out of home.” When Villarimo and her family decided to move to Nevada, her husband Henry had never even left Hawaii.
Las Vegas’ affordability was “liberating,” she said. With cheaper rent and groceries, and no state income tax, she could stretch her paycheck further.
“We were just living it up in the dollar store,” she said. In Hawaii, that type of store doesn’t exist.
For Hawaii residents, the draw to Las Vegas can all be traced back to a downtown hotel that opened in 1975, author Dennis M. Ogawa said.
The hotel originally catered to Californians, but he struggled to get business. Reminded of gambling’s popularity in Hawaii, it shifted focus to visitors from the islands. “Aloha Spoken Here” became the hotel’s slogan.
In 2019, Doreen Hall Vann decided to move to Las Vegas to be closer to her daughter, who had moved to Seattle for more job opportunities.
On Facebook, she gushed about how much cheaper everything was, from bread to rent. But she started to worry about staying connected to her culture while living far from home, especially because she uprooted her son, who was then 6 years old, from his Hawaiian language immersion school.
“It’s just like when you give birth and you cut your umbilical cord. For us Native Hawaiians, our ‘piko’ is the source of life,” Hall Vann said, using the Hawaiian word for navel or umbilical cord. “When we move off island … we are disconnected because we’re not on our land anymore.”
But in her new home, she found she had more time and less stress.
“I was so busy back home trying to make a living,” she said. “When I moved to Vegas, it really put a pause in my life and I could see things a lot clearer.”
That allowed her to get involved in the Las Vegas Hawaiian Civic Club, where she now teaches Hawaiian.
“We have our people, our home, our community is thriving,” she said.
In Las Vegas, Purdy’s children began to learn hula and the family enjoyed “hoolaulea,” cultural festivals that were bigger than celebrations back in Hawaii.
But in August 2021, exactly four years after leaving Hawaii, the Purdys moved back home.
Purdy said that his wife wanted to take care of her mother, who began showing signs of dementia. Their daughter also got accepted to Kamehameha Schools, a highly selective and relatively affordable private school system that gives admissions preference to students with Hawaiian ancestry.
The family moved to Kapolei, a Honolulu suburb not far from where they once lived, to share a five-bedroom house with their extended family. Now that the Purdys have three children, they rent two of the bedrooms.
Purdy is trying to find time to take his kids to hula lessons. Since moving back, the family has only been to the beach once.
“It’s a grind, it’s hard, it’s really expensive,” he said. “But I also feel like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be right now.”
‘I had no choice’: For many homeless people, O’Hare has become a nighttime refuge
Adriana Pérez, Chicago Tribune – January 22, 2023
Norbert Pikula, 77, had been sleeping on a friend’s sofa every night for the last six months. But when his friend was admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago, Pikula’s fragile world turned upside down and he had nowhere to sleep.
So now he uses his senior citizen CTA pass to ride to O’Hare International Airport and spend the night there. His situation mirrors that of countless other homeless people who sleep at the airport to stay warm and safe during the winter.
“I had no choice,” Pikula told the Tribune on Thursday. He was on his way to open a bank account after eating his usual weekday lunch at Providence Soup Kitchen in St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church.
According to a report from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, an estimated 65,611 people experienced homelessness in Chicago in 2020, an estimate different from that offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because it takes into account people living doubled up or temporarily staying with others.
And while sheltering at the airport isn’t new, said Jessica Dubuar, director of health and specialty services of Haymarket Center, which has conducted outreach operations out of O’Hare to address homelessness in public transportation since 1990, the steadily increasing number of people doing it is.
“We saw over 600 unique individuals that we engaged with. We also had almost 14,000 encounters with them throughout the calendar year,” she said. Compared with previous years, that number illustrates an uptick: In 2021, there were 11,196 recorded encounters. In 2020 — the beginning of the pandemic — saw 12,270 encounters. In 2019, they recorded 9,975 encounters. In 2018, it was 8,132.
“This is not a new situation at the airport. It’s one that many organizations and city departments have been aware of and have been devoting resources to for 30 plus years,” Dubuar said. “As the years have gone on, we definitely see a pattern of the number of folks who are coming to the airport — I would even just call it a spike in the numbers of folks that we’re seeing at the airport when the weather turns cold.”
Advocates offer a couple of reasons for why more people are seeking shelter at O’Hare. Sarah Boone of the Chicago Housing Initiative who created a GoFundMe to help Pikula raise money, said there are three realities facing the homeless population right now: the number of beds in homeless shelters was decreased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and never restored, migrants who have recently arrived in Chicago are increasingly using homeless shelters as well, and homeless shelters across the city are overwhelmed.
And on the ground at O’Hare, workers offer another possible explanation. Jessy Pearl, a Transportation Security Administration agent who works at the airport, said she has noticed an uptick in the homeless population sheltering there since Delta Air Lines moved out of Terminal 2 and into Terminal 5.
“There’s more homeless people — more activity is concentrated at Terminal 2, since there’s less passenger traffic,” especially in the early afternoon, Pearl told the Tribune. “I’ve worked at the airport long enough to know that more homeless people have been around the CTA and arrivals area ever since the pandemic started. More so lately, since Delta moved to Terminal 5.”
According to a statement by the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA), which manages O’Hare, the department is “aware of the increasing population of unsheltered individuals at O’Hare International Airport. It’s a common occurrence at this airport and airports nationwide when temperatures drop in the winter months. Airport leadership and staff on the ground continue collaboration with the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) and their delegate agencies to provide 24/7 outreach to unsheltered residents at O’Hare.
“Outreach professionals engage with individuals experiencing homelessness at O’Hare and conduct needs assessments. If the individual chooses to accept assistance, outreach professionals connect them with appropriate services and shelters, including necessary referrals and transportation. The CDA is committed to working with fellow city departments and community partners to support those in need and connect them with all available resources in Chicago.”
Pikula has been sleeping at the airport for the last two weeks or so, said Boone. And he’s been carrying around his belongings all day as he moves around the city. “I think it’s wearing on him,” she added.
Boone said she met Pikula at Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Ukrainian Village where free food is offered on Saturdays. Her organization shows up to soup kitchens and places where there’s free food to connect homeless people with necessary services in the city and tend to their needs.
“I tried to get him to go to the hospital across the street, because you can go to the ER to call the shelters. And he didn’t want to do that because the wait is so long,” Boone said. “So we tried calling 311. And he kind of just said he’d prefer to be at the airport than at the shelters. So then I went home and I just thought about it. And I was like, we should do a GoFundMe. I’ve never done this before. But what if it works?”
Pikula said he is looking for a more permanent housing situation than couch surfing or spending nights at O’Hare. He’s hoping to find a studio or one-bedroom apartment in Wicker Park, Logan Square, Avondale or Garfield Park. That’s where his friends from the soup kitchens he visits live, so he wants to be close by.
A Polish American who grew up in Chicago, Pikula previously worked as a baker and security guard. He is on the waiting list for senior Chicago Housing Authority housing and subsidized Catholic Charities senior apartments. So far, he has had no luck finding a place to live.
During the pandemic, many homeless people turned to the CTA for shelter, and service providers set up at the Forest Park Blue Line station. But as the effects of the pandemic continue to limit housing, needs at the other end of the line also became evident.
Off the Blue Line O’Hare stop, to the left, a sign for the Haymarket Center O’Hare Outreach sticks out of the wall. A man was waiting to go in Thursday morning as he charged his cellphone.
The program assists homeless clients and passengers seeking shelter at the airport. It also approaches issues regarding alcohol and substance abuse, housing and income. Dubuar described what a client may find in the 24/7 office at O’Hare.
“We have a number of resources available on site from, food and coffee, water, hand sanitizer, masks … those things. We also have clothing available, hygiene products and a few other things,” she said. “What we’ll also do is invite people to come in and sit down and talk to us. And we do a small assessment with them, exploring all sorts of things from health care, mental health care, substance use, benefits and IDs and all of those things.”
The O’Hare Outreach program is funded by the Chicago Department of Aviation and carried out in cooperation with the Department of Family Support Services and a host of other community partners, such as shelter providers, substance use treatment providers and — importantly — housing programs.
“The complexity of the (needs of) folks we’re seeing has increased and, (in) the number of encounters, that’s really where you see that reflected,” Dubuar said. “This isn’t just a ‘somebody needs a sandwich today’ and that’s it, that’s all they needed. Because I think that we have folks, their needs are complex and navigating through these systems is hard and they need as much support as they can possibly get.”
While Dubuar couldn’t confirm whether there is a more concentrated homeless population in specific airport terminals, she said it’s possible that changes in the airport complex layout influence where homeless people spend their time.
“Individuals who come to the airport for shelter do learn the system and do see when there are construction projects or changes to how the space is being monitored with our partners from CPD and the Department of Aviation,” she said. “And so it is it is highly possible that there are going to be some folks who are visible because certain areas are under construction or maybe not being monitored as much as possible.”
On Friday morning, as the sun rose, a few scattered people in O’Hare’s Terminal 2 rustled in their sleep. They were slowly waking up. Some of them might have had canceled or delayed flights. Others, though, were homeless and had sought a warm place to spend the night.
A police officer approached a person who was lying by the windows in the arrivals area of Terminal 2. He asked if they were OK. “Just try not to fall sleep,” he said. “Stay awake.”
Pikula and other homeless people will likely keep searching for a more stable situation than sleeping at the airport every night. Even as they seek support services, though, continuing to sleep at the airport seems, in Pikula’s words, the only option in terms of surviving cold winter nights.
“I’ll be honest with you, my life has not been rosy,” Pikula said. “It’s been a fighting life.”
It’s hard to say how long it takes, on average, for a homeless person in Chicago to find stable housing, Dubuar said.
“As with most social services, benefits and resources, it’s about eligibility and availability,” she said. “Sometimes it’s a matter of the stars aligning.”
Military probing whether cancers linked to nuclear silo work
Tara Copp – January 22, 2023
FILE – An inert Minuteman III missile is seen in a training launch tube at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., June 25, 2014. Nine military officers who had worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos, have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are “indications” the disease may be linked to their service, according to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press. One of the officers has died. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine military officers who had worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are “indications” the disease may be linked to their service, according to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press. One of the officers has died.
All of the officers, known as missileers, were assigned as many as 25 years ago to Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos. The nine officers were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a January briefing by U.S. Space Force Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck.
Missileers ride caged elevators deep underground into a small operations bunker encased in a thick wall of concrete and steel. They remain there sometimes for days, ready to turn the launch keys if ordered to by the president.
“There are indications of a possible association between cancer and missile combat crew service at Malmstrom AFB,” Sebeck said in slides presented to his Space Force unit this month. The “disproportionate number of missileers presenting with cancer, specifically lymphoma” was concerning, he said.
Sebeck declined to comment when contacted by email by the AP on Saturday, saying the slides were “predecisional.” In the slides, he said the issue was important to the Space Force because as many as 455 former missileers are now serving as Space Force officers, including at least four of the nine identified in the slides.
In a statement to the AP, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said that “senior leaders are aware of the concerns raised about the possible association of cancer related to missile combat crew members at Malmstrom AFB.”
Stefanek added: “The information in this briefing has been shared with the Department of the Air Force surgeon general and our medical professionals are working to gather data and understand more.”
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which according to the American Cancer Society affects an estimated 19 out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. annually, is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.
For comparison, only about 3,300 troops are based at Malmstrom at a time, and only about 400 of those are assigned either as missileers or as support for those operators. It is one of three bases in the U.S. that operate a total of 400 siloed Minutemen III ICBMs, including fields at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.
The median age for adult non-Hodgkin lymphoma is 67, according to the National Institutes of Health. The former missileers affected are far younger. Officers are often in their 20s when they are assigned duty watch; the officer who died, who was not identified, was a Space Force officer assigned to Schreiver Space Force Base in Colorado with the rank of major, a rank typically achieved in a service member’s 30s. Two of the others are in the same Space Force unit with the rank of lieutenant colonel, which is typically reached in a service member’s early 40s.
It’s not the first time the military has been alerted to multiple cancer cases at Malmstrom. In 2001 the Air Force Institute for Operational Health investigated the base after 14 cancers of various types were reported among missileers who had served there, including two cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
But the review found the base was environmentally safe and that “sometimes illnesses tend to occur by chance alone.” The report lamented that the list of those diagnosed had been collected because it “perpetuates the level of concern.”
The discovery of new cases comes as the U.S. government has shown more openness to acknowledging the environmental hazards, or toxic exposures, troops may face while serving.
In her statement to the AP, Air Force spokeswoman Stefanek said, “We are heartbroken for all who have lost loved ones or are currently facing cancer of any kind.”
It was not clear whether some of the nine officers identified in the January briefing slides, whose diagnoses occurred between 1997 and 2007, overlap some of the cases identified in the Air Force’s 2001 investigation. It’s also not known if there were similar reports of cancers at other nuclear silo bases or whether that is being investigated by the Air Force.
“Missileers have always been concerned about known hazards, such as exposure to chemicals, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, lead and other hazardous material in the work environment,” Sebeck said in the January slides. “All missileers should be screened and tracked for the rest of their lives.”
Last year President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, which greatly expanded the the types of illnesses and toxic exposures that would be considered presumptive — meaning a service member or veterans would not face an uphill battle to convince the government that the injury was tied to their military service in order to received covered care.
Doctors Say This One Habit Can Help You Sleep Better And Boost Your Energy
Faith Geiger – January 22, 2023
woman waking up and stretching feeling energized
Proper rest is so important for your overall health. From brain performance to mood and even gut health, sleep plays a role in so many vital components of wellness—which is why it’s so essential to ensure you’re getting the best, most restful sleep possible each night. And as it turns out, there may be one missing piece you’re overlooking if you’re struggling to fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling energized. Believe it or not, it has to do with your morning routine.
That’s right: we spoke Dan Ford, sleep psychologist from The Better Sleep Clinic, to learn more about the best habits to improve sleep and energy throughout the day, and he told us that waking up at the same time each morning is crucial. Your wake-up time plays a key role in regulating your circadian rhythm and releasing important hormones for sleep. Learn more below!
When you think about good sleep habits, you may think primarily about what you do before you go to bed–i.e. shutting down electronics, unwinding, drinking a relaxing tea, etc. And while all of these things are definitely great habits to promote better sleep, Dr. Ford says that a good wakeup routine can also be a gamechanger. “While every second internet article recommends having a go to sleep routine, the irony is that the most important habit in all of sleep medicine is to get up at the same time every day and try not to vary this by more than 1 hour,” he says. Who knew?!
Dr. Ford tells us that waking up at the same time every day is beneficial for two reasons. “First, when you get up at the same time this helps to anchor your circadian rhythm or body clock,” he explains. This is the “master clock” in your brain that takes cues from the amount of light your body gets in order to regulate the clocks in your body. From there, your body uses these “clocks” to know when to release hormones, as well as when to carry out a number of other important processes. And it’s extremely important to your sleep cycle that you keep these clocks on track. “When you shift your wake-up time, you change the light dark cycle signals to your body clock, throw it out of sync, and the result is similar to jet lag–symptoms of fatigue, nausea, lack of energy etc,” Dr. Ford says. That means that, believe it or not, sleeping in and waking up at a later time than your body is used to could actually cause you to have less energy throughout the day.
But it isn’t just your energy levels that a consistent wake-up time can improve. It can also help you get a better sleep at night. “The reason for this is that the length of time you are awake determines the build-up of the chemical adenosine in your body,” Dr. Ford goes on. “Adenosine build up influences how sleepy you feel and how deep you sleep at night.” And the longer you’re awake, the more adenosine you’re able to build up–and the easier it will be to fall asleep and stay asleep. Alternatively, if you sleep in to try to “catch up on sleep,” your day will be shorter than usual, and you’ll likely have trouble falling asleep–which means you’ll also have less energy in the morning. “Most adults will need around 16-17 hours of wakeful activity before they have sufficient adenosine build up to sleep for a solid 7 hours (the healthiest amount of sleep for an adult),” Dr. Ford notes.
So, as it turns out, a restful, energizing sleep is about more than going to bed at a decent time and having a good relaxation routine. Your morning can make a big difference, too. So be sure to set that alarm clock–and don’t hit the snooze button too many times!
Western Kansas farmers are pushing to save the Ogallala Aquifer before it’s too late
David Condos – January 22, 2023
David Condos/Kansas News Service
Travis Leonard had seen all the signs.
Plummeting water levels. Clogged sprayer nozzles. Then as drought parched southwest Kansas this fall, the well next to his farmhouse in Haskell County began pumping up a muck of sand instead of clear water.
After more than six decades of irrigating the family’s grain field, he shut the well down for the last time.
“I just took a deep breath,” Leonard said, “knowing this is the last crop that I’m going to have here that has water on it.”
Leonard remembers when the underground water supply seemed endless. When he took over the farm 16 years ago, it had more than a dozen irrigation wells pumping. Today, it’s down to three.
A decade or two from now, he figures, his area won’t have any irrigation wells left.
“We didn’t have any idea when it was going to end, but that day is coming,” Leonard said. “It will happen to everybody eventually.”
Fly over these dry plains and you won’t see many rushing rivers or glimmering lakes. You’ll see circles. Mile after mile of green geometric crop fields spun into the near-desert landscape by wells that tap water hidden beneath the surface and the center pivot irrigation sprayers splayed around them.
But across western Kansas, more and more wells sit abandoned as underground water levels drop and drop some more. Vast swaths of the region have seen more than half of their water disappear since the dawn of irrigation. Wallace County on the Colorado state line has lost roughly 80%.
The subterranean reservoirs of the sprawling Ogallala Aquifer make life possible here — from powering the multibillion-dollar agricultural economy to filling up cups at the kitchen sink.
But after decades of large-scale crop irrigation, that water is running out. And now farmers and state leaders struggle to agree on how to save the future of life in western Kansas without choking the livelihoods of the people who live here.
The good news? There’s still time. After all, an aquifer that’s half-empty is also half-full.
Even with all the depletion, billions and billions of gallons remain stored away in the Ogallala’s craggy layers of saturated rock. And a new effort in west-central Kansas aims to save more of what’s left.
Katie Durham, who leads that groundwater management district, said it’s not too late to preserve the aquifer — and the western Kansas farms, businesses and communities that depend on it — for future generations.
But only if big changes start now.
“This is do or die,” Durham said. “Water is everything out here. … We would not be here without it.”
Now or never
In a wood-paneled room at the Scott County fairgrounds, dozens of farmers gather for the first public hearing to discuss this latest effort in west-central Kansas. It’s called a local enhanced management area, or LEMA, and it’s been nearly a decade in the making.
The plan is to get farmers to cut irrigation by an average of 10% over the next five years in four western Kansas counties — Wallace, Greeley, Scott and Lane. Those counties have been some of the hardest hit by aquifer declines, losing nearly two-thirds of their water since irrigation began.
And the flow of moisture that’s trickling back down to refill the aquifer is a drop in the bucket. Across the four counties, the amount of water pumped up is nearly 10 times the amount that seeps back underground from rain and snow.
Any change is hard, Durham said, and discussions about using less water in a place with so little precipitation are bound to be prickly. But she said the alternative — a depleted aquifer that can’t support any irrigation — would essentially end life in western Kansas as we know it.
Residents and businesses leaving town. Empty storefronts on Main Street.
“It would be devastating,” Durham said. “You would see the exact thing that we’re trying to prevent.”
The LEMA plan would customize each farmer’s water limits on a case-by-case basis. Those who have been pumping the most would need to cut irrigation by up to 25%. Others who have been voluntarily conserving the most water already might not need to make any changes.
Data from the Kansas Geological Survey shows that the four counties would need to reduce pumping by one-third to stop the aquifer’s depletion over the next decade. In drought conditions like we’re seeing now, they would need to cut pumping by half.
So trimming irrigation by 10% isn’t going to solve the problem permanently. But, Durham said, it’s a start. If this plan can double the aquifer’s lifespan, that could mean it’s still around for the grandchildren of the people who make those changes today.
“This is a huge and significant step,” Durham said, “toward changing what this part of western Kansas could look like in 50 years.”
If the state approves the plan after its second public hearing in early February, it would likely go into effect from the beginning of this year through 2027. Farmers would be able to use their five-year water allotment as they wish, meaning they could pump extra during a dry year as long as they irrigate less in a subsequent year to even things out.
The key to this LEMA program is putting water conservation decisions in the hands of a local board, rather than the state. But that doesn’t mean it’s all kumbaya.
Water has long been a point of contention in dry western Kansas. That’s because water means money. Even as wells run out, pumping the aquifer continues to prop up the regional economy — from corn and wheat growers to irrigation equipment dealers to cattle feedlots.
The groundwater district proposing the new LEMA is the smallest in western Kansas, but it still covers more than one million acres and nearly 2,000 wells. With that many voices in the discussion, it can be a challenge to get everyone on board.
Many irrigators remain wary of any program that might force them to use less water.
Lane County farmer Camron Shay came to the hearing with his own concerns about how the limits could be fair for everyone across a region that has so much diversity in how much water has been used, how much water is needed to nurture a crop and how much water is left.
“It can’t just be done by a bunch of activists,” Shay said, “who come in and don’t know what they’re talking about and strong arm it and do radical things.”
But the locally driven approach of the LEMA may help ease those fears. That was the point of the public hearing and the series of community meetings that came before. After getting some of his questions answered, Shay said, he walked away feeling better about the plan.
“We all know that we have a groundwater problem,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s a good solution for it, but these guys look like they’re at least trying.”
Proof of concept
Fortunately, farmers in the four counties don’t have to look far to find examples of how these irrigation limits work in the real world.
The state’s first LEMA began in a small portion of northwest Kansas a decade ago. The plan was to reduce irrigation by 20%. When the results came in, farmers ended up cutting pumping by nearly one-third. And some of those farmers actually saw profits go upas they spent less to pump water and buy seed and fertilizer.
That initial LEMA was deemed so successful that a similar plan to cover parts of 10 northwest Kansas counties went into effect five years ago — although that expansion faced a lawsuit from dozens of irrigators who said it infringed on their water rights — and was recently renewed for another five years.
And right next to where the new limits are proposed, Wichita County started its own LEMA two years ago to cut irrigation by 25%.
That’s where Brian Bauck sat in a combine harvesting his last cornfield of the year.
Most of his fields are now non-irrigated, or dryland, and the sections that see a center pivot get less water than they did decades ago. So the past year of drought has left its mark.
As he makes one last pass with his combine, its wide green header has to skim the ground to reach the rows of short corn plants out the front window. It scoops up its fair share of dry tumbleweeds that have blown in with the punishing winds, too.
But thanks to new drought-tolerant seed varieties and farming practices that conserve soil and moisture, he had crops to harvest on just about every acre this season.
“It feels great,” Bauck said. “Anytime you can get something, even though it may not be what you wanted, tells you that you’re probably doing a few things right.”
So far, Wichita County’s irrigation restrictions appear to be making a dent in depletion. Countywide aquifer declines averaged 0.54 feet per year from 2010 to 2017, according to Kansas Geological Survey data. But from 2018 to 2021, the county lost an average of 0.09 feet per year. As the programs produce more real-world data, it might reassure crop growers in neighboring areas that irrigation reductions are worth a shot.
Farmers are naturally independent thinkers, Bauck said, so it’s always a challenge when somebody comes in and tries to tell them how to do their jobs. He used to be skeptical about irrigation cuts too.
And changing farmers’ mindsets about water use isn’t a simple task because their livelihoods are at stake. In a dry year like this, turning the sprayer on could make the difference between growing some crops or none at all.
But, he said, the golden kernels filling his grain tank prove that farming with less irrigation can work in western Kansas, even in a historically dry season.
It shows that a future with less water may not be painless, but it is possible. And in western Kansas, he said, it’s a matter of survival.
“Regardless of whether somebody likes it or not,” Bauck said, “we’ve got to do something in order to extend the life of this aquifer, or it’s not gonna be there.”
Gallons and dollars
Another reason for urgency? Climate change. As the H2O buffet dwindles down, Kansas heats up.
With dry western weather shifting eastward, more of the state will likely face a future with worse droughts and less precipitation — a process called aridification.
Vaishali Sharda, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at Kansas State University, studies how a drier, hotter future threatens the state’s farms. Aridification paired with a declining aquifer, she said, sets up a potential time bomb for western Kansas agriculture.
“There is no guessing,” Sharda said. “If we continue irrigating at the pace at which we have done in the past, the Ogallala won’t be able to sustain it.”
Even if irrigators could save a relatively small percentage of the water they’ve been using, the impact could be enormous — simply because of how many gallons we’re talking about.
In the four counties with the proposed LEMA, for instance, 94% of all water used goes to irrigate crops.
Statewide, roughly three-fourths of all water used in Kansas comes from the High Plains aquifer, and nearly all of that goes to irrigation. Over the course of a year, that averages out to 2.5 billion gallons of groundwater used to water crops each day.
But finding consensus on new rules to curb aquifer use is an uphill climb when using that water is the foundation that virtually everything else in western Kansas is built on.
Take southwest Kansas. It has — and uses — the biggest chunk of the state’s aquifer. And its agriculture relies more on irrigation than anywhere else in Kansas. Cattle feedlots, meatpacking plants and dairy farms all depend on the corn feed that’s grown here.
District director Mark Rude expects conversations about irrigation limits — maybe even a new LEMA — to start back up in his district over the next few years. And the district recently began sending its irrigators detailed reports about their water use and comparing it to their neighbors in an attempt to get farmers to change their mindsets.
But even with more information about depletion and conservation than ever, he still believes his members aren’t ready for widespread irrigation cuts. Strict rules to save the aquifer don’t make sense, he said, if they come at the expense of the economy.
“To get growth,” Rude said, “you’ve got to have water.”
He’s exploring a plan to bring in water from the Missouri River — potentially flowing across the state in an aqueduct hundreds of miles long — to replace what’s lost in the Ogallala.
While the district hasn’t figured out how to make that plan’s $18 billion price tag financially feasible, he said, it might be the only way to keep the region’s industries — from corn to cattle to ethanol — booming for future decades.
Converting western Kansas to dryland farming may be sustainable, he said, but it would mean a smaller economy with fewer jobs and fewer people in a region where most counties already struggle with population decline.
The real question, he said, is what kind of economic future does western Kansas want to sustain?
“It’s important that we not forget that what we’re trying to preserve here is not only the community as a whole,” Rude said, “but the business strategy, the overall viability of that community.”
But whether or not a groundwater district or state entity decides to impose irrigation limits, farmers across western Kansas are already adjusting to the realities of a life with less water — because they have to.
Many have adopted smarter irrigation technology, such as soil moisture sensors and systems that customize irrigation rates across a field. Some have switched to crops that require less water than corn, such as cotton.
Others have stopped irrigating entirely on a majority of their acres. That’s the case for Leonard, the farmer with the dry well whose land lies within the southwest Kansas groundwater district.
The thought of leaving irrigation behind, he said, doesn’t have to be scary. In a way, it’s coming full circle.
When his great-grandfather started the Leonard farm, there wasn’t an irrigation well or center pivot in sight. And by the time he retires, Leonard expects his entire farm will return to its dryland roots.
“Life will go on,” Leonard said. “We’re still running a farm here. And it looks a little bit different than it used to but we’re still doing what we love.”
David Condos covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline
Adam Gabbatt – January 22, 2023
Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.
As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The situation means some hard decisions for pastors, who have to decide when a dwindling congregation is no longer sustainable. But it has also created a boom market for those wanting to buy churches, with former houses of worship now finding new life.
About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000 new churches opening, according to Lifeway Research. It was the first time the number of churches in the US hadn’t grown since the evangelical firm started studying the topic. With the pandemic speeding up a broader trend of Americans turning away from Christianity, researchers say the closures will only have accelerated.
“The closures, even for a temporary period of time, impacted a lot of churches. People breaking that habit of attending church means a lot of churches had to work hard to get people back to attending again,” said Scott McConnell, executive director at Lifeway Research.
“In the last three years, all signs are pointing to a continued pace of closures probably similar to 2019 or possibly higher, as there’s been a really rapid rise in American individuals who say they’re not religious.”
Protestant pastors reported that typical church attendance is only 85% of pre-pandemic levels, McConnell said, while research by the Survey Center on American Life and the University of Chicago found that in spring 2022 67% of Americans reported attending church at least once a year, compared with 75% before the pandemic.
But while Covid-19 may have accelerated the decline, there is a broader, long-running trend of people moving away from religion. In 2017 Lifeway surveyed young adults aged between 18 and 22 who had attended church regularly, for at least a year during high school. The firm found that seven out of 10 had stopped attending church regularly.
The younger generation just doesn’t feel like they’re being accepted in a church environment or some of their choices aren’t being accepted
Scott McConnell, Lifeway Research
Some of the reasons were “logistical”, McConnell said, as people moved away for college or started jobs which made it difficult to attend church.
“But some of the other answers are not so much logistics. One of the top answers was church members seem to be judgmental or hypocritical,” McConnell said.
“And so the younger generation just doesn’t feel like they’re being accepted in a church environment or some of their choices aren’t being accepted by those at church.”
About a quarter of the young adults who dropped out of church said they disagreed with their church’s stance on political and social issues, McConnell said.
A study by Pew Research found that the number of Americans who identified as Christian was 64% in 2020, with 30% of the US population being classed as “religiously unaffiliated”. About 6% of Americans identified with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
“Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of US adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’,” Pew wrote.
“This accelerating trend is reshaping the US religious landscape.”
In 1972 92% of Americans said they were Christian, Pew reported, but by 2070 that number will drop to below 50% – and the number of “religiously unaffiliated” Americans – or ‘nones’ will probably outnumber those adhering to Christianity.
Stephen Bullivant, author of Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America and professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University, said in the Christian world it had been a generational change.
While grandparents might have been regular churchgoers, their children would say they believe in God, but not go to church regularly. By the time millennials came round, they had little experience or relationship with churchgoing or religion.
In the Catholic church, in particular, the sexual abuse scandal may have driven away people who had only a tenuous connection to the faith.
“The other thing is the pandemic,” Bullivant said.
“A lot of people who were weakly attached, to suddenly have months of not going, they’re then thinking: ‘Well we don’t really need to go,’ or ‘We’ve found something else to do,’ or thinking: ‘It was hard enough dragging the kids along then, we really ought to start going again … next week.’”
Bullivant said most other countries saw a move away from religion earlier than the US, but the US had particular circumstances that slowed things down.
“Canada, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, the nones rise much earlier, the wake of the 1960s the baby boom generation, this kind of big, growing separation of kind of traditional Christian moral morality,” Bullivant said.
“What happens in America that I think dampens down the rise of the nones is the cold war. Because in America, unlike in Britain, there’s a very explicit kind of ‘Christian America’ versus godless communism framing, and to be non-religious is to be un-American.
“I think that dampens it down until you get the millennial generation for whom the cold war is just a vague memory from their early childhood.”
When people leave, congregations dwindle. And when that gets to a critical point, churches close. That has led to a flood of churches available for sale, and a range of opportunities for the once holy buildings.
Brian Dolehide, managing director of AD Advisors, a real estate company that specializes in church sales, said the last 10 years had seen a spike in sales. Frequently churches become housing or care homes, while some of the churches are bought by other churches wanting to expand.
But selling a church isn’t like selling a house or a business. Frequently the sellers want a buyer who plans to use the church for a good cause: Dolehide said he had recently sold a church in El Paso which is now used as housing for recent immigrants, and a convent in Pittsburgh which will be used as affordable housing.
“The faith-based transaction is so different in so many ways from the for-profit transaction. We’re not looking to profit from our transactions, we’re looking for the best use that reflects the last 50 years or 100 years use if possible.”
The closures aren’t spread evenly through the country.
In Texas, John Muzyka said there were fewer churches for sale than at any point in the last 15 years. He believes that is partly down to Texas’s response to the pandemic, where the governor allowed churches to open in May 2020, even when the number of new Covid cases was extremely high.
“I would say if a church stayed closed for more than a year, it was really hard to get those people to come back. When you were closed for three months, you were able to get over it,” Muzyka said.
That aside, closures are often due to a failure of churches to adapt.
“A church will go through a life cycle. At some point, maybe the congregation ages out, maybe they stop reaching young families.
“If the church ages and doesn’t reach young people, or the demographics change and they don’t figure out how to reach the new demographic, that church ends up closing.
“Yes, there’s financial pressures that will close a church, but oftentimes, it’s more that they didn’t figure out how to change when the community changed, or they didn’t have enough young people to continue the congregation for the next generation.”
Russia official warns West of destruction for arming Ukraine
Andrew Meldrum – January 22, 2023
A student of navy military school visits an exhibition of tanks and APCs of Ukrainian armed forces damaged and captured during the fighting at an exhibition at the museum “Breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad” in Kirovsk, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament warned Sunday that countries supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons risked their own destruction, a message that followed new pledges of armored vehicles, air defense systems and other equipment but not the battle tanks Kyiv requested.
Ukraine’s supporters pledged billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine during a meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday, though the new commitments were overshadowed by a failure to agree on Ukraine’s urgent request for German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks.
State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said that governments giving more powerful weapons to Ukraine could cause a “global tragedy that would destroy their countries.”
“Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” he said. “If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.”
Germany is one of the main donors of weapons to Ukraine, and it ordered a review of its Leopard 2 stocks in preparation for a possible green light. Nonetheless, the government in Berlin has shown caution at each step of increasing its commitments to Ukraine, a hesitancy seen as rooted in its history and political culture.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Sunday that he does not rule out sending Leclerc battle tanks to Ukraine and had asked his defense minister to “work on” the idea.
Macron spoke during a during a news conference in Paris with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as their countries commemorating the 60th anniversary of their post-World War II friendship treaty. In a joint declaration, France and Germany committed to their “unwavering support” for Ukraine.
France will make its tank decision based on three criteria, Macron said: that sharing the equipment does not lead to an escalation of the conflict, that it would provide efficient and workable help when training time is taken into account, and that it wouldn’t weaken France’s own military.
Scholz did not respond when asked about the Leopard 2 tanks Sunday, but stressed that his country already has made sizable military contributions to Ukraine.
“The U.S. is doing a lot, Germany is doing a lot, too,” he said. “We have constantly expanded our deliveries with very effective weapons that are already available today. And we have always coordinated all these decisions closely with our important allies and friends.”
Germany’s tentativeness has drawn criticism, particularly from Poland and the Baltic states, countries on NATO’s eastern flank that feel especially threatened by Russia’s renewed aggression.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that if Germany does not consent to transferring Leopard tanks to Ukraine, his country was prepared to build a “smaller coalition” of countries that would send theirs anyway.
“Almost a year had passed since the outbreak of war,” Morawiecki said in an interview with Polish state news agency PAP published Sunday. “Evidence of the Russian army’s war crimes can be seen on television and on YouTube. What more does Germany need to open its eyes and start to act in line with the potential of the German state?”
In Washington, two leading lawmakers urged the U.S. on Sunday to send some of its Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the interests of overcoming Germany’
“If we announced we were giving an Abrams tank, just one, that would unleash” the flow of tanks from Germany, Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC’s “This Week on Sunday.” “What I hear is that Germany’s waiting on us to take the lead.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also spoke up for the U.S. sending Abrams.
“If it requires our sending some Abrams tanks in order to unlock getting the Leopard tanks from Germany, from Poland, from other allies, I would support that,” Coons said.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said the U.S.-led meeting at the air base in Germany “left no doubt that our enemies will try to exhaust or better destroy us,” adding that “they have enough weapons” to achieve the purpose.
Medvedev, a former Russian president, warned on his messaging app channel that “in case of a protracted conflict,” Russia could seek to form a military alliance with “the nations that are fed up with the Americans and a pack of their castrated dogs.”
Ukraine is asking for more weapons as it anticipates Russia’s forces launching a new offensive in the spring.
Oleksii Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, warned that Russia may try to intensify its attacks in the south and in the east and to cut supply channels of Western weapons, while conquering Kyiv “remains the main dream” in President Vladimir Putin’s “fantasies,” he said.
In a column published by online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda. he described the Kremlin’s goal in the conflict as a “total and absolute genocide, a total war of destruction”
Among those calling for more arms for Ukraine was the former British prime minister, Boris Johnson, who made a surprise trip to Ukraine on Sunday. Johnson, who was pictured in the Kyiv region town of Borodyanka, said he traveled to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“This is the moment to double down and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job. The sooner Putin fails, the better for Ukraine and for the whole world,” Johnson said in a statement.
The last week was especially tragic for Ukraine even by the standards of a brutal war that has gone on for nearly a year, killing tens of thousands of people, uprooting millions more and creating vast destruction of Ukrainian cities.
A barrage of Russian missiles struck an apartment complex in the southeastern city of Dnipro on Jan. 14, killing at least 45 civilians. On Wednesday, a government helicopter crashed into a building housing a kindergarten in a suburb of Kyiv. Ukraine’s interior minister, other officials and a child on the ground were among the 14 people killed.
Zelenskyy vowed Sunday that Ukraine would ultimately prevail in the war.
“We are united because we are strong. We are strong because we are united,” the Ukrainian leader said in a video address as he marked Ukraine Unity Day, which commemorates when east and west Ukraine were united in 1919.
