The shed-like structures have appeared in vacant lots and scrubland in at least 10 states, from Florida to New York to Utah. But the trend is most apparent in northern California and the Pacific north-west. Some of America’s most liberal cities have in recent years shifted from banning and clearing unauthorized homeless settlements, based in part on the argument they were unfit for habitation, to sanctioning and even funding camps that skirt building regulations thanks to loopholes or special dispensation.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said new research shows policy makers should focus on long-term strategies for helping children, especially those in poverty, prepare for success in the labor market. A fundamental question is figuring out how to help those “who were not born into families with socioeconomic advantages,” Yellen said at a conference in Washington on Thursday.

Growing up in a hungry household in the first couple of years of life can hurt how well a child performs in school years later, according to a new study. An estimated 13.1 million children live in homes with insufficient food, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Many of those children experience hunger during their first few years of life, or their parents are hungry and stressed out about food during those years – the most crucial time for a child’s development.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg was just getting off a plane Wednesday evening, capping an encouraging trip to Washington, D.C., to discuss his innovative plan to use federal dollars to reduce homelessness, when President Donald Trump’s so-called “skinny budget” landed with a big, fat thud. In a level of cost-cutting not seen since the days of Ronald Reagan, the Trump administration has cruelly proposed to whack federal domestic spending by billions, including more than $6 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Even as officials say affordable housing is a top priority, San Diego County shed more subsidized rental housing over the past two decades than all but two other California counties. That’s according to a report released last week by the California Housing Partnership Corporation, which found the county lost 3,588 federal- and state-subsidized housing units between 1995 and 2016 — an average of more than three affordable rentals per week. That left 32,807 affordable housing units countywide, according to the San Francisco-based housing nonprofit.

Discussions of poverty in the United States often mistakenly focus on urban areas. While urban poverty is a unique challenge, rates of poverty have historically been higher in rural than urban areas. In fact, levels of rural poverty were often double those in urban areas throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Jennifer Garner, the actress and a member of the Board of Trustees of the nonprofit Save the Children, which promotes children’s rights, testified Thursday on Capitol Hill about the importance of early-childhood education for children who live in poverty. Appearing at a hearing of the House Appropriations labor, health and human services, education and related agencies subcommittee, Garner explained in moving testimony how living in poverty affects the ability of young children to learn.

Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides more evidence of just how many low-income households continue to struggle to put food on the table. According to a recent report from the USDA, an increasing share of individuals who receive benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, also known as food stamps, live in households where at least one person is working.

Politicians don’t like to talk about poverty. It’s not the kind of topic that allows them to walk away looking good. If anything, it makes them look like self-serving demagogues who have no idea what it means to be a public servant. In this polarized political climate, there could never be another president to step up like Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1964 and declare an “unconditional war” on poverty. The only thing we can expect out of Washington the next four years is a guarantee that more people will fall through the cracks. Responsibility for the nation’s poor will rest on the shoulders of city and state officials.

In the fall of 2015, Los Angeles city officials looked around at the homeless encampments that had sprawled across the landscape and declared a meaningless state of emergency. They had no blueprint for reducing homelessness, no plans to house thousands of homeless people and no money for any plans that might materialize.