Erin Gaede

Private equity firms keep trying to buy up #rural America — and rural residents are organizing to push back.

My dissertation has tracked this effort over the past year, examining the critical yet often overlooked role of manufactured homes in providing affordable housing, particularly in rural areas. This bill has the potential to strengthen protections for more than 138,000 residents across Wisconsin.

Housing Matters, Santa Cruz County’s largest #homelessness nonprofit, plans to close its day services, including public showers, bathrooms and a mailroom that served more than 1,700 people last year. My latest op-ed warns that this will push the growing working poor even closer to crisis.

It was a fantastic talk–thank you for coming!

Homelessness initiatives operate in an ecosystem built to respond more often than to prevent. Any shift in its order can cause a systematic short-circuit, especially in rural areas with already scarce resources.

Erin Gaede receives Dissertation Grant and Graduate Student Paper Award Erin Gaede received a 2025 Dissertation Grant from the National Institute of Social Sciences (NISS). This award recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in the social sciences. She also w...

Congratulations to Erin Gaede ‪‪@eringaede.bsky.social on receiving a 2025 Dissertation Grant from the National Institute of Social Sciences (NISS)! @socialsciencesinst.bsky.social ‬

UW report links housing stress to worsening health in Wisconsin Housing financial stress has been rising among Wisconsin residents, and it is tied to an increase in negative health outcomes, according to a report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension.  The re...

Research about housing and health by Erin Gaede @eringaede.bsky.social, Tessa Conroy @irpwisc.bsky.social, and Steven Deller @cdhauw.bsky.social made an appearance in The Badger Herald.

badgerherald.com/news/wiscons...

Research: Rising Housing Costs Hinder Community Well-Being | The Daily Yonder As housing costs continue to rise nationwide, particularly in the post Covid-19 period, the number of people experiencing housing financial stress,

Our latest in @dailyyonder.bsky.social on the relationship between #housing costs & community well-being.

Rural PBS stations could bear brunt of public media cuts. Just ask those in Kansas Congress is weighing legislation that enacts a series of cuts to already approved funding, including $1.1 billion for public media.

This week’s defunding of #NPR and PBS raises concerns about equity, as #rural areas—already underserved in media access—stand to be disproportionately affected.

The Unaffordable Care Act

‘We can’t do it all by ourselves’: As rural homelessness grows in Wisconsin, Republicans balk at boosting support Homeless service providers rally together as federal funding cuts loom and the governor’s $24 million proposal gets cut.

Thousands of Wisconsinites already face #housing insecurity.
Now, cuts to Medicaid, housing programs, and food assistance could push them into homelessness @wisconsinwatch.org wisconsinwatch.org/2025/07/wisc...

Thanks @urbanmilwaukee.com for highlighting our research on the vital connection between #housing affordability and health outcomes.

Family homesteads with tangled titles are contributing to rural America’s housing crisis Across the US, heirs’ property laws hamstring families that want to build housing or leverage their land for loans. One Alabama project shows how policy reform and savvy design can build a way…

Imagine your parents leave you and your siblings a share of land that’s been in your family for generations.

At any moment, another heir could sell their share, triggering a court-ordered sale that could force you off the land. Scholars explain “heirs’ property’” and its challenges:

Rising housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, new report says The report examined how rising housing costs intersect with health care. It found older homeowners were more likely than renters to prioritize paying housing expenses over medical care.

Rising housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, according to a new report from Erin Gaede @eringaede.bsky.social, Tessa Conroy @irpwisc.bsky.social, and Steven Deller @cdhauw.bsky.social of the Rural Livability Project.

www.wpr.org/news/rising-...

Congrats, Jess!!! 👏

Rising housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, new report says The report examined how rising housing costs intersect with health care. It found older homeowners were more likely than renters to prioritize paying housing expenses over medical care.

📢 📖 New research report from the Rural Livability Project, covered by Wisconsin Public Radio! In this report, Tessa Conroy, Steven Deller, and I find that rising #housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care.

Read more here 👇

www.wpr.org/news/rising-...

Medicaid cuts will harm rural Republican communities most Trump’s budget will actively harm the health and incomes of rural communities and Republican voters, well beyond those who themselves are enrolled in Medicaid.

Medicaid cuts don’t just hurt the low-income. As @mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social and I write, cutting Medicaid drives up hospitals’ uncompensated care, putting them at risk of closure & increasing by 20-40 mi the distance to rural hospitals. Hurts privately insured too. thehill.com/opinion/heal...

When I was pregnant with my first, I lived in a county that didn't have a hospital with labor & delivery. Well, labor progressed so fast, I ended up giving birth at home rather than risk the ~40 minute drive to the hospital where my OB was. I was lucky. Other moms won't be if these cuts go through.

This image never fails to amaze me! Another reminder of the impact you and your work make—and will undoubtedly keep making. Inspired by you, Emily!

Trump budget would slash rental aid by 40% -- and let states fill the gap if they want The proposal would cut off rental subsidies after two years for able-bodied adults. Advocates warn if enacted, the White House plan would tip many low-income renters over the edge into homelessness.

Congress will decide. But housing aid takes a major hit in the White House budget request. www.npr.org/2025/05/02/n...

In battle against transgender rights, Trump targets HUD’s housing policies In the months since President Donald Trump took back the White House and installed a loyalist to lead the federal housing department, HUD Secretary Scott Turner and his team have moved swiftly to undo, uproot and remake the agency’s decades of work and priorities.

Battling over transgender rights, the Trump administration is moving swiftly and strategically to undo, uproot and remake federal housing policy with HUD retreating from long-established fair-housing protections for gender identity.

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing Manufactured housing has long been an affordable housing option in the U.S., but affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

Around 22 million Americans live in manufactured homes, the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the US. But this is rapidly changing as private equity-backed companies are increasingly buying these communities, often outbidding residents, as reported by @shelterforce.bsky.social

This was excellent. Thank you! Looking forward to the updated rent eats first article.

Meanwhile, the de facto head of the US government has declared that he's going to save our society from the "fundamental weakness" of empathy.

GOP Budget Cuts Stand to Deal Tremendous Damage to Rural Economies As congressional Republicans mull slashing federal spending, a key nutrition program is on the chopping block—and everyone on our food supply chains could take a hit.

Rural communities will be hit particularly hard by cuts to SNAP. #Rural Americans experience disproportionately high rates of food insecurity and nonmetro areas have higher participation rates in SNAP @newrepublic.com

YES

Erin Gaede was awarded the Master’s Thesis Award by the Rural Sociological Society for her Master’s thesis titled “Housing Insecurity in America’s Dairyland.” Congratulations!