The sidebar story focuses on the lack of media coverage on the homelessness issue

throughout the Valley, aside from solely downtown Phoenix. The majority of coverage from any
news outlet revolving around Cronkite lacks the focus on anything that happens beyond
downtown Phoenix. As previously mentioned, Cronkite has outlets such as The Blaze, Cronkite
News, State Press and Downtown Devil, which are top notch media outlets, but lack diversity in
regards to what topics they cover outside of downtown Phoenix. The significant topic that is
applicable to everyday life is the lack of affordable housing throughout the Valley. More
importantly, the lack of coverage on housing as a whole is an issue. Especially with the influx of
new residents moving to Arizona, there has to be a better balance of delivering information to the
public. According to Zillow, an online real estate platform, the average home price has risen 31%
within the past year alone. In addition, rents have been the highest ever recorded, rising from
14% to 20% across the whole state of Arizona, leaving potential and current residents in a bind.

On the other hand, there is House Bill 2674, which was introduced in early 2022, which
went into depth on zoning regulations and housing limitations. Chavez, a Democratic
representative from Phoenix, and Kaiser, a Republican representative from Phoenix were
co-sponsors of this bill. Their mission was to work together to try to confront the severe issue of
not having affordable homes. The main focus of this bill is to increase the amount of developers
constructing these homes, as well as providing assistance to the rising homeless issue. not
everybody approves of this bill. Although HB 2674 is a bipartisan bill, residents of both parties
will not get much say in what changes are made in their community. These residents will not get
much notice beforehand because the bill will not make it a requirement anymore. The main
concern is that the bill will impact residents and even businesses in the near future. In addition,
the fact that most developers will aim to construct multi-family households and not single-family
households will impact how many people are able to find a home. Essentially, residents are
displeased with the fact that they do not get any input in the zoning laws and that the new bill
could change the diversity in the community–single-family and multi-family households.

Another organization that was developed in order to prevent further homelessness and to
assist with those currently in need is the HomelessIDProject. This organization prides itself in
helping citizens obtain a proper form of identification, which is the biggest issue why people are
unable to even apply for housing. According to 12News, “Of more than 9,000 people tallied
experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County, more than 5,000 can’t even get into a shelter…”
This links with the issue of being unable to obtain a proper government issued form of
identification. In addition, Robert Sanders, a representative of I-HELP, which provides a safe
place to sleep and a hot meal for adults experiencing homelessness, says the grant is beneficial to
his organization because it will help 36 people in the program — 16 of which will have a roof
over their heads and 13 who were employed. This is progress in the right direction for the future
prevention of homelessness, ultimately dropping the rate.
 Another factor in regards to affordable housing is veterans. Something that America
struggles with is providing assistance to veterans after they leave the military. VA, also known as
Veteran Affairs, focuses on the physical and mental health of veterans. Interestingly enough,
Arizona was ranked 11th for most veterans living in the state, summing up to roughly 496,000.
With that, “6.8% of these veterans are currently living homeless” (Veteran Affairs). Furthermore,
with Covid-19, many Americans who found themselves living their ordinary lives one day were
faced with homelessness the next.