'Gen Silent' and the bumpy road to improve LGBTQ elder care in Massachusetts

A pilot ordinance tested out the legalization of accessory dwelling units, also known as "granny flats," in five Chicago neighborhoods, resulting in the addition of 300 units providing lower cost housing than typical rental properties. However, owners looking to add ADUs faced high costs and regulatory hurdles, and a proposal to legalize them across Chicago has been stalled for more than a year.

Given legislative changes restricting access to hormone therapy and medical care for transgender individuals, many groups and individuals across the U.S. have developed community-based healthcare clinics and support networks to serve impacted individuals. One organization, Plume, has helped 13,000 patients in 45 states with its virtual gender-affirming care, which includes hormone therapy, primary care, and mental health support, plus legal and social navigation assistance.

Singapore's Vehicle Quota System (VQS) requires prospective car owners to bid in government auctions for a Certificate of Entitlement (COE), which grants a 10-year right to own a vehicle. The VQS has successfully reduced car ownership growth and prevented many issues related to urban traffic, but it's been at the cost of making cars unaffordable for most residents and generating significant public resentment.

Charlottesville's Food Equity Initiative (a comprehensive municipal policy embedding food equity recommendations into city planning, zoning, and departmental agreements) largely failed to produce systemic change. Without municipal infrastructure (such as dedicated staff, binding policy authority, or permanent funding) accompanying the initiative, the city's initial support is analyzed as responsive to a moment rather than rooted in durable institutional change.

The Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center in Akron, Ohio offers LGBTQ+ intimate partner violence survivors the option to stay in local hotels instead of traditional emergency shelters. After implementing LGBTQ+ cultural competency training in 2023, the organization saw a 10% increase in LGBTQ+ survivors accessing their services.

In December 2025, Illinois passed legislation aimed at preventing immigration officers from targeting courthouses, creating a mechanism for those unlawfully arrested by ICE at a courthouse to sue for civil damages. However, due to inconsistent enforcement on the part of the courthouses, arrests continue, with 13 people arrested since February.

A 2018 Supreme Court decision allowed states to begin legalizing sports betting, creating a new stream of potential tax revenue to support state programs. However, with gaming operators moving faster than state regulations and legislative processes can keep up, actual revenues in most states that have legalized the practice have lagged behind projections, and rates of problem gambling are also on the rise.

The Family First Prevention Services Act directs funding to programs that help prevent children from being taken from their families and put into the child welfare system. But the law’s strict requirements make it difficult for culturally-specific programs, such as those tailored to Black and Indigenous children, who are more likely to enter foster care, to be approved to receive funding.

A Minnesota law allows both citizens and members of law enforcement to petition for someone’s guns to be taken if they’re showing signs that they may be a threat to themselves or others, otherwise known as a red flag law. But though the shooter in a 2025 attack made social media posts that could have triggered the law, no one reported these concerns, and most of the state’s 87 counties have yet to use the law at all.

The federal Foster Youth to Independence program provides housing vouchers for young people leaving the foster system to help them keep up with rent as they transition to living on their own. But states have to coordinate the funding with local housing agencies, and in Georgia, a lack of coordination led to only eight vouchers being distributed since the program began.