Erin Gaede
@eringaede.bsky.social
Sociology PhD Candidate at UW-Madison studying poverty/inequality, with a focus on housing, race/ethnicity, social movements, and rural communities.
Our latest piece in @dailyyonder.bsky.social draws on our research, which shows how rising housing costs are forcing many rural households to make tough choices, including sacrificing nutritious food. Read more👇
The Daily Yonder@dailyyonder.bsky.social · 2w agoRising housing and grocery costs are forcing some rural residents to make trade-offs that prioritize shelter over nutrition.
It is far easier and cheaper to keep someone housed in a mobile home park than to build a new subsidized unit for them.
When Private Equity Firms Buy Mobile Home Parks, Rent Increases Leave Residents with Few Affordable Options in Rural Areas
This story was originally published by The Conversation. Roughly 20 million Americans live in manufactured houses, which are homes made in factories. Although they’re often called mobile homes or trailers, that’s really a misnomer because their owners can’t easily relocate them. Typically, the people who own them rent the land underneath the houses from the owners of manufactured home parks.
dailyyonder.com
NEW from me in @pnas.org on the risks of data sharing with qualitative research: "Today, confidentiality risks are amplified by social media, surveillance, and AI tools, which make ample data about people publicly available, thus making deidentification less effective" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Check out my latest piece in @us.theconversation.com on how private equity is putting rural affordable housing at risk 👇
The Conversation U.S.@us.theconversation.com · 2mo agoThey own the home. They rent the land. For many manufactured home residents, a park sale to private equity can mean higher rents, housing insecurity and few places to go. theconversation.com/when-private...
Thank you to the @midwestsoc.bsky.social for awarding me second place in the Graduate Student Paper Competition. I had a wonderful time at the #MSS26 conference and enjoyed meeting so many outstanding scholars from across the Midwest!
Excited to share my latest publication with @pamelaoliver.bsky.social ! 📢 Our timely paper shows how the relationship between news coverage and political institutions shape what we remember about protests against police violence. #AcademicSky
Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR@cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 4mo ago#OpenAccess from Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race - Racial Politics and News Media Coverage of Black Resistance to Police Violence in New York, 1997–2000 - https://cup.org/4c8YG9c - @eringaede.bsky.social & @pamelaoliver.bsky.social #FirstView
Private equity firms keep trying to buy up #rural America — and rural residents are organizing to push back.
Truthout@truthout.org · 6mo agoPrivate equity firms are investing heavily in new AI data centers, but local communities are finding ways to fight 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.
Wisconsin Watch@wisconsinwatch.org · 6mo agoDemocratic lawmakers in Wisconsin are proposing limits on rent increases in manufactured home communities as residents raise concerns about steep hikes and growing corporate ownership. Read the full report at Wisconsin Watch: wisconsinwatch.org/2026/02/wisc... By Addie Costello Wisconsin Watch
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.
Lookout Santa Cruz@lookoutsantacruz.bsky.social · 9mo agoOPINION: The planned closure of Housing Matters’ day services – including public showers, bathrooms and mail access — is being framed as affecting only people experiencing homelessness, but it will also hit Santa Cruz’s working poor who rely on these essentials, writes housing scholar Erin Gaede.
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.
KMUW@kmuw.bsky.social · 11mo agoWhen DOGE cut $2.3 million from a Kansas state agency, it hit rural communities hard. Housing providers already stretched thin closed their doors while others found temporary life rafts, bracing for what’s next. www.kmuw.org/community/20...
Congratulations to Erin Gaede @eringaede.bsky.social on receiving a 2025 Dissertation Grant from the National Institute of Social Sciences (NISS)! @socialsciencesinst.bsky.social
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...
sociology.wisc.edu
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...
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...
badgerherald.com
Our latest in @dailyyonder.bsky.social on the relationship between #housing costs & community well-being.
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,
dailyyonder.com
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.
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.
usatoday.com
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...
‘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.
wisconsinwatch.org
Thanks @urbanmilwaukee.com for highlighting our research on the vital connection between #housing affordability and health outcomes.
Urban Milwaukee@urbanmilwaukee.com · last yr.Rising Housing Costs Forcing Some to Delay Medical Care
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:
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…
buff.ly
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-...
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.
wpr.org
📢 📖 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-...
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.
wpr.org
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...
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.
thehill.com
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.
Bren@kindofnerdy.bsky.social · last yr.Republicans' budget scheme is a death sentence for rural hospitals and maternal care. Cutting Medicaid will devastate already-strained healthcare systems, leaving pregnant women and new moms without access to life-saving care. Does that make America great? #DontMessWithMedicaid
Congress will decide. But housing aid takes a major hit in the White House budget request. www.npr.org/2025/05/02/n...
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.
npr.org
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.
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.
bit.ly
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
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?
shelterforce.org
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.
Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · last yr.“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”
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
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.
newrepublic.com
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!
