How to navigate the housing crisis

0:00Christina Stacy:Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science.

0:12Saskia Biskup:Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. I mean, I'm extremely grateful, but I also guess I would prefer to live in a world where things were affordable. all.

0:28Laura Eddington:Your questions about the housing market answered.

0:42Laura Eddington:It's Monday, September 28. And this is here and now anytime from NPR and WVUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

0:52Laura Eddington:Today on the show, an innovative new treatment is extending the lives of some cancer patients. We are training the immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign. In lay terms, this is often referred to as vaccine. But what we are doing is we are treating patients against that disease. Also, the White House plans to claw back over$800 million in spending that Congress already appropriated. We will look at what the money was supposed to be for. But first, we asked you how you were experiencing the soaring cost of housing. And we got an earful. Here's Cheyenne Stone of Meriden, Connecticut. I think we're all hurting a lot in the millennial bracket that I fall into just trying to find a diamond in the rough on an affordable place to live, but no one seems to know where they are right now.

1:46Laura Eddington:I bet that resonates with a lot of you listening. Whether you're renting, looking to buy, or wondering what the future holds for a home that you already own, housing is a big deal. It's the single largest expense for most American households. You asked so many good questions that we had to bring in the big guns to help answer some of them. Christina Stacey researches housing at the Urban Institute. She spoke to Indira Lakshmanan.

2:11Christina Stacy:So let's jump in with our first question from Lindsay in Fredonia, Kansas. She's a 30-year-old, single-income, aspiring first-time homebuyer. Costs are so high that she's been holding out for a housing market crash. And she wonders if that's realistic.

2:28Saskia Biskup:I think it's really hard to reliably predict the future and the future of home prices locally or nationally, right? So I think no one should just be waiting around trying to predict that. I think what you can do in the meantime is prepare yourself as best possible. And then also look for some... There are some programs and opportunities out there to help you purchase a home, right? So there are down payment assistance programs. There can be in your area shared equity homeownership programs where you partially own the property and a nonprofit partially owns it and you both share in the equity as it grows.

3:10Saskia Biskup:So I would say if you are ready, the best thing you can do is to get yourself ready and look for assistance and be prepared. But I think it's really hard to predict the market.

3:21Christina Stacy:Well, part of that preparation is Lindsay is wondering how she can save up for a 20 % down payment. And given how long it might take her to do that, if sellers would be willing to accept a smaller down payment, you've mentioned there's some assistance programs. how do people find out about programs in their area or nationwide programs?

3:41Saskia Biskup:Yeah, unfortunately, you know, because our housing assistance programs are a little segmented, there's not always a centralized location for these things. But luckily, your local HUD Housing and Urban Development Office has housing counselors that can speak with you and help you figure out where you fit on qualifications for different types of programs and point you in the right direction. I would say, though, that getting that down payment is one step, but you also want to be sure that you're ready to own that home because there are a lot of costs associated with homeownership, and you could get yourself into a little bit more financial stress than renting if you're not ready and prepared for those unknown circumstances that might pop up, your HVAC breaking.

4:26Christina Stacy:Right. So it's not just the annual taxes and the mortgage. It's also So upkeep on the house and big things that could break. All right. Todd from Columbus, Ohio, has been renting the same house for 11 years, and he's worried about being priced out if the owner raises the rent to what the market is demanding now. So what is your advice to renters who are worried about when their lease comes up for renewal?

4:51Saskia Biskup:Oh, gosh, that's a great question. I mean, the first thing is, you know, check your local policies and laws. There might be rental protections, what some people call rent control or rent stabilization, where your landlord is only allowed to raise the rent a certain amount. Many tenants don't know about these protections. And so in many places, landlords can raise. And sometimes the landlords don't even know about these. If they're smaller landlords and they're not as in touch with the local policies. But there might be local laws protecting you from increases that are too high. Some states even have rules that rents cannot increase year over year by more than a certain amount.

5:30Saskia Biskup:And these numbers can differ from year to year. So they might be based on local house price indexes, CPI. So really make sure, first of all, that the rental increase that you're offered is legal. And if not, you can speak to a local agency, code enforcement agency, your city agency to ensure that you are being offered the right rent. Yeah.

5:55Christina Stacy:So Jeff, we heard from Jeff, who lives in a coastal farming community in Greenport, New York, where many of the homes are either second homes or investment properties. He says a lot of these houses sit empty most of the year while middle class locals get priced out of modest homes and can't afford to raise their families here. One example he gave was the fire department having a hard time recruiting volunteers. At 39, he's one of the younger volunteer firefighters. Sometimes he feels like he should just sell his home and move somewhere less expensive, but this is where he grew up and he doesn't want to leave.

6:29Christina Stacy:So I'm wondering, from your national perspective as a housing researcher, what does Jeff's situation tell us about how communities are being affected by the lack of middle-class affordable housing?

6:41Saskia Biskup:Yeah, this is a very common problem in many kind of what you might consider more resort communities, whether they're coastal or you hear about this a lot in Colorado resort communities. This is another example of ways in which markets can vary so wildly, even within a state, within a metro area. And this can be a problem for a number of reasons. Housing, schools can have challenges when people are coming in and out. And so I think, unfortunately, well, one thing someone like he can do is speak with his local employers, speak with his city to see if there are any housing assistance or transit assistance or any other programs that can help support local residents.

7:22Saskia Biskup:I'd love to see more private companies helping with these types of programs. It really helps not only their employees, but their businesses. They can have less turnover, have happier employees that are more productive. if you're helping your employees live near the jobs. And this is a huge challenge for teachers, right? We have a shortage of teachers in many areas and in many high cost areas, it's because they can't afford to live close to the jobs, right? So there are some things that individuals can do, but policymakers and businesses really need to address this as well.

7:57Christina Stacy:Christina Stacey researches housing at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. Tina, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me.

8:14Laura Eddington:Thanks to everyone that wrote in and shared their personal experiences with the housing crisis. It's always good to hear from you about any topic, and it's not the last time we'll ask you for your questions about something we're covering. You can always email us with your thoughts and story tips at letters at hereandnow.org. And while you're at it, click that follow button in your podcast player right now so you keep up with all our new episodes of Here and Now anytime, every single weekday of the year. And thanks. Coming up next, Indira talks with a German biotech company behind a personalized treatment for brain cancer that's extending the lives of some patients.

8:53Laura Eddington:Stick around.

8:55Christina Stacy:The most aggressive and deadliest brain cancer in adults is called glioblastoma. It grows and spreads quickly, sending out tiny tendrils that make it impossible for surgeons to remove a tumor completely. Most patients survive only 12 to 18 months after diagnosis, and only 5 to 7 percent are alive at five years. A new treatment could change that if it becomes cheaper and more widely available. A German biotech company called CGAT has developed a promising personalized treatment based on a patient's cancer cells, a vaccine that trains the immune system to eradicate the cancer. Saskia Biskup is co-founder of SIGAD, and she joins me now from Tübingen, Germany.

9:37Christina Stacy:Saskia, welcome. Hello, Indira. It's a pleasure. So first, explain to us this technology in layman's terms. How did scientists realize that they could study a biopsy of a patient's cancer cells and then use vaccine technology to instruct the patient's body to target and destroy cancer?

9:59Laura Eddington:A few years ago, there was the breakthrough in the news that chemotherapy was no longer the best method, but immune therapies were showing up at the horizon. Since then, we have been trying to bring immune therapies to patients with every type of cancer. So we needed to design treatment that's individual for each patient.

10:23Christina Stacy:So how did you realize that you could use this technique and apply it to cancer treatment for this particularly aggressive form of brain cancer?

10:32Laura Eddington:So I explained this to my friends. Usually we were running in the woods on weekends. And then one day she told me that her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And they told him that he is not going to survive Christmas in the same year. And she said, you told me, you know how to do this, just do it for my father, we have nothing to lose. And this is what we did, we sequenced the tumor, and we treated him. And many years later, we published on this success, because he was a long term surviving patient. The second patient I treated, she had ovarian cancer, she was also supposed to die, she survived.

11:11Laura Eddington:And the third patient had glioblastoma. And this patient was treated with a big center in the U.S. and they were so surprised by the outcome that we all knew at this time that something was going on. And since then, we treated so many patients and the results for the brain cancer glioblastoma were published in 2024.

11:33Christina Stacy:So I'm sure you've heard that in this country, Moderna has developed an mRNA vaccine that is used to treat melanoma and has shown success. They don't call their individualized neoantigen therapy a vaccine. That word has become controversial in the United States. How do you respond to people who have questions about vaccines and the safety of vaccines? And how do you explain to patients that this technology is safe?

12:04Laura Eddington:Well, if you try to understand what we are actually doing is we are training the immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign. In lay terms, this is often referred to as vaccine. But what we are doing is we are treating patients against their disease. It's not an antibody. It's not mRNA. It's peptide-based, but peptides are frequently used as treatment from other diseases.

12:29Christina Stacy:Right. So can this treatment that you've developed cure cancers or just extend people's lifespans?

12:36Laura Eddington:As a geneticist, I can assure you that no single individual is free of cancerous cells. Because if you look at the size of the genome, it's highly likely that we have mutations. So what we are trying to do is to support the patient's own immune system to control cancer cells. And if this is successfully done, a patient can be without evidence of disease for many years, living a normal life. Would I say cure? No, I would not. I would say it's a perfect control of cancer cells.

13:07Christina Stacy:That's Saskia Biskup. She's a medical doctor and geneticist. She's co-founder and co-owner of German companies Sigat and Cicava, which have developed and are running trials on peptide-based vaccines to treat cancer. Saskia, thank you so much.

13:22Laura Eddington:Thank you, Indira.

13:23Christina Stacy:Now let's turn to a patient. Laura Eddington was diagnosed with glioblastoma last year. And after undergoing traditional treatments, she went to Germany to get the personalized vaccine. Laura and her husband, Jeff, join me now from San Diego, California. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you. What were you and your family told about your diagnosis?

13:44Laura Eddington:We were told that it was grade four and that glioblastoma is the worst of brain cancer and that the median survival rate is 12 to 18 months. I'm coming up on my 20 month anniversary. So we feel grateful that I'm still alive. And obviously the kind of brain cancer, the area affected in my brain was the speech center, as you can tell by my speaking. So it's hard to get things out now and then.

14:21Christina Stacy:Well, I understand you perfectly. And I thank you so much for speaking to us, despite the fact that it's difficult, both emotionally and physically, to talk about this. Jeff, explain to us, you got this devastating diagnosis about Laura's condition. how did you find out about this experimental vaccine treatment that could provide an alternative to standard chemotherapy, radiation, or all the other invasive standard treatments you're talking about that haven't advanced in 40 years?

14:54Laura Eddington:Yeah, we did all of the standard of care stuff. We did the radiation and the chemo and all that. But once you get into this space, into this community, You get flooded with all kinds of information about other things people are doing. And this vaccine in Germany kept coming up and appeared to be more legitimate because as anyone that knows has been through cancer, there's a whole spectrum of different suggestions and options out there ranging from solid and evidence-based to sometimes kind of kooky. So I really looked into it further and decided to contact them and get the ball rolling.

15:37Christina Stacy:Well, I'm wondering how often have your doctors said that you'll need to continue going to Germany for these treatments to stave off the recurrence of this brain tumor?

15:50Laura Eddington:Well, my immune response was tested not too long ago, and I'm doing great. And so they scooted back the treatments from going every month to every three months, which is fantastic.

16:10Christina Stacy:Jeff, let's take a step back here. You have the advantage of being a lawyer. Your daughter is a cancer nurse. You were fortunate enough to have the educational and monetary resources to be able to get this treatment for your wife, even though it wasn't covered by your health insurance in the United States. What is your message out there to policymakers, to the medical community of how you would like this kind of experimental vaccine treatment to be available to other people suffering from cancers who could benefit from this kind of an individualized, customized vaccine? vaccine. My message is, is whatever can be done to the regulatory scheme that, you know, governs