A person works on a condominium in Chicago. Some U.S. cities are trying to modernize the housing permitting process by adopting AI tools. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline) New housing projects can sometimes stall out as a developer applies to city or county planning boards and goes through cycles of inspections, reviews and approvals. Now, cities are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to address one of the most persistent sources of housing permitting delays: incomplete applications. And two new streams of federal money aim to help them. AI can handle time-intensive tasks such as scanning applications and flagging errors. The aim, some city officials say, is to eliminate repeated rounds of corrections that can add weeks or months to the process — but to leave final decisions in the hands of human reviewers. The sweeping new federal housing law enacted last month creates an Innovation Fund with $200 million annually for local efforts to speed up permitting. And the ...
Children’s Aid, a 170-year-old organization in New York City, told Stateline in July that their nearly $1 million grant that served 1,200 youth each year was canceled. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration can’t move forward with its proposed changes to the national prevention program. (Photo Courtesy of Children’s Aid) A federal judge in the District of Columbia issued an order Wednesday blocking U.S. Health and Human Services from implementing sweeping changes to grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program while a lawsuit proceeds, but dozens of existing grants that were canceled this summer will remain so for now, unless the administration chooses to reinstate the funds. The agency canceled 53 out of 67 grants under the program at the end of June, affecting grantees in more than two dozen states, including Louisiana, New York, Oklahoma and Texas. Grantees were given no advance notice and were told their programs did not align with agency priorities...