Jennifer Ludden
Jennifer Ludden is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk where she covers housing, homelessness, poverty and inequality.
She tells stories of people struggling with the country's massive shortage of affordable housing, and explores policies and programs that try to help. She tracks changing laws around homelessness, and how communities are managing the record number of people without housing. Ludden has reported on millionaires lobbying working-class voters about the dangers of the economic divide; on tackling poverty with cash aid; and the struggle to get AC in public housing. She also helps cover major news stories, including natural disasters that have upended people's lives.
Previously, Ludden edited stories on climate and energy, working with NPR staffers and public radio reporters across the country. They tracked the shift to clean energy, and how people and communities are coping in a warming world. Before that, as an NPR correspondent, Ludden's various beats included changing family life and social trends, immigration, and U.S. national security after the 9/11 attacks.
Before moving to Washington D.C., Ludden reported for NPR while based in Canada, West Africa, Europe and the Middle East. She shared in two awards (Overseas Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists) for NPR's coverage of the Kosovo war in 1999, and won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for her coverage of the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Beyond conflicts, she reported on cultural trends, including the emergence of Persian pop music in Iran and the rise of a new form of urban polygamy in Africa.
Ludden's first public radio jobs were at member stations in Maine and Boston. She has midwestern roots, grew up in Tennessee, and graduated from Syracuse University.
She can be reached via encrypted message at jenniferludden.20 on Signal.
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Hundreds of millions worldwide were watching as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969. The spacesuit that kept him alive is part of NPR's 250th anniversary series America in Pursuit.
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With affordability a top issue for more and more Americans, NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks about her reporting on the policies that impact access to housing and food.
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A website with anonymous employee letters accuses the Trump administration of undermining work on housing discrimination. HUD says it's restoring "sanity" to fair housing enforcement. -
Dizzy Gillespie and his iconic trumpet -- with its turned up bell -- brought a new era of American jazz to a global audience. It's part of our 250th anniversary series America in Pursuit.
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Roommates overall are skewing older, as young people stay with their parents for longer. The share of older adults looking to rent with a roommate has tripled from a decade ago. -
The federal housing agency wants to shift money away from permanent housing and toward programs that impose sobriety and other conditions. Advocates warn that would push many back into homelessness. -
Mobile homes have long been zoned out of cities and suburbs. But with updated designs and a housing shortage, they're increasingly being welcomed as more-affordable starter homes. -
New York City isn't the only place pushing to expand free child care. We check in on this growing trend, and how states and cities are paying for it.
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The rule would allow housing agencies and landlords to impose such requirements "to encourage self-sufficiency." Critics say most who can work already do, but their wages are low. -
A proposed rule could put nearly 80,000 people at risk of eviction, many of them U.S. citizen children. Undocumented immigrants don't get rental aid but can currently live with family members who do.
