Happy Friday! Welcome to our Media Round Up. Each week we’re collecting and sharing our favorite gender + politics stories. Here’s what caught our eye this week:

California is turning hotels into permanent housing. What could initiatives like this do for unhoused women?

Ray Levy Uyeda, The Lily

In an effort to aid homelessness, California’s state housing program Homekey is undergoing a $2.75 billion expansion. First launched in July of 2020, Homekey is a state program that gives grants to local government in order for them to transition hotels and motels into permanent residences for people in California experiencing homelessness. While California and other states like Oregon have begun initiatives like Homekey and Project Turnkey to combat the growing number of homeless populations, questions have to come to the surface as to whether or not these initiatives are sustainable, and how they are supposed to work alongside the criminalization of homelessness, much of which affects women.

Read the full story here.

Few Black women have been elected to top local office across Connecticut, but this year a handful of candidates hope change is coming

Daniela Altimari, Hartford Courant

“We’re seeing a lot of historic firsts,” said Evelyn M. Simien, a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and the author of a book on barrier-breaking candidates. “Folks who might have been on the periphery of politics are coming to the fore and actively participating. They’re not simple casting a ballot but working campaigns, donating money … and ultimately, running for elective office.”

Connecticut is seeing a record number of Black women running for political office. The list of candidates running for mayor includes: Aigne Goldsby of Cromwell, Suzette DeBeatham-Brown of Bloomfield, and Immacula Cann of Startford. Kelly Lierzer and Jacqueline Crespan have also been nominated for seats on the Board of Directors in Manchester.

Read the full story here.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died a year ago. Here are four ways her death has already reshaped the Supreme Court

Shannon Larson, The Boston Globe

A year ago, the world learned of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. In record time, former President Donald Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg. Since the late Justice Ginsburg’s passing, the Supreme Court has gone through some changes including: shifting towards a more conservative view and evaluations that the court has become more partisan.

Read the full story here.

Lawmakers Cori Bush, Elizabeth Warren will introduce bill to give HHS power to impose eviction moratoriums

Savannah Behrmann, USA Today

With the moratorium on housing evictions coming to an end, U.S. Representative Cori Bush and Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021, an act that would elongate the eviction moratorium. The COVID-19 pandemic caused an economic downturn, leaving people without income to pay their bills.

“This pandemic isn’t over, and we have to do everything we can to protect renters from the harm and trauma of needless eviction, which upends the lives of those struggling to get back on their feet,” Warren said. “Pushing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes will only exacerbate this public health crisis and cause economic harm to families, their communities and our overall recovery.”

Read the full story here.

Girls are being socialized to lose political ambition — and it starts younger than we realized

Barbara Rodriguez, The 19^th*

According to research from the American Political Science Review, young children believe that politics is a space dominated by men. During 2017 and 2018, researchers from the American Political Science Review asked 1,600 first through sixth graders to draw what they thought was a political leader at work. Researchers found that the older girls drew people with masculine traits, and used more masculine adjectives to describe the political leaders. With women still making up a third of statehouses and less than a third of Congress, researchers believe that if women are taught differently about politics at younger ages, it could make a difference in the number of women running for political office in the future.

Read the full story here.