Podcasts Archives • NC Newsline

Robbie Sequeira (Courtesy photo)

It’s common knowledge that the nation’s housing market – especially in growing areas like North Carolina – has become prohibitively expensive for millions of people, and a new report from researchers at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions (which is housed at the institute) highlights a major culprit – the rising tide of corporate ownership of the nation’s residential housing stock.

According to the report – which is entitled “Who Owns America,” nearly 9% of residential parcels in 500 U.S. counties are owned by a corporation and the concentrations exceed 20% in some cities. What’s more, the trend is expanding rapidly, and it’s further complicating the already deeply challenging housing market for first-time buyers. And in December to learn more about the report and the housing market challenges it helps to highlight, we caught up with the national housing reporter for the news outlet, Stateline, Robbie Sequeira.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Robbie Sequeira.

Editor’s note: This is a rebroadcast of our interview from Dec. 7, 2025. 

NC State University economist Mike Walden (Photo: NC State University)

The rising cost of housing continues to be a huge problem for millions of Americans. But, of course, as just about any average person can also confirm, lack of affordability is not just a problem confined to housing – it’s spreading across the U.S. economy in dozens of areas. So, what’s going on here? During the COVID pandemic, we knew precisely what was going on – a huge drop in supply that was giving rise to rapid inflation, and that problem was rapidly and successfully addressed during the Biden presidency.

So why are prices going up again and what should elected leaders be doing about it? Recently Newsline got a chance to discuss these and some related matters in an extended conversation with NC State extension economist and professor emeritus Mike Walden.

In Part One of our extended conversation, we discussed the affordability crisis that’s plaguing millions of average Americans – and how President Donald Trump’s tariffs are contributing to the problem and undermining the bold promises he made to Americans during the 2024 election.

In Part Two of our chat, we dug deeper into some of the economic challenges that confront the nation, including the impact of artificial intelligence, the changing nature of work, the ongoing disinvestment in research in higher education and the soaring costs of health care.

Click here to listen to the full interview with economist Mike Walden.

Editor’s note: This is a rebroadcast of our interview from Dec. 7, 2025. 

Jason Husser (Photo: Elon.edu)

Few areas of modern American popular culture have undergone greater or more rapid changes in recent years that college sports. Thanks to a series of successful legal challenges, the nation’s longstanding practice of treating college athletes as amateurs has been completely upended and, especially at big schools engaged high-profile sports like football and basketball, teams have become professionalized, with many athletes switching schools yearly, and raking in multi-million dollar deals under so-called “name image and likeness.”

In a time of such rapid change and upheaval, it comes as little surprise that many people who were used to how things once worked – be they university leaders or average citizens and sports fans — are experiencing a sense of disorientation and discomfort. And this fact was made clear in some opinion surveys conducted last October by the Elon University Poll and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, and at that time, NC Newsline caught up with the Elon poll director, Prof. Jason Husser, to learn more.

Now that we are in the midst of the college football bowl season, we thought it would be an ideal time to revisit that interview and the poll findings.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Elon University Professor Jason Husser.

Sam Hiner, executive director of the Young People’s Alliance (Courtesy photo)

In our fast-changing world, few technological developments of recent years have had a bigger impact on young people than the emergence of instant communication and social media. And while it’s not difficult to identify the positive impacts of these phenomena, the worrisome impacts are also numerous. And this is a trend that seems certain to intensify in years to come with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

Thankfully, many advocates have started to speak out in favor of stronger laws to protect vulnerable people – especially young people – from exploitation like predatory algorithms, social media bullying, artificial intelligence and other impacts from the online world that endanger people’s mental and even physical health. And a few months’ back, NC Newsline caught up with the leader of one such group, the co-founder and executive director of the Young People’s Alliance, North Carolinian Sam Hiner.

Click here to listen to our full interview with Sam Hiner, the co-founder and executive director of the Young People’s Alliance.

Dr. Latonya Agard, NC Coalition to End Homelessness

The affordability crisis plaguing the American economy continues to grow more serious, and if there is a most visible sector of the economy for which soaring prices are causing the most havoc, it has to be housing. Across the country, the skyrocketing cost of housing – both for purchase and rent – is conspiring to swell the ranks of Americans who are inadequately housed, or even completely homeless.

What’s more and quite maddeningly, this disastrous trend is being abetted by the Trump administration and its congressional allies, who have made it a priority to abandon the federal government’s proven “housing first” policy in favor of a mishmash of poorly funded alternatives and coercive tactics that some advocates characterize as an attack on homeless people. And recently to learn more about where things stand and what advocates are doing to push back, Newsline caught up with the executive director of the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness, Dr. Latonya L. Agard.

Click here for the full interview with Dr. Latonya L. Agard.

Bob Phillips, Common Cause of North Carolina

When veteran journalist and advocate Bob Phillips took over as executive director of Common Cause of North Carolina a quarter century ago, he was the organization’s sole staff member and the work he pursued to fight for fair elections, voting rights and honest government could often be a lonely effort. Today, as he prepares to retire next month, he’s no longer quite so lonely – with a staff of 15 Common Cause North Carolina is now the organization’s largest state affiliate – but many of the battles he fights remain daunting and uphill affairs.

Especially when it comes to elections and combating the gerrymandering that allows politicians to rig their outcomes, Common Cause and its allies continue to face stiff headwinds from President Trump and his allies in Congress, state legislatures and the federal courts. And yet, as Bob reminded Newsline when we talked last week, there remain simple and doable fixes that could return fairness to our elections, and there are many reasons to believe caring and thinking Americans will be able to make them a reality in the not too distant future.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Bob Phillips. 

Ron Pringle, President and CEO of the Raleigh-based Interfaith Food Shuttle (Courtesy photo)

It continues to be one of the great scandals of modern America that in the world’s richest nation, millions of people – including an especially high percentage of children – suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Here in North Carolina, around one in seven people — including a quarter of our children — are burdened by food insecurity.

And just to make the situation that much more outrageous and inexcusable, recent actions by federal and state elected officials to undermine SNAP food assistance and slash funding for anti-hunger nonprofits have made the situation significantly worse. The result: this year, more people than ever are struggling to feed their families. Amazingly, however, the good people doing anti-hunger work remain resilient and unbowed, and recently we got the chance to learn more about the needs in our community and how average folks can help in an extended conversation with the president and CEO of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Ron Pringle.

In Part One of our recent extended conversation with Pringle, we discuss the hunger crisis that currently afflicts North Carolina and how recent actions by federal and state lawmakers to slash funding for food assistance and nonprofits that aid people in need have made an already bad situation significantly worse.

In Part Two of our chat, we dug deeper into the details of the current hunger crisis, some of the many innovative and hopeful ways in which groups like the Food Shuttle, even with depleted funding, seek to attack it, and how average North Carolinians can support their effort by donating their time, talents and treasure.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle President and CEO Ron Pringle.

Click here to learn more about the Food Shuttle

Community organizer Jon Council (Courtesy photo)

It’s now been nearly 15 months since the worst storm in modern times to hit western North Carolina – Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Helene – inundated numerous mountain communities, killed more than 100 people and inflicted tens of billions of dollars in property damage.

Click here for the full interview with Down Home North Carolina community organizer Jon Council.

NC State University economist Mike Walden (Photo: NC State University)

The rising cost of housing continues to be a huge problem for millions of Americans. But, of course, as just about any average person can also confirm, lack of affordability is not just a problem confined to housing – it’s spreading across the U.S. economy in dozens of areas. So, what’s going on here? During the COVID pandemic, we knew precisely what was going on – a huge drop in supply that was giving rise to rapid inflation, and that problem was rapidly and successfully addressed during the Biden presidency.

So why are prices going up again and what should elected leaders be doing about it? Recently Newsline got a chance to discuss these and some related matters in an extended conversation with NC State extension economist and professor emeritus Mike Walden.

In Part One of our extended conversation, we discussed the affordability crisis that’s plaguing millions of average Americans – and how President Donald Trump’s tariffs are contributing to the problem and undermining the bold promises he made to Americans during the 2024 election.

In Part Two of our chat, we dug deeper into some of the economic challenges that confront the nation, including the impact of artificial intelligence, the changing nature of work, the ongoing disinvestment in research in higher education and the soaring costs of health care.

Click here to listen to the full interview with economist Mike Walden.

Robbie Sequeira (Courtesy photo)

It’s common knowledge that the nation’s housing market – especially in growing areas like North Carolina – has become prohibitively expensive for millions of people, and a new report from researchers at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions (which is housed at the institute) highlights a major culprit – the rising tide of corporate ownership of the nation’s residential housing stock.

According to the report – which is entitled “Who Owns America,” nearly 9% of residential parcels in 500 U.S. counties are owned by a corporation and the concentrations exceed 20% in some cities. What’s more, the trend is expanding rapidly, and it’s further complicating the already deeply challenging housing market for first-time buyers. And recently to learn more about the report and the housing market challenges it helps to highlight, we caught up with the national housing reporter for the news outlet, Stateline, Robbie Sequeira.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Robbie Sequeira.