🗞️‘CASH 4 HOMES,’ solar power, disability rights and more

Hi there. Here’s what you missed from the Stateline team last week.

The signs lining curbs and utility poles, the text messages and the mailers promise cash, quick sales and a seamless means of unloading unwanted homes. But advocates say the business of buying homes for cash can confuse vulnerable homeowners and rob them of home equity. And now, many states are cracking down. At least 15 states have recently approved new regulations of real estate wholesalers.

Every year since 1976, Congress has passed a spending rule that restricts federal Medicaid dollars from paying for abortions except in limited cases. The result has left countless people without a way to pay for the procedure, which advocates for abortion access say causes more abortions to happen later in pregnancy and unnecessarily endangers patients’ health. Anti-abortion groups say the Hyde Amendment has prevented 2.7 million abortions, and now some worry a Democratic-controlled Congress could permanently block the provision, codifying its repeal into law.

Over the past year and a half, a dozen states have embraced a new vision for solar power: small, cheap panels that can be hung from a balcony or porch, be plugged into a standard wall outlet and take a dent out of residents’ utility bills. These systems, known as balcony solar or plug-in solar, are attractive for residents. But for most Americans, even some in states that have passed laws, the systems still sit in a legal gray area because of safety concerns. 

Voters in four states will decide housing-related ballot measures in November, providing testing grounds for different strategies to boost affordable homes. The six measures across California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the highest number in a single election year in at least two decades. They include approving billions of dollars in bonds, loosening minimum lot-size rules, speeding environmental reviews and funding infrastructure.

A court battle that began when conservative-led states sued to block protections for transgender people has ended in a rollback of protections for people with disabilities.  At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services joined the handful of conservative-led states suing it, and asked a court to strike language from a federal disability-rights regulation that directed states to prioritize serving disabled people in their communities rather than in nursing homes or institutions. The move marks a sharp about-face for the federal government, which has long been the chief enforcer of such protections.

Nearly 100 community-based organizations have lost their federal HIV-prevention grants this week as the Trump administration redirects dollars to state and local health departments.

The funding change represents a departure from the decades-old national HIV prevention strategy favored by most public health organizations.

President Donald Trump launched the Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Initiative during his first term in office. Since 2021, the program has disbursed a total of nearly $240 million to 96 community-based organizations in 31 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Those groups have used the money to pay for testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that people at high risk for HIV can take for protection during sex or injection drug use. Preventing new HIV infections and preserving access to treatment for those who have HIV helps prevent further transmission of the virus.

By prioritizing areas with the highest number of HIV diagnoses, the initiative sought to reduce HIV incidence by 75% in five years and by 90% by 2030. It continued under the Biden administration.