Christopher Connelly
One Crisis Away ReporterChristopher Connelly is a reporter covering issues related to financial instability and poverty for KERA’s One Crisis Away series. In 2015, he joined KERA to report on Fort Worth and Tarrant County. From Fort Worth, he also focused on politics and criminal justice stories.
Before coming to Texas, Christopher covered the Maryland legislature for the NPR member station in Baltimore. He also worked at NPR as a Joan B. Kroc Fellow – one of three post-graduates who spend a year working as a reporter, show producer and digital producer at network HQ in Washington, D.C.
Christopher is a graduate of Antioch College in Ohio – he got his first taste of public radio there at WYSO – and he earned a master’s in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley.
Email Christopher at cconnelly@kera.org. You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
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Air conditioning feels like a must-have in brutally hot Texas. For renters, legally, it’s not — at least not everywhere in the state. -
Dallas will receive $9.4 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent young people from becoming homeless, and to reduce the time unhoused young people spend on the street when they do lose housing.
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A growing coalition of business leaders, community groups, nonprofits and others is pushing for Dallas to spend big to curb its shortage of affordable housing.
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Need help paying for home repairs in Dallas? Money’s available. Good luck figuring out how to get itThe city has eight buckets of money to help people who don’t make a lot of money pay for needed home improvements, each with slightly different rules and eligibility.
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House Bill 2127 has massive — though ill-defined — implications for local governments. But it's not clear when Texans might start seeing its impacts.
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Dallas County Auditor Darryl Thomas has resigned following months of problems related to an upgrade in to the county's payroll system.
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A tenant can’t withhold rent to force their landlord to fix a broken air conditioner or make a necessary repair, but they can take them to court to force a fix.
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Eviction filings have surged in the wake of the pandemic, but those numbers only count formal cases filed in courts. It's not clear how many people are forced out when landlords shut off their air conditioning or harass them, tenants' rights advocates say.
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A federal magistrate has recommended that Dallas be allowed to enforce a ban on standing or walking in roadway medians as a constitutional challenge is litigated.
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Critics say the ‘Omnibase’ program — designed to spur people to pay off old tickets — often leaves poor Texans trapped in a cycle of debt.
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Michael Lockhart was an eyewitness to a chaotic shooting in Fort Worth's Como neighborhood over the July Fourth holiday that left three people dead and eight wounded.
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Businesses, nonprofits and community groups are pushing for Dallas to dedicate $200 million in its 2024 capital bond program to build and refurbish affordable housing.
