Effective New Social Housing Depends Upon Politicians With Courage
Oh dear! New social housing is needed worldwide. Neoliberal countries committed to free market solutions are already botching this growing crisis.
And as well, pinning the tail on risk-averse governments...
U.S. Social Housing: Been There, Done That. Do It Again, Better?
There's a new kid on the U.S. social housing block. Don't apologize if you find yourself frowning while noting that there are grey hairs trailing out from under its...
Back To The Future: Social Housing Yesterday And Tomorrow
Mighty America, and to a minor degree, 'Us-Too' Canada, stumbled off the social housing rails roughly a century ago. During the 1930's depression, social housing in the United States...
Scotland Breathes New Life Into Abandoned Houses
Suss out an abandoned house in Scotland and you could well get help from the government to make it habitable again. The Empty Home Partnership helps to pay for...
How Stepping Up Housing Supports Helps Older Adults To Leave Homelessness
Older adults are special. Such a surprise! (Older adult reporting here).
Home may be where the heart is, but as adults who are homeless get older, their changing needs may...
Pushing For Income-Integrated Housing In The U.S.
House Our Neighbors is an advocacy group that is based in Seattle. House Our Neighbors' mission is to build social housing — non-market housing that will rent at affordable...
Social Housing In Barcelona, Spain – Low Rents And Energy Efficient
Poor workers deserve housing.
In 1930's America, the sentiment was just a hop, skip and jump away from 'poor workers deserve poor housing.'
America did adopt a social housing (public-funded) program...
3 Euromonkeys: No Money, No Shelter, No Affordable Housing Action
The American news publication Politico has decided to reflect political and economic developments that may influence European as well as American concerns, for better or for worse.
Here's a headline...
Taking Up The Challenge To Build More Affordable Housing In The U.S.
With a limited number of builders in a local housing market, it is possible to build enough homes to sustain high profit levelsTry: Why Are Housing Starts Falling Short...
Better Social Housing Management: Two’s Company, Three’s A Crowd?
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman for England, has issued a report chronicling the poor service meted out to social tenants by their landlords. Blakeway is making a case for retooling...
London’s Right To Buy Back – Effective Strategy Or Play On Words?
Alex Beggs is a writer and housing activist who lives in England. He praises London’s Mayor for starting up a Right to Buy Back programThe London program's name references...
Hong Kong : World Wide Social Housing Possibilities From An Inspired Past
Needs must. The needs for affordable housing worldwide has triggered a world of different results, much of it inspired by capitalist free enterprise necessity, not as an oft-derided 'entitlement'...
World Hunt For Effective Affordable Housing Strategies, Canada Edition
NIMBY? YIMBY? Affordablehousingaction.org is based in Canada. We have taken the attitude that, where it comes to affordable housing, it is possible to learn from what's going on in...
Affordable Housing: Whodunnit Differently? Singapore. Here’s How
When Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965 it had aspirations to become a regional and world-beating economy. In 50-odd years it has achieved that goal.
From the word go, Singapore...
Non-Equity Rental Cooperatives … And A Whole Lot More
In Australia, Skynews recently interviewed Melina Morrison, the CEO of the Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals. Morrison was up to bat in order to speak about housing cooperatives,...
Award Time: Featuring Hopes To Build Better Social Housing In The UK
In some countries, social housing is seen as pretty much dead, with many still wondering why it won't lie down.
Few, if any other means have emerged to provide truly...
Dutch Social Housing Effective In Preventing Increase In Threats Of Homelessness?
Is there life after social housing? Many countries over the last few decades have assumed that social housing has passed its sell-by date. That's after a supposed cornucopia of...
Vienna: The Social Housing Good Penny That Keeps On Turning Up
Okay, So what has admirable Vienna, Austria done now to earn our applause? Only got itself accolades for being the most livable city in the world, from a list...
In Welsh Social Housing, Feeling Low? A Few Lucky Folks Can Grow To Glow!
In the gloom-occluded world of social housing in the United Kingdom, there are occasional tiny flashes of sunlight. Literally.
But first, let's get the bad news out of the way.
UK...
Best Foot Forward: Public/Social Housing In The 15-Minute City
The concept of a '15-minute city' is having a long moment of world-wide appreciation If you haven't yet focused upon 15-minute cities, here's an easy-reading description of how walking...
Spain Tackles Affordable Housing Crisis With 50,000 Foreclosed Homes And Properties
The average age of young people leaving home in Spain? Nearing 30. Many, if not most, simply cannot afford to leave home, given the impossibly high cost of both...
What Can History Offer Today’s Public Housing Advocates In The U.S.?
For anyone who is interested in the history of housing policy in the United States, Gail Radford is a treasure. Radford is an academic historian who is based at...
Singapore’s World Class Public Housing Faces A Shrinkage Problem
Somewhere in many housing activist minds there are secure thoughts of assurance for their interests: in one or two locations in the world truly successful public housing projects exist!
Wall...
Hong Kong: A View of Chinese-Funded Affordable Housing On Steroids
When it comes to affordable housing, centrally planned governments have one big advantage over the dispersed powers and inter-govermental squabbles of more democratic political structures.
The advantage: centrally planned economies...
Social Housing Naming And Shaming: UK Government Snarls, But Doesn’t Bite
Imagine, say, a dozen policemen hiding behind a bus shelter, just beyond a stop-signed intersection. A car drifts through without stopping. A single policeman, hand held imperiously up in...
The Role Of Tea When Facing Up To Renovations In Social Rent Housing
Does anyone brew tea in a pot any longer? And what about tea cozies, the padded and fitted covers that go over the pot to keep tea warm? With...
Revisiting Public Investment In Non-Market Housing
This post is about a report that revisits a housing policy debate in Canada from the 1990's. The results will be of interest to decision makers, policy makers, advocates,...
A Century Late And A Squillion Short, Washington D. C. Considers Public Housing For All
This is a two-for-one story, based on a two-for-one political initiative.
'Green New Deals' are becoming a very sensible initiative in America, and one of the articles in this post...
Realizing The Right To Adequate Housing In South Africa
When it comes to housing rights, it is good to keep South Africa in mind. The right to adequate housing is part of its Constitution. In 1994, the official...
Social Housing Conquers NIMBY Via The Spirit of A Tree Falling In A Forest
If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? It's a philosophical/scientific puzzler good for a discussion on reality...
Santa Barbara Architecture Gives Life to US ‘Social’ Housing Ambitions
Over the last couple of years, there have been whispers of hope for a reboot of government built, deeply affordable housing in America.
Nobody will miss the face of American...
Refurbishing Derelict Housing: UK Gov? Or Blokes (Him/Her) With Hammers?
The UK is currently celebrating/bemoaning a sky-is-falling introduction to the new Prime Minister's Trussonomics. That would be 'small government' neoliberalism shrunk to a squabbling anti-intellectual dot.
Under Liz Truss, government...
Social Tenants, Move Out For A While. It’s Good For The Planet
"Social housing tenants need reassurance on decarbonising homes." That's a headline that is revisited below in this post.
These days, it's also the punch line, as in ". . ....
Windsor, Ontario Takes On ‘Green’ Public Housing Refurbishment
In North America, providing housing for the most vulnerable has been achieving limited success in 'mixed' income housing projects. Decaying public housing is torn down and replaced with new,...
Housing Affordability Crisis: What Does Real Change Look Like?
'Mixed' income housing projects are currently a popular home-building fad(?) that appears to feature governments at all levels getting truly 'stuck in' to solving growing affordability problems in many...
Fixing The Housing Leak That Pours Out The Homeless
A nation allows people to 'leak' from shelter and become homeless, very often due to circumstances beyond their control. Solutions:
Let them sink
'Bail' them back into shelter over...
Some Compulsory Trivia For New(?) ‘Social Housing’ Activists
America has spent the better part of a century digging public housing into an economic hole from which it will, at least in its present form, never emerge. Parsimony...
Social Housing Development – Thorough Research Pays Off
Affordablehousingaction.org frequently trots out Singapore and Vienna as examples of 'how social housing could be done better.' Nor is this some unique trend. Governments support fact finding missions. As...
Rochdale UK Return Of The Prodigal Housing Managers
Here's a Social/Public housing management decision worth noting. It's what neoliberals might call a backward step.
From that 'small government' political perspective, local councils should farm out all affordable housing...
Housing For Single Parent Families Breaks Ground In Vienna
When it comes to social housing that actually works, two names pop most frequently into the news: Vienna, which is both a city and a state in Austria, and...
You Can’t Get There From Here – Learning From The UK’S Retrofit Journey
Four years ago a UK report advocated public housing as the optimal launch pad for a campaign to meet the committments to achieve decarbonization of homesBuilding decarbonization is a...
Atlanta’s East Lake Experiment — Mixed Housing. Success Or Failure?
Mixed income communities have been the clarion call of progressive city planners trying to harness the income and influence of wealthier neighbours in the downtown 'hood, without driving out...
Church And Government Pool Affordable Housing Resources In Malta, Barrie
Religious organizations, particularly older ones, may have a surfeit of property as their mission to the faithful changes over time. Many have traditionally been active in providing shelter and...
The Kiwi Housing Game: Slippery Rental Snakes And Greased Ownership Ladders
Who can afford affordable housing? KiwibuildTry: New Zealand’s Kiwibuild ‘Affordable’ Housing Stumbles Out Of The Starting Gate was initiated in New Zealand as an ambitious affordable housing program.
It came...
Reno Tenant Farewell From U.S. Public Housing: Magic Carpet Or Toe Of A Boot?
At least two models of public housing tenure exist. One was exemplified by an American home-building experiment that began during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The initial objective...
World-beating Social Housing — How Do You Picture it?
It's a world in which some countries, for example the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, public housing is still presented as burst balloon — unfortunately overinflated and sadly exploded,...
Singapore: The Millionaires Row Of Public Housing For All
Most of us interested in the future of public housing have heard (possibly even ad nauseum) how a couple of cities — Vienna and Singapore — manage to provide...
Report Recommends Reforms To Improve Public Housing For Older Tenants
Although Australia has policies and programs to support aging, the experience of aging tenants in public housing has received little attention. A recent report from the Australian Housing and...
US Public Housing Renaissance: Not All The News About RAD Is Bad
The Ventura County Housing Authority in California is starting to redevelop its oldest public housing site, with support made available through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.
Amid a slew...
Manchester UK Breaks New Ground In Building Social Housing To Green Specs
Social housing activists on both sides of the Atlantic from USA across to the UK and Europe, fight an uphill battle against persistent remnants of neoliberal thought.
By now, everyone...
A Rhode Island Public Housing Collective Becomes An Electricity Farm
The earliest forms of energy conversion for human use were granular — many small conversions using wood or peat or coal in a fireplace for warmth or a stove...
North America: Why Not Public Housing Truly Affordable, AND Desirable?
Awards for public/social housing in North America? Really, awards? Isn't that the housing that the entire continent is attempting to neglect to death?
And yet, even in North America there...
San Antonio Nixes Mixed Income Nirvana To Build New Public Housing
What can save U.S. Public Housing from on-going government subsidy? The received wisdom (now growing rather shopworn) is that razing dilapidated Public Housing and replacing it with a mixed...
Ahead Of The Curve: French Experience With Building Social Housing
In 2000, the national government in France implemented legislation that obliged local governments to build social housing. (Social housing is often referred to in this blog as truly affordable...
Public Housing Futures: Transitional Or Transformative?
Here are two visions of public housing:
An attractive, secure, affordable lifelong home for "workers," first promoted in the U.S. at the dawn of American public housing by the...
Does Paris Have A Method For U.S. Public Housing Madness?
The United States is gradually waking up to the fact that it has profoundly neglected the upkeep of its public housing. This hasn't mattered under several decades of neoliberal...
A Tour Of Social Housing Revival In North America
The demolitions of Cabrini Green in Chicago and Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, two very large public housing projects, reflect decisions made by people who had never lived there. Some...
Singapore’s Public Housing. . . ❤️ ! But Also Some . . .☹️
Okay, we have occasionally gushed about the "amazingness" that 80% of Singapore's population live in social housing and actually own it as well. That gushing has stretched even to numbers of other...
Apologies: We Celebrated A Venerable Public Housing Birthday A Year Early
Those of us who are aging surrounded by aging family and friends often need forgiveness for getting birthday dates slightly wrong. So we're hoping we'll be forgiven by joyously...
US Public Housing Today: Necessity Is The Mother of Indifference
Necessity the mother of indifference? A far cry from the period following World War II, when necessity was very much the mother of amazing invention as countries rebuilt housing...
Scotland Steps Up On Social Rent Housing
The Scottish Government has issued a 20 year housing policy. This time frame, which extends well beyond typical election cycles, is unusual in itself. The document states unequivocally that...
Housing With Support – A Source Of Strength To Individuals And Community
In the late 1800's in western countries, if people had problems they might seek help from family, neighbours or the local church. There were also hospitals, asylums, poor houses...
Is It Possible? Middle Class Envy of Public Housing Quality? Yes
Affordablehousingaction.org operates out of an older mid-rise Toronto apartment building with large rooms and views over a park and lake. For all their desirable features, the apartments are wrapped...
Vienna Achieves “Mixed Income” Within Public Housing, Not Beside It
In North America, as well as many other 'westernized' countries, housing developers and government currently argue that 'mixed income' is a very desirable social foundation for building strong neighbourhood...
Public Housing Needs Arts At Its Core. Who Knew? (Other Than Artists)
A Seattle, Washington public housing arts project provides an alternative meaning to "public housing" that has been much neglected in America. That meaning is a focus on "community" rather...
Postwar Public Housing: US Built A Failed Lower Class, Japan Created The Middle
There's a well-known saying: "you are what you eat." In postwar US and Japan, it might fairly be argued that you were how you were housed. Supposedly classless America...
The Brookings Institute Compares Rental Housing Strategies Around the World
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has played havoc with that nation's housing, as it has in most, if not all, other countries in the world. This is...
Is Vancouver City Council Proposing To Dabble In Racist, Segregated Housing?
A belated recognition of urban aboriginal needs? Or a dismaying state-supported adventure in racist and economic apartheid?
Vancouver, BC's city council has approval a First Nations construction project slated for...
Benefits And Challenges of Green Social Housing As Low Income Security For UK
With housing firmly established as suitable gambling chip in the world's stock markets, it is becoming increasingly difficult for those with lower incomes to even rent it, let alone...
Can Vertical Forest Splash Save Netherlands Social Housing Cash?
There can be little argument that Milan's pioneering "Vertical Forest" building is a striking feat of architectureOr rather, it will become one at some time in the future. Built...
Up And Out: Public Housing as Short Term Rehab vs. Destination Living
Public housing in America and Europe was originally envisioned as desirable, secure, adequate, long term housing for workers facing a World Economic Depression that lasted a decade in the...
Is Housing-Proud Singapore A Go-To For Urban Planning After COVID?
With COVID-19 exacerbating housing crises worldwide, it's hard to avoid being awestruck with Singapore's dramatic public housing successes.Try: How Singapore Got Public Housing Right That city-state has planned thoughtfully...
Colombia, South America: Learning From Social Challenges In New Public Housing
The article linked below offers a view into public housing built in Colombia, South America. It is a part of the world that receives little coverage in the media...
What If New Public Housing In America Could Be Owned, Not Rented?
Shelterforce is an American publication promoting community activism in a number of areas, particularly housing. In a recent article, it poses the "what if" question framed in the headline...
Can You Have A Million Dollar Public Housing Cake And Eat it Too? Singapore Wonders
European nations such as Denmark and Austria have done very well by housing large portions of their population in social housing. Nowhere, however, has the public housing been such...
How Singapore Got Public Housing Right
So how come public housing is such a perennial loser, reviled and disparaged by political parties of all stripes in some of the world's more advanced nations? Its demise...
Still Standing? A Lick Of Paint And Bob’s Your Uncle: Good As New Public Housing!
Refurbish decrepit empty housing, including dead-but-hasn't-fallen down public/social housing?
Maybe it's a good idea. A growing number of nations worldwide, from those who think public housing is or was a...
Irish Cost-Rental Housing: What Is It? Is It Affordable?
"Cost-Rental Housing" as coined by the Irish Government, describes a new project funding scheme, based in part upon the way the City of Vienna funds its extremely successful social...
Featuring a Bizarre Welsh “Good News” Public Housing Story
Bizarre? Why, anything about public housing is bizarre if it departs from the circular firing squads that define interaction between government, public housing management and their tenants on both...
Canada’s Ugly Duckling Co-ops Still Swanning About In Pandemic
The desperate financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic have amplified a loud and growing chorus for social and public housing solutions to deal with unaffordable housing.
For going on half...
A Public Housing Gym? With A Walking Track For Seniors?
When youth living at Gordonridge, were asked for their input on a gym complex being planned for the site, they asked, "Can we add a walking track for seniors?"
This...
Be Best: Montréal Goes Toe To Toe With Housing Speculator Bullies
In an era of declining work security (never mind the pandemic!) it's not surprising that those worried about their late life income might consider "mom and pop shop" investment...
Defund the Police? Why Not Just De-Militarize Them?
Uniformed police are an inescapable symbol of White prejudice and oppression in Black America, a searing image, which will not be erased in a single lifetime. Less obvious is...
Too Many Empty Social Housing Units? Are Tenants Too Picky?
An article from Scotland and another from Ontario, Canada tell of different ways to manage waiting lists for social housing.
Both offer the right to refuse an offer of a...
U.S. Pilot Project Smooths The Transition From Jail To Community
The Homecoming Project in Oakland, California matches people who are leaving prison with community hosts who provide housing for six months. The idea is to provide safe and secure...
Irish Government Heavy Breathing Into Vacant Housing Owner Ears
Small-c government (or neo-liberal government, if you like) is a public entity that is infatuated with private enterprise. That goes particularly for the provision of truly affordable housing, for...
Transforming Canada’s 10 Year Housing Plan
Indigenous people in Canada are over-represented in the population of people experiencing homelessness. A lack of adequate housing contributes to this situation. The Indigenous Housing Caucus of the Canadian...
UK Pandemic Home Buyers Compete With Councils For Housing Deals
It is difficult to avoid shaking the head in disbelief. Some reports peg housing demand and housing prices as either stable or rising in the face of COVID-19.Here's a...
Prudent Business Operations In Non-Profit Housing?
As a company, Joint Ownership Entity NYC (JOE NYC for short) doesn't have a catchy name. You certainly wouldn't guess that it works with non-profit housing providers in New...
Successful Capitalist Welfare State Singapore Plans Tomorrow’s Benefits For All
Perhaps you're a go-along-to-get-along free market apologist for the poor treatment that your nation metes out to the elderly, the poor and the unwell.
Possibly you've drunk the koolaid about...
Social Housing Tenants Can Manage Themselves, Despite Govt Seal Of Disapproval
As regular as the sun rising in the morning, governments find the management of social housing to be incompetent. CEO of Toronto Community Housing Corporation? It may soon be...
Vancouver, B.C. Eyes A Cleanup Of Downtown SROs Through Public Ownership
Vancouver, B.C. is cursed with one of the highest costs of living in the world and blessed (a teeny tiny blessing) with a considerable quantity of still-existing affordable rent...
How Church Land Can Help To Ease The Need For Social Housing
Public land? Philanthropist donated land? Church land?
Tone Wheeler kicks off a discussion about Australian government disinterest in using public land for social housing. A similar attitude from philanthropy paves...
Housing Authorities See Benefit In The Education/Training Biz
Crises of affordable housing in many countries are bringing a new appreciation of the importance of government-financed social housing for low and no-income citizens.
Where countries such as the United...
What Is A “Socially Focused Mixed-Use Scheme?” Does It Have Legs?
What is socially focused mix-use housing?
Let's look briefly at the opposite, which often characterizes today's social housing:
towers, which provide little more than basic shelter.
homes situated in "food deserts"...
Want To Join a Rich And Fulfilling Community Life? Try Social Housing
Any upwardly-mobile strivers intent on discovering the pot of community at the end of a rainbow should disabuse themselves of any idea that financial success and conspicuous housing are...
Poverty For Profit: REIT Hard At Work In the Homelessness Mines
This post is a tale of two viewpoints. From the bastions of free enterprise? Confirmation that there is literally nothing on earth that cannot, with good conscience, be turned...
More Housing In Suburbs Need Not Be A High-Rise Horror Show
Alan Mallach recently poked a hornet's nest with his article published in Shelterforce that strongly questioned the affordability benefits of "build any kind of housing, anywhere." That movement identifies...
Beating Affordable Housing Out Of Cities. After the Carrot Comes The Stick.
With the coronavirus pandemic has come a remarkable downturn in tourism. This has crimped the style of high-flying Short Term Rental (SRT) landlords, who have over the last few...
A Missing Chapter: Housing Development In The Global South
If you’ve been reading affordablehousingaction.org for a while, you might wonder why there are so few stories about housing in the global south. There hasn't always been much to...