People

It may seem strange to case the world for bad news, rather than good news, in order to tackle social problems. Education is one field where observing the trials...

The Silver TsunamiSilver Tsunami refers to the post world war II population bulge (the baby boom) which will continue to swell the population of seniors for the next decade....

The issue of workforce housing has been getting more attention. When local public servants (fire fighters, paramedics and police officers) can't afford housing, governments pay attention. The same is...

Attention Denizens of Legendary Dogpatch, USA! Which of America's Biggest and Best Cities might entice you to buy in to the American Home Ownership Dream? If you are actually American,...

A recent study from the United Kingdom reports that the 'differentness' of autistic people hampers their ability to take advantage of resources that support health, education, and housing. What is...

When you hear the word disability in the context of housing, what comes to mind? ramps wide doorways roll in showers a place of your own an extra...

All right, we are exaggerating slightly, calling New York 'paradise.' But when it comes to that state's legal commitment to a human right to adequate shelter, there are some...

Have you got a cigarette card of John Wheatley like the one above? Collecting cigarette cards of British politicians probably never had the the attraction of owning baseball cards...

Not everyone imagines lifelong happiness with a string of fancy degrees (as well as a massive debt). Career? Maybe some kind of high powered financier, spiriting wealth out of...

By and large, children passing from primary to secondary school can go from uncontrollable but cute to controllable (barely) but poisonous. The presence of either category of child can...

Two of the links below are about housing projects that are under construction in America. A non-profit called The Kelsey is behind both of them. The Kelsey is dedicated to...

Affraudable housing is becoming more common these days. All that is needed is a bad attitude, some small math skill, and a willingness to pull the wool over hopeful...

The human right to adequate housing has been slowly gaining world-wide popularity. These days, most countries are prepared to pay at least lip service to the concept. But adequate housing...

The United Kingdom's vulnerability to unwanted migrants has coughed up a range of solutions to an invasion of refugees — real as well as allegedly fake — who have...

No, not the Jolly(?) Green Giant of comic book fame, but the floating military motel with roots in the Napoleonic Wars. And in Portland Harbour, United Kingdom, the Incredible...

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky is not a household name. And yet, she was a vital presence in housing design for most of the 20th century. Following World War I, Schütte-Lihotzky was commissioned...

In bald terms, hospitals have a mission to patch you up and get you out the door. It is not an ideal environment for someone who is dying. This...

People who are 'physically divergent' — different from the current physical norms — are often easy to spot. The person who carries out normal day-to-day activities in a wheelchair...

How does the current economic climate affect housing and homelessness? One direct effect is the wind-down of COVID emergency measures that saw "everybody indoors" safety measures which provided temporary housing...

It may seem a little harsh even for a socialist publication — the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) — to point the finger at mainstream health authority plans to...

The United Kingdom housing activist, Kwajo Tweneboa, has apparently had his fifteen minutes of fame. But he has not quite retired into the fond obscurity that Google and the...

Trauma-informed care takes account of the possibility that a person who is seeking services has experienced trauma. For people who are homeless, the possibility of experiencing trauma is much...

Some folks might want to help people who are homeless, but would like do more than sustain a seemingly never-ending parade of marginal existence and misery. For those keen to...

City authorities across North America and elsewhere tend to bow down to their democratic masters: at least some portion of the general public, as well as lobbyists for business...

Affordable housing activists everywhere are faced with an exasperating truth: only they, as well as people experiencing homelessness, understand that harassment solves no problems. Predictable cause and effect works...

The decline of United Kingdom social housing? How best to inspire a reader on the subject? As an historical treatise, step by stumble through a succession of right...

After a long search to rent a home in Los Angeles using a Section 8 VoucherSection 8 refers to a rental subsidy program in the United States, where qualifying...

Proposals for guaranteed income programs have witnessed renewed popularity recently. Many pilot projects were rolled out during COVID shutdowns. They provided one way to flow money to people who...

Media coverage about workers who provide services to homeless people often mention high levels of staff turnover. This is sometimes coupled with observations that pay levels are low. One...

Affordablehousingaction.org has published some encouraging stories about court programs and servicesTry: Homeless <-> Jail <-> Homeless<-> Jail . . . Breaking The Cycle that help people to clear...

A recent story from the Independent.ie reports that as many as one in five Irish individuals/families who are offered a social housing home find reasons to turn it down....

Four researchers from Trent University in Peterborough Ontario, kick off a report on the benefits of technology with a warning published a century ago. Even that far back, some...

This post is about medical residentsResidents are fully qualified doctors who are completing post-graduate training. in Windsor, Ontario, who are rotating through a one month posting to a clinic...

This is a post about food. It is a basic necessity, but frequently sacrificed in the face of paying for housing. Welfare cuts in 1995 drew attention to a...

Would you take on one of the world's most powerful mayors of one of the world's most powerful city councils, while it played ball with powerful building developers dead...

Faced with a conspiracy to cheat you out of your home, what can one individual do? For example, consider an impoverished resident of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project in...

This writer acquired the label "senior" label recently. COVID arrived around the same time, so it's a bit hard to tell, but moving from adult to senior didn't seem...

A contemporary study of almshouses in the United Kingdom has found evidence that they may stretch an individual life expectancy by 2.5 years. How long have we known about...

Never mind e-bikes, peddle-them-yourselves bike rentals have had teething problems in many communities where they have been introduced. But with a combination of free enterprise initiative and public support...

Young moms living on their own with their kids are great role models for resilience. Compared with other families, they get by with very low incomes, even as they...

Tweneboa who? That would be Kwajo Tweneboa, arguably the United Kingdom's most powerful social housing activist. A year ago, he was 'trending' everywhere. We'd hate to think he might...

Mobility seems all the rage at the moment. We posted about an aborted attempt to provide mobile off-street sleeping for the people who are homeless in Rhode IslandTry: Mobile...

An eviction can change your life. It certainly changed Matt Desmond's. He witnessed sheriffs evicting a group of siblings who had been orphaned when their mother died unexpectedly. Desmond...

Olivier M. reports that Toronto had a golden age of homelessness, from 2009 to 2013. He speaks from personal experience. In the golden age, he could find a bed in...

Three researchers have done a thorough analysis of renovations to social housing that is owned by the Portuguese city of Porto. The research is significant because the housing forms an...

The use of the word 'admits' in a newspaper headline rather suggests that the confessor has hitherto engaged in some kind of coverup. That's an unfortunate meta-message in this...

If you've been following our posts, you'll know that we've behaved a little like breathless enthusiasts about an emerging activist housing philosophy. North America is seeing currently fashionable proposals...

Some people who are living in social housingThis is housing where rent is geared to income. in the Toronto area feel they should move out in order to...

According to a new report by Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C.’s representative for children and youth, the poor handling of children who go missing in British Columbia can be partly blamed...

Pipelines are a popular image these days where people get directed to a specific outcome, regardless of what they might want. There's the public-housing-to-prison pipeline and the prison-to-homelessness pipeline....

Then there's the brother-in-law, needing to replace an old porch door. Alas, it's old enough to be a non-standard size and so needs to be custom-ordered, skyrocketing the cost....

The ultimate small-c, lift-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps conservative has a supposedly bullet-proof sneer at those unfortunates sleeping on the sidewalk. "Don't ask me to solve their problems if they don't have jobs." But...

Churches have a history of speaking up for people who are oppressed in society. Faith based organizations have charitable arms that provide services and supports. Religious instruction also directs...

Today's post is about housing rights in Canada, where the United Nations' right to adequate housing was affirmed in law in 2019Going forward, this means that Canada's definition of...

Not all that long ago, it was against the law to be homeless in Canada. That changed in 1972, when vagrancy laws were repealed. So, imagine a currently homeless...

What is it like to be homeless? Even if they want to know, people who have housing may have limited opportunities to find out. This post offers two perspectives,...

The City of Ottawa has a new mayor, who naturally wants to make an impression on his city. To that end, he's put together a task force to review...

How can a nonprofit or a charity become significantly profitable? Answer: it can't. But non-profits can create a comfortable living for a group of employees. Some of them, with...

Hard on the heels of a post about Governor Newsome's end homelessness campaign in CaliforniaTry: Funding Houses For All Homeless. An Enormous Expense Or An Amazing Money-Maker?, here is...

How easy is it for people to access the United Kingdom's social "safety net?" Evaluations of this challenge often report that  ". . . a more people-centred response is...

During its short life, affordablehousingaction.org has published 2,700 posts. The purpose of reporting this is not to puff out our chests, but to highlight a gap in our content....

Research has long shown that older people are more vulnerable to changes in their environment. For example, even though it may be more expensive and less efficient to allow...

A great deal of so-called 'woke' energy around the world has been mobilizing to demand more recognition for 'trans' rights, together with legal mechanisms to create a physical and...

This writer's hat is off is Christos Makridis and his website, Zenger News. Further hat-doffing to Forbes for publishing a Makridis story. His article whets the appetite for a new film...

Time was, if you were short on a household item, you'd ask a neighbour to help you out. In today's world, the idea might seem laughable. Would your neighbour...

Move on, move on. Nothing to see here except vegetation. Unless, of course, you're in the market for yummy organic veggies. A mini-miracle comes courtesy of a modicum of farming...

Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more common for children to wind up — and grow up — in emergency shelters, or in other precarious living circumstances. Off the...

While news of yet another collection of 'tiny homes' is becoming more commonplace in North America, they are by no means a standard method of community commitment to housing...

When you think about tenant organizing in Kentucky, you might visualize Black tenants calling out their housing authority for poor conditions. The article linked to this post tells a...

How would you feel if a paramedic advised you to "call us when somebody dies?" Confused: I thought paramedics were there to save lives. Angry: that paramedic should be...

Tenants at the Clinton-Peabody Public Housing Project in St. Louis, Missouri were called to a meeting to talk about premature deaths among infants. The people who organized the meeting...

Much staff discussion and laughter erupted in the halls of a Toronto hospital while this writer awaited day surgery. Shortly thereafter, bouts of singing and more laughter filtered in...

Around the world, tent encampments have been a sensible, practical alternative to more permanent housing when none other is available. Search Wikimedia Commons for 'tents' to reveal some of...

IKEA is a commercial home furnishing company known by vast numbers of people in many countries, offering attractive living at bargain prices. In the UK recently it has taken...

It's 'same old same old' NIMBY protest in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Tent encampments under elevated Condo-dweller noses cause an inevitable stink. But a condo in Thunder Bay has added...

So you're downtown, crossing with the light at a crosswalk. As you approach the middle, you take a wide tour around a shouting person man who is focussing a...

A Seattle referendum on 'social housing' has recently recently received a 'thumbs up' from local citizenryFor background, try: As The World Reconsiders Social Housing Need, Faint USA Cries of...

In 2022, the Better Government Association (BGA) reported on activities of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). The BGA looked at the number of homes that the CHA had demolished,...

There are some awfully ugly human behaviours out there in the real world. There are also bad habits that foolhardy local councils of one stripe of another can stumble...

Affordablehousingaction.org has emphasized the importance of ensuring that there are  mental health and drug treatment supports for people who are moving from chronic homelessnessChronic homelessness means homelessness lasting for...

"Who will rid me of this meddlesome prince?Words originally attributed to King Henry II and resulting in the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury." Those words might well have...

So, why is an affordable housing blog with a home in Canada so enamoured with the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago? Millions of Americans were given the opportunity to...

The latest fad(?) in solving homeless problems has been dominated by fed-up citizens endlessly encountering dangerous(?) chronic homeless people on the streets. Responding to the concerns of their citizens,...

The headline comment above comes from Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the University of California's San Francisco’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. There's more: "By the time homeless people are...

A warning to readers. This post might be a bit of a downer. Being the middle of winter and all, it's a time when tough stuff can be particularly...

California has the largest number of homeless people per capita in the U.S. It is largely an urban problem, highly visible, much talked about nationally and beyond. Vermont, the state...

For many of us, housing is the biggest single cost in a household budget. And, we do our best to make sure that housing costs are covered — if/when...

Karen Bass is the new mayor of Los Angeles, California. She is putting her career on the line by committing to tackle effectively that city's mega-homelessness problem. Already she's winning...

Many people are struggling to pay their bills. It's a hard reality to face, often because people believe it's their fault and reflects poorly on their character. Even though...

When it comes to understanding the plight of disabled Scots, how would you like your learning about the deteriorating availability of suitable affordable housing? A buried-in-math abstraction? 150% increase to...

It's not often our blog can piece together social housing activism on two continents, same timeframe (more or less), and same activist. In this case, it's the respected young UK...

Well, all right. There's a teeny bit of exaggeration in this headline. Prisoners in the Australian State of Victoria aren't actually breaking back into jail. They don't need to,...

No, this isn't about an influential person who experienced homelessness, saw the light, and embarked on a fight for the Human Right To Adequate Housing via the power of...

Well now, here's a convenience that nobody considered when Canada decided to allow mercy killing of those whose lives had become an unbearable torment. Physical pain was the torment...

The United Kingdom National charity, Shelter, laments something affordablehousingaction.org has moaned about for a long time: Canada's federal government, like the UK national government, has conspired with builders. They...

"When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose," sang the Bob Dylan in his famous song "Like a Rolling Stone." Dylan is renowned for his great lyrics. But...

There's a hint that author Tracy Kidder is worth a read, regardless of the subject. His name on the cover of his new book is as prominent as the...

So you're American. Suppose you want to join the military, put your life on the line for your country (and earn the dollars that can lift you out of...

Those of us who are immersed in Western society may well consider ourselves as comfortable frogs immersed in slowly heating water, unlikely even to notice being slowly cooked to...

Non-profit housing providers are often held up as good landlords. However, as the article attached to this post demonstrates, it isn't always the case. Bathrooms that don't function in...