Affordable Housing In California – Which Definition Are You Using?

A few short years ago, the term 'Affordable Housing' had one meaning securely anchored to the pocketbook of a householder. When housing cost more than 30% of gross income,...

Report Calls On Canadians To Rethink Housing Need

Canada’s Federal Housing Advocate has just issued a report called A Human Rights-Based Calculation Of Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages. The report: directs attention to the number of people...

US Architect Stepping Up To Build Deeply Affordable Housing

We recently reported an interview with UK architect Peter Barber. In it, Barber speaks directly about the need for much more housing for people with very low incomes. Try:...

Borrowed UK Perspectives: Helpful In Redefining New World Affordable Housing?

Here's a post based on material originally aimed at a United Kingdom market, but with most certainly a relevance elsewhere, particularly struggling North America. A winner of the UK's Neave...

Success Of Affordable Housing Initiatives Must Be Tackled At Least 3 Ways At Once

In this day and age, there are three important 'flavours' of affordable housing, all of which need to be considered and addressed in order to tackle national housing crises: ...

Introducing Affraudable Housing — Affordability Based On At Least One Piggy Bank

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...

Is Singapore’s Wildly Successful Public Housing Gradually Becoming Outdated/Unaffordable?

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...

‘Missing Middle’ Housing Morphs Into An ‘Affordable Housing’ Fraud

Four or five years ago, U.S. 'Big Builder' scammers were on the mooch (as always) for government handouts. To do so, they were promoting the concept of 'Missing Middle'...

Affordable Housing: Thoughtful, Important Words About It. Only . . . What Is it?

Pardon us while we parse a truly useful way of thinking about 'affordable housing' proposed by the mayor of Edmonton, Alberta. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said, in relation to a political...

Truly Affordable Goalposts Need To Move Towards Tenants, Not Away

Rent-based-on-income 'TRUE affordability' has moved UP over time to 30% of income, not DOWN to that figure from some some higher value. The benchmark of true affordability in the...

Canada’s National Housing Strategy – Heading Off In The Wrong Direction

Canada's National Housing Council has just released a report with a title that is hardly a headline grabber: Analysis of Affordable Housing Supply Created by Unilateral National Housing Strategy...

Boutique Affordability: What Is It?

Boutique affordability is a natural outcome of a concerted housing industry campaign to devalue the term 'affordable.' Background In the most general sense, the use of the term affordable, if not...

NZ Study Probes Political Pratfalls At ‘Housing Crisis’ Hurdles

A 'housing crisis' implies that some kind of problem exists. Exactly what is that problem? The answer to this fundamental question shapes how people think about it, how politicians...

Affordable Canada? Do Your Homework. Beware of ‘Some Measures’

Who'da thunk it? Canada, according to 'some measures,' is home to the most affordable city in the world. Aha! thinks this writer, as usual far too impatient to read the...

Affordable Housing Insanity: In Jersey City, You Can Be Too Poor To Be Poor

Too rich to be poor? Now that's a concept that's easy to understand. Too poor to be poor? In all the world, it's apparently only possible in Jersey City, New...

Affordable? Look To Habitat For Humanity to Walk The Walk, Talk The Talk

Once upon a time we believed that the purpose of a definition of 'affordable housing' was clarity. We realize now that these days, the purpose is really confusion. The...

Affordability Was Always Bottomless. Arlington, VA Makes It Topless

The current American federal government has little or no interest in a national affordability crisis, preferring to hack relentlessly at federal funding instituted by previous administrations. Not surprising, perhaps, that...

Is It Affordable? Dodging About In London UK’s Hodgepoge Of Dodgy Definitions

Bamboozled by dodgy definitions of affordable housing, the City of London somehow has recently managed to slither away from building any truly affordable housing at all. But that was...

Here’s Where We Cry ‘Uncle’ On The Meaning of ‘Affordable’

Just 10 months ago — a time when we were so young and naive, foolishly believing we could keep abreast of the term 'affordable.' See: Affordable Housing: What’s In...

UK View: Unreasonable Rent? That’s Private Taxation!

In feudal times, land lords laid down the law of the land, or at least the law pertaining to their patch of the land. If they decreed their tenants...

Affordable? Workforce? Madison Developers Have Cake, Choke While Eating

Pity those poor housing developers, bamboozled by their own bamboozlement. As always, preparing to meet NIMBYites who man the neighbourhood ramparts, developers take up righteous sword and prepare to...

Youth Group Weighs In As Halifax Updates Its Zoning By-Law

The Halifax Regional Municipality has decided that its zoning by-laws, parts of which are 50 years old, need updating. Ten years ago it embarked on a review process that...

Shelter For All: Most Governments Cower. India Tackles It Head On

Following the landslide re-election for India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, how is his hugely ambitious "Housing For All By 2022" plan coming along? Not a slam dunk yet, but it...

Austin, Texas Council/Developer Spat: Trouble In PPP Paradise?

Public Private Partnerships are the darlings of neo-conservatives. These are arrangements in which the public, a.k.a government, knows how to levy taxes, but is a screwup in most all...

Markham Ontario: Affordable Housing Says Who?

A series of councillor exchanges reported from Markham, a satellite city of Toronto, add up to nothing much on their surface. The subject is about a set of 'back-to-back...

Vancouver, B.C. Magic Bean Counters Grow Affordability Just As High As The Market Will Bear

Vancouver's housing is currently ranked second most expensive in the world by some measures. Of course it has a reputation for unaffordability to maintain. But market rent-based affordable housing...

Why Settle For Affordable Housing When Achievable Or Attainable Housing Is Available?

Achievable Housing? Attainable Housing? The terms are cropping up increasingly in the press. So what new perspective does the use of two more 'A' words bring to national housing crises? Clarity?...

Manteca Councillors Play Hamlet, Know A Hawk From A Handsaw When The Wind Is Southerly

So what is the point of showcasing a modest-sized city council proclaiming self-congratulatory definitions of 'affordable' about the chamber? Manteca is just such a modest size city, and some on...

Toronto/Google ‘Futuristic Neighbourhood’ Inches Forward Through A Treacle Of Language

Sidewalk Labs, the private partner in Toronto's waterfront 'Neighbourhood of the Future' is a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The 'public' partner is Waterfront Toronto, a corporation created...

Canadian Govt Press Release Ham-Hands Their Praiseworthy Affordable Housing Commitment

The Canadian Federal Government is back in the affordable housing game after decades of absence. The promise of Canada's National Housing Strategy comes as a welcome relief to provinces and communities...

Homeless In the UK? Join 170 Year-Long Wait List For Social Housing

Two UK articles in the Guardian neatly bookend the depths of an affordable crisis that is far more than the national concern of a single country. First, the Guardian quotes Shelter,...

Not Only Is The ‘Missing Middle’ Missing, It’s Quite Likely To Stay That Way

" . . .no smart, successful, profit-making venture knowingly would dare to commit all-too scarce resources of time, talent, and capital to the 'missing middle." —  John McManus, vice...

Toronto’s Affordability Strategy? Goose The Middle Class Onto The Housing Ladder. Warehouse The Poor.

Criticism of a new Toronto plan to deal with homelessness shines light upon some of the rhetoric that clouds the meaning of 'affordability'. Toronto's recent civic election rang loud with...

The Lightbulbs Go On In New Zealand: Oh . . . You Mean THAT Kind Of Affordable Housing

"Affordable" housing? Just what does it actually mean? Current confusion over the term "affordable" housing has been deliberately fomented by some of the major players in the homebuilding sector,...

What Is Affordable Housing? Brunswick, MD Tries To Solve A Problem It Can’t Define

In Frederick County, Maryland, the small town of Brunswick's attempts to solve an affordable housing crisis are a microcosm of a problem facing municipalities of many sizes in many...

Every Home Needs . . . The Internet?

We have a 'next on the list of things we never get to' item at affordablehousingaction.org.  It is a useful definition of 'affordable housing'. This isn't going to be it. 'Affordable...

U.S. Government Needs To Subsidize The Middle Class. Which Middle Class?

The housing development industry on both sides of the Atlantic has succeeded in an enormous propaganda campaign to redefine the middle class based on a need for more luxurious...

New Zealand’s Kiwibuild “Affordable” Housing Stumbles Out Of The Starting Gate

In the spirit of promising all things to all people, The New Zealand Labour Parliament's Kiwibuild initiative is progressing from an election promise to a government program. It began...

Fake News Visits Workforce Housing Affordability, Kansas City Style

Propaganda skills that were born and died with Nazi Germany are being been reborn in contemporary America. The term 'fake news' is attached to an endless, bewildering, contradictory parade...

Affordable Housing: Human Right? Human Desire? Or Somewhere In Between, Lost In translation?

Not long ago, there was a growing crisis of housing affordability. To pay more than 30% of your salary for rent was to expose you and your family to...

From Finland, A Way To End Homelessness That Really Works

Housing is affordable if: •        a household is paying less than 30% of income for rent, or housing payments. •        the rent is in reach...

Truck-Dwellings: Affordable Housing Crisis Broadens Definitions Of A Home

There is no guaranteed right to a home enshrined in the U.S. constitution. However, if you DO have a home, the 4th Amendment provides a number of rights of...

Aboriginal And Homeless? 12 Reasons Why Affordable Housing Alone Is Not Enough.

A Canadian definition of homelessness neither mirrored nor explained the aboriginal experiences of Jesse Thistle. He decided that a definition that reflected the aboriginal experience was an essential foundation...
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