Multi-government Interactions

Affordable Housing terms, conditions and subsidies often play out through negotiations at several levels of government ranging from local through to national

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...

Hotel in Delaware Changes With The Times

In 2020, New Castle County in Delaware found itself the proud owner of a multi-storey hotel. It was the early days of COVID, and the building was quickly repurposed...

Unhoused Elder Support Wins National Aging Innovation Award

Just who in Multnomah CountyMultnomah County includes Portland and five other cities in the state of Oregon won an award for its innovations to serve older people who...

Right To Housing In A Crisis? Massachusetts May Help Jurisdictions Decide

A conservative U.S. Supreme court is currently considering the circumstances, if any, that would permit an individual American to demand housing as a RIGHT. Since such a right is...

The Right To Adequate Housing In Canada: Another Step On That Path

If you have been following the unfolding of Canada's commitment to the right to adequate housing, there's a new report to check out. The subject is evident in the report's...

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...

Getting The Best From The U.S. Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC by common usage, pronounced Lie-tek) has become the major source of affordable housing supply in the United States. With commitments to community...

Vancouver, BC’s LGBTQ Community Scores Major Affordable Housing And Social Support

Like everyone else, those from social and cultural minorities can be attracted to both the anonymity and opportunity of large cities. A voyage of discovery to such a place...

Geese Dragged Into Homeless Fight In Sacramento, California

Consider Sacramento County. It is bound together unto eternity with the City of Sacramento, thanks to the territory they share, along with physical and social interests. Might we expect,...

EU Local Communities Can’t Manage Unhoused Youth. Can Any Community?

Affordablehousingaction.org has been advocating that homelessness must be treated as a national war, not a penny ante local squabble to be solved by local activists and learner politicians knocking...

Another Good Result For Housing First, This Time In England

Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham has good news for the people in his city, where the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation is going down. The city is also...

Questioning The Strategy Of Closing Shelters To End Homelessness

Affordablehousingaction.org clings to an underlying notion that financialization, no matter how honourable the motives that can be assigned to those who practice it, nonetheless impacts a country's population with...

Exploring The Temporary Potential Of The Drive In Live-In

The mere existence of live-in vehicles has meant they've been quietly used as houses for 'homeless' people for decades. In America, there are still huge expanses of wilderness in...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Tells A Whopper. It Helps Price The Cost of Solving Homelessness

The whopper: 1.3 billion dollars. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass appears to be committed to telling homelessness like it is. For example, in a recent speech aimed partly at the...

Perspectives On Housing Rights In Canada – Experts Weigh In

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...

Unravelling The Mystery Of Government Housing Expenditures

Any time someone digs into public accounts, they deserve a medal in the estimation of this writer. Following the money is slow work. In the case of the report linked...

Spain’s Right To Housing Law: Freedom From Housing Price Extortion. Or. . .Not!

Spain has just passed a Right to Housing law. The law allows rent controls in any and all housing markets that are deemed by local governments to be 'stressed.' This...

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...

Getting Local Governments On Board With Building Affordable Housing

The State of California recently put its local governments on notice when it rejected virtually all of their housing plans. Faced with growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness, the...

US Government Supports Zoning Reform To End Homelessness

Affordablehousingaction.org frequently identifies the need for national leadership to end homelessness. The first article linked to this post, Few Mayors Connect the Dots Between Zoning and Homelessness (Few Mayors),...

Building On COVID Innovations To Support People Who Are Homeless

Have you ever had a day when you just needed to rest? There could be any number of reasons why you don't actually do it. But at least there...

Once Again, NYC Forced To Consider Inadequate (Tent) Housing

With so much misery in the world today, asylum seekers are on the move in considerable numbers. The U.S. is seeing a share, including New York City with the...

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...

Inflation and Politics Undermine People With Very Low Incomes In Canada

Inflation affects everyone. Public opinion polls indicate that Canadians are cutting back on spending and/or deferring purchasesHere's a recent report from the Angus Reid Institute: Highest Inflation Rates In...

A Key To Implementing The Right To Adequate Housing In Canada: Coordination

Now that Canada has officially recognized the right to adequate housing in legislation (The National Housing Strategy Act), knowledgeable Canadians are busy helping the country to get off to...

The Plague Of High Housing Prices Spreads Across British Columbia

Tim Richter is one of the leaders behind Vote Housing, a Canadian campaign to draw attention to the affordable housing crisis. He frequently reminds us that we have created...

Sorting Out Who Does What In Housing And Homelessness In Canada

One of the more tiresome aspects of the housing and homelessness crisis in Canada is the issue of jurisdiction. It provides ample opportunity for elected representatives to say, “not...

The ‘Magnet Effect’: Breaking The Heart Of Homelessness

". . .you in your small corner, and I in mine," is an evocative phrase from a children's hymn, proposing that individuals might shine in the light of a...

Denver Official Tent Communities: Admirable But Ephemeral

It's hard to picture (the following article allows that) one of Denver, Colorado's official homeless tent communities without noticing how ephemeral it is. A strong puff of wind might...

Australian Capital Territory’s Housing Policies Don’t Stand Up To Scrutiny

Jon Stanhope is perplexed. He led the government in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) from 2001 to 2011. Since retiring from the scene, housing in the ACT has become...

When Developers Kiss & Cuddle With City Hall: A Cautionary Tale

Yes, free market developers might well be able to do "it" better, cheaper and in a more timely fashion than a public developer, such as a city government. If they...

An Intriguing Shelter-Almost-In-Place Response to Weather Disasters

Whether a product of climate change or not, some weather disasters have been with us forever. Flooding is one particular inevitability, thanks to human habitation near water for transportation...

Tent Camps: Vancouver City Councillor On Draining Wallpaper Bubble

Vancouver, B.C., one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, might be expected to have a chronic homelessness problem. And it does. Its visible manifestations...

Playing Chicken With People Who Need Housing

Toronto City Council has crunched the numbers and come up with a plan to build more supportive housing in that city. The plan will provide homes designed for people...

Truly Affordable Housing? Public Sector Can Do it Better . . . Or Maybe Not.

Who can best build truly affordable housing for low- and no- income citizens? The private sector? That's been a popular government assumption, tried and tested in Public Private Partnerships...

Housing Speculation: Investment For Profit Without A Kinder, Gentler Side

There are some who believe that a useful distinction can be made between housing "speculation" and housing "investment."See at Huffington Post:Are You A Property Investor Or Speculator? A Quick...

“Thanks, But No Thanks:” Austin TX Scorns State Affordable Housing Bribery Cash

The willingness of governments to scrape affordable housing responsibility off their plates finds an almost perfect match with 'small government' philosophy, founded on the idea that 'private enterprise can...

Freer Housing Is ‘Fairer Housing.’ Yowza!

It's not often that we copy exact chunks of headline from an article we'd like you to explore. (Not the Yowza! That's all our own work.) But otherwise, the...

Crying Out For U.S. Federal Support Of City Affordable Housing Initiatives

Two big U.S. city councillors write about some of the steps that cities across the country are trying to implement largely on their own, in the absence of meaningful...

War On Affordable Housing: UK Government Still Leading From The Rear?

For a good chunk of the twentieth century, national governments in the UK and the US recognized a responsibility for ensuring that lowest-income citizens had adequate housing. Over the last...

Three Takes On California’s Housing Crisis: Part 1

Part One considers the current clash of legal responsibilities between the two levels of government actively involved — state and local — focusing on Pasadena.

In London, UK, New Social Housing Projects Stand Up To Be Noticed

The public face of much-touted public private partnerships (PPP) is a local county council. For several decades now, local councils have been expected to maintain rental housing stock for...

Canadian Cities Want More Balanced Federal Affordable Housing Strategy

When Canada's sleeping giant (in this case, its federal government) finally awoke to a variety of housing crises in 2017, it did so with a 10 year, 40 billion...

Local Governments & Businesses Plan To Push For Fed Affordable Housing Leadership

At the latest Group of Seven(G7) get-together in Biarritz, France, Trump and his aides made it clear that official federal policy, regardless of the views of the American people,...

Affordable Housing In The Swamp: Raising Up A Pyramid Of Govt Ineffectiveness?

Are higher levels of government too remote from the practical problems faced by cities? It's certainly a cause for worry in America, particularly when the subject is the affordable...

Tasmania: Today’s Social Fallout From Yesterday’s ‘Business’ Of Sheltering The Poor

Nice little business you've got going for yourselves there, Australia. The Federal Government bankrolls a state — Tasmania — to build public housing. Too bad the state can't pay...

Kingston, ON, Pinpoints Today’s Affordable Housing Crisis . . . 50 Years Ago

Affordable housing? It's déja vu all over again in Kingston, Ontario, as the local paper compares the current affordable housing crisis to the one the city was suffering in...

Strong Calls For National Affordable Housing Leadership On Both Sides Of The Atlantic

At last! Solutions to the affordable housing conundrum have coincidentally been offered in both the United States and the United Kingdom that match the scale of this ever-widening crisis. The...

NYC And HUD Spar Over Affordable Housing Time Bomb — Decaying Public Housing

It's a time when cities everywhere are waking up to the cold, hard reality of the affordable housing crisis. Helped by subsidies, the private construction industry has focused its...

Affordable Housing Shell Game: How Canadian Federal ‘More’ Becomes Regional ‘Less’

Federal Government interest in affordable housing for Canadians peaked after World War II and then steadily declined into indifference and neglect that has characterized that government's attitude over the...

Domestic Violence Victims: Out Of The Frying Pan And Into A Bureaucratic Housing Fire

The Guardian has recently explored how domestic violence victims in the UK are assisted in escaping their misery. A somewhat surprising conclusion is that many of them are further...

The Housing Crisis Leadership Vacuum: U.S. States Step Up To the Plate

Who can build what kinds of housing, and where can they they build it? Housing policies and zoning regulations have long been a municipal affair. However, managing the growing...

The Affordable Housing Crisis Spawns Irish Intergovernmental Sparring. A Sign Of Things To Come Worldwide?

In a true crisis such as a war, leadership is hands-on from the top down. Only national governments have the power to find the funding and resources to make...

My Way Is The Highway: Toronto Renters & Buyers Losing Faith With Government, Consider Heading For The Hills

In all housing matters affordable, Toronto has disappointed in recent years. The City has an affordable housing office that has studied the city's housing problem while churning out reports...

Social Housing In Three Nations: Three Recent Government Attitudes on Display

From the left: The United Kingdom At least some people in Britain, including those who vote labour, are looking forward to leader Jeremy Corbyn's regular promises of 1,000,000 new units of...

Major California Housing Bill Dies In First Committee Hearing

California, liberal as it may be, is ground zero for activist NIMBYites. They have made it difficult or impossible for communities to make progress in the face of both...

Homeless Need Homes. Instead, UK Enacts Legislation To Provide Only Scapegoats.

UK homelessness got legislative support on April 1, 2018, with a homelessness act that places responsibilities those in the front lines on the war against homelessness—towns and cities that...

Town Barks At Affordable Housing ‘Riff-Raff’: The Law Bites Back

The minutes of a Massachusetts town meeting made the position of their Board of Selectmen quite clear: affordable housing dwellers are a class of riff-raff unsuitable for local gracious...

Opinion: Solving The Affordable Housing Crisis Requires Bad Planning

We take our hats off to the commitment, enthusiasm and admirable intentions of Mayor Michele Martinez, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Santa Ana, Orange County, California and...

NJ Affordable Housing Horse-Trading Is Snookered By Judge

New Jersey towns and cities have had a long history of trying very hard to wriggle out of affordable housing responsibilities, so hard in fact that the courts have...

Ottawa Homelessness: Bailing An Ocean, One Small, Futile Policy Step At A Time

Everyone knows you can't bail out a sea. And yet, when it comes to homelessness, city councils behave like children on a beach staring at the water with a...

“Affordable Housing: The State Must Lead.”

During World War II, housing was devastated across Europe, all the way from Britain to Russia. Elsewhere, in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, the war...

US Federal Tax Cuts Spur Unprecedented Inter-City Housing Cooperation

Cities in the American sunbelt bear a heavy brunt of the nation's homelessness, thanks to the easier living conditions for those condemned to a life without housing. Inheriting the...

Affordable Housing Held Hostage In A ‘Two America’ Crisis

Blue city in a red state. Two competing visions of tomorrow's America. One community is thwarted by a larger region, dominated by a deeply unsympathetic population. Because of the progressive...
Howdy,