Keeping Up Appearances: How Much Does That Matter To the Unhoused?
Where to find answers the question posed in the headline above? If we were to depend on a 'scientific' approach to the answer, we might be waiting a long...
A Gateway To Homelessness In British Columbia And How To Close It
A quagmire is the word one authority uses to describe the process to access publicly funded supports that are due to Indigenous people with diverse abilities. Failing to navigate...
Canada’s Housing Promises To Indigenous People: Why No Action?
When it launched in 2017, Canada's National Housing Strategy vowed to do right by Indigenous People. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's landing page for the National Housing Strategy...
Saint-Joachim In Brière, France Signs On To Multi-Use Cemeteries
Public power utilities are not a new idea, but the one described in this article is a little different.
It started as a discussion about reducing flooding in the community...
Rise In Minimum Wage In The UK Puts More Caregivers At Risk
The minimum wage has just risen in the UKYou can read more about this in Positive News: What went right this week: the good news you should know about....
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin: A Case Study In Saving Homes To Build Community
Hospitals have discovered that there is more to the cost of demolishing houses than the demolition and disposal feeTry: Urban Redevelopment: A Case Of Failing To See Who’s There...
Tomorrow’s Accessible Housing: Priority Problems We Just Can’t See
Helen CastleCastle is the Director of Publishing and Learning Content at the Royal Institute of British Architects. kicks off an article in RIBAJ, the Royal Institute of British Architects'...
How Health Services Fall Short When Serving People Who Are Unhoused
Health researchers pay relentless attention to population healthPopulation health involves the study of morbidity (illness) and mortality, statistics that have been collected for a long time. Population health includes...
Growing Racial Diversity Powers Social Housing Leadership In England
The Housing Diversity Network was founded in 2002 with a mission of supporting racial diversity. The Network supports organizations in England that want their board and staff teams to...
History Brings A Human Face To Homelessness In Santa Monica
Here's a story that begins in Santa Monica, California. It could possibly end closer to where you live . . . just about anywhere in the world. It's titled...
Living And Working With Grief And Loss In Emergency Shelters
Consider everyone who comes in contact with emergency shelters, whether staff, residents or volunteers. They all experience grief and loss.
Shelter residents often arrive at shelters with multiple losses. A...
New Tools To Add Housing That Meets Local Needs
The Fair Housing Alliance (the Alliance) recently published a statement that identifies holes in the housing supply in Ontario, Canada. In round numbers, 640,000 homes are missing in the...
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...
Office Tower —> Housing Solution? Wishful Thinking! . . . How Come?
If you kinda squint in the shaded canyons of downtown high rise commercial buildings, you can easily see how much, on the outside, they can resemble high rise HOUSING...
Receivership: A Tool That Could Serve Communities Better?
In Chicago, property owners are responsible to maintain their properties in liveable condition. When a building develops a leaky roof or its foundation is damaged, or the plumbing backs...
Universal Basic Income: Opportunities For Recipients And The Community?
Wales is in the middle of a pilot project that aims to help young adults who have been wards of the crown to avoid homelessness. Guaranteeing a basic income...
Chef: Just A Modest Local Ambition? Not If You Are Ebru Baybara Demir
'Food is a tool for change': that is an opinion, as well as a concept that frames the life experience of Turkish chef Ebru Baybara Demir.
Demir grew up in...
Why Social Housing Fear And Loathing? After All, It Works For Everybody
Works for everybody? How on earth can social housing, which doesn't directly benefit you personally, be touted nevertheless as a personal benefit to you?
It may well be impossible to...
Make America Great In Social Housing: Follow China’s New Lead?
To hear America talk about it, that nation is in a contest for top dog of the world. Maintaining its influence, it remains firmly committed to a capitalist, free-enterprise...
Scottish Commissioner: Housing Children In Hotels Violates Their Rights
Scotland has a Children and Young People’s Commissioner. The position existed prior to 2014 but could only reach out to protect groups of children. After 2014, the Commissioner could address...
How Architectural Triumph Can Defeat The Urge To Skimp On Inferior Building Construction
There seems to be a universal sneaking feeling about architecture that it is a frill. If taxpayers are footing the bill, they may well be even more prone to...
Wanted: A U.S. War To Support A Drug Too Valuable to Smoke: Affordable Housing!
It still remains (barely) possible that smaller communities suffering from a gradually increasing homelessness crisis can solve their problems at the local municipality level.
Wanted: resources to quickly satisfy basic...
South Africa: Women’s Experience Of Post-Apartheid Development
This is part of a series that looks at housing and homelessness in South Africa and Canada. It might be a source of inspiration/direction for housing efforts in either...
Lessons From An Ambitious Retrofit In A Glasgow Tenement
This writer has never been to Scotland, but 107 Niddrie Road in Glasgow has become a familiar address. The building is over 100 years old and belongs to the...
Hamilton Churches: Picking Up The Pace Of Housing Advocacy In Canada
How do you get people on board with a program to build more housing for people who aren’t being well served by the private market? This question led the...
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:
...
The Powerful And Persistent Presence Of An Unpretentious Personal Pooch
In a world of desperation and disappointment, a group of ever-hopeful homeless people find comfort and inspiration in the enduring, goofy face of a dedicated dog.
Read/view more in this...
Homeless School Children: Uncountable Numbers, Inadequate Education
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...
How Efforts To Crush A Tent City Produced An Enduring Record Of Their Value
People who experience homelessness have a lot to contend with. Where will they go to eat, sleep, get clean, do laundry? With these basics up in the air, it's...
Study: Autistic Brains Are ‘Wired Differently.’ Housing and Social Support Suffers
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...
Housing Design With Human Connection In Mind
A journalist in the United Kingdom, David Ramsay, makes the case that community planning needs to give more attention to connections between neighbours. He argues that if we do,...
Yes, Internet Is Essential For All Citizens: World Leader Proves It Out. Unh . . . Who?
What do you call the realization that your supposedly advanced country lags behind an imagined global backwater?
Humiliating?
It's the kind of reaction that can happen when you holiday in a...
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,...
Social Housing Group Goes The Extra Mile In Support Of Its Tenants
We recently published a post about L&Q Housing, a large social housing landlord in the UK, which manages some 105,000 homes. It seems they have lost the plot, thrown...
Ohio Folks Look Outward To Solve Local Problems
A group of 40 people in Ohio are all fired up about worker co-operatives. Why? They travelled to the Basque region of Spain to learn about these businesses, which...
Merry Xmas For All? Hardly. 40% Believe The Poor Should Not Have Holidays
There are apparently significant consequences for those trapped by economic circumstances away from human pleasures we all might cherish — such as Christmas, or Hanukkah, or a well balanced...
Yes, Homeless People CAN Use A Helping Paw Or Four
What possible use is a dog when you're penniless without a roof over your head? It hints of a self-inflicted wound when a homeless person has been turned away...
Priorities For Women Experiencing Homelessness In Los Angeles County
The majority of women who experience homelessness in Los Angeles County have experienced violence during their current episode of homelessness. And one third of women experiencing homelessness in Los...
Housing – A Wicked Problem
Duncan Maclennan is an economist who has studied housing in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. He says that housing is a 'wicked' problemFor more on the definition of...
Affordable Homes For The Neurodivergent: A Profound Challenge Everywhere
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...
‘Expert’ Leadership Has Failed Social Housing. Time To Let Tenants Build A Better System?
When Affordablehousingaction.org started exploring affordable housing six years ago, the general feeling was that public housing in the United States was a dead duck. Due to the outsized influence...
Affordable Housing – Rethinking The Magnet Concept
When new affordable housing is under consideration, community leaders can be apprehensive, fearing that the new housing will be a magnet. They worry that the housing will attract more...
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...
What Does Child Care Have To Do With Clearing Outstanding Arrest Warrants?
Affordablehousingaction.org has published some encouraging stories about court programs and servicesTry: Homeless <-> Jail <-> Homeless<-> Jail . . . Breaking The Cycle that help people to clear...
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...
Western University Experiments With In-Shelter Medical Team For Homeless People
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...
Food And Housing Costs Stress Household Budgets – Something Has To Give
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...
City Of Featherweight Affordable Housing Action Fumbles Coins Back Into Profiteering Pockets
When it comes to getting real action on building much needed affordable housing, momentary activist victories are no match for relentless pressure from financialization obsessed homeowners guarding their investments....
Should Housing Be A Wealth Creation Tool Or A Social Benefit? An Aussie Medical Perspective
In case you hadn't noticed that your own national housing emergency looks a lot like Australia's, an InSight article by Caitlin Wright describes some conditions that you will probably...
A Foundation For Learning That Supports Single Moms And Their Kids. It Starts With Housing
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...
Can Social Housing Pets Piggyback On New Renter Rights In England ? Alas, Not Yet
Private sector landlords in England will likely soon be forced to abandon their right to kick out tenants for any reason or, no reason at all. That's hugely important...
Changing The Conversation About Poverty In A Wealthy Country
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...
Speaking Up For People Who Are Waiting For Social Housing In Toronto
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...
A New Pipeline For Incarcerated People – It’s Not What You Think
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....
Loosening The Hold Of Inequality In U.S. Cities
Do you remember the triple bottom line, a term invented to expand the bottom line? The bottom line was about money: the triple bottom line added social and environmental...
Fifteen-Minute City? Bah! Humbug!
"What took us to the back 40, stays in the back 40." That was the thought of this writer, some years ago when renting a country cottage. Why were...
Can Social Media Smooth The Path To Housing For People Leaving Homelessness?
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...
Report: The UK Needs Four Million New Homes
When this writer was growing up, there was a ridiculous ad for packaged mints. It featured two people arguing about whether the mint was a breath freshener or a...
The United Kingdom Grits Its Teeth To Condemn … Anti-Social Behaviour(??)
With the waning of the COVID pandemic, what's happened to the United Kingdom's famous 'Everybody In' treatment of the homeless? The scramble to move the unhoused under hard roofs...
Young People In Winnipeg: Fixing Service Gaps That Lead To Homelessness
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...
Residual Land Value And Why It Matters
Today's first postTry: Ontario's Government: Fix Supply To End The Housing Crisis. Have They Backed The Winning Horse? talked about plans to unlock housing supply in Ontario. It explores...
Ontario Wants To Fix Supply To End The Housing Crisis. Have They Backed The Winning Horse?
The Canadian province of Ontario is in the midst of a housing crisis. The number of people who are homeless is growing. A large number of people who have...
Sing Out For Joy And For Housing
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...
One Shape of The Human Rights of Children In A World Of Homelessness
Those countries that advertise themselves (or at least believe in themselves) as 'lands of opportunity' are living the lie when they can build battleships but not housing for the...
Porto Gambles On Friendly Free Enterprise To Solve Affordable Housing Crisis
Portugal shares the Iberian Peninsula with Spain, which is currently in the affordable housing news for its 'Right to Housing' law. Spain's new law includes regulatory solutions for renters,...
1 Magic Bullet To Create Affordable Housing? Amsterdam Looks To Many
Like so many cities around the world, Amsterdam has been gambling on shelter as a means to generating wealth for all. And like many other communities, it is discovering...
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),...
A Seattle Quickie For 10,000 Public Housing Folks — 35mph & More — Free Transit!
There's a kind of deliberate blindness when it comes to understanding the meaning of "living in comfort — poor," versus "living in comfort — middle class and up."
Accommodation may...
Worldwide Events Have Trashed The Honour Of Public Service. Time For A Change!
How did the reputation of public servants gurgle down the drain? In America today, teachers are included in this question.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Clever little...
Will Neoliberalism Self-Destruct? Housing For All Is The Ultimate Challenge
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...
Rebooting U.S. Public Housing: Hard Aground, Can It Be Refloated?
As things now stand, public housing in America is being hung by the neck until dead.
Some last minute reprieves are being granted to Housing Authorities prepared to sell their...
California: Exploring The Human Reality of Adequate Housing For All
The human right to adequate housing is a noble aspiration. And if communism and socialism have contributed nothing else to humanity, they have at least proven that determined governments...
All In:The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness
For the past two or three years there have been activist rumblings in America about the possibility of successfully creating world class social housingTry: West Coast U.S. Activists Struggle...
How Changing Public Decision Making Might Lead To Better Housing
In a democracy, elected representatives are supposed to reflect the interests of their constituents. That mission doesn't always match up with reality, partly because voters don't all hold the...
Penny-Pinching From Poorest? Or Incompetence? Always Worth A Check
Perhaps you've heard of the Homeless Industrial Complex? At the very least it seems to be a phenomenon on North America's west coast. It's hardly as financially fattening as...
Green With Envy: Futuristic Benefits To Cities Elevate Citizens Unequally
Modernizing cities! Out with the obviously dirty, depressingly ugly, cough-inducing, environmentally-damaging old. In with the sylvan new: vegetative proliferation, babbling brooks, micro-forest canopies, peddle-mobility, awardable aesthetic standards, puffed and...
London, Ontario: Does A Civic Emergency Require Light At The End Of The Tunnel?
Ho Hum, Another Day, Another City Emergency. That's what London, Ontario might be trying to sell in order the access federal and provincial funds available to cities that are...
Corporate Landlords And The Fight To Protect Tenants
ShelterforceShelterforce is a U.S. based non-profit dedicated to community development, affordable housing, and neighbourhood stabilization. recently convened a discussion about corporate investment in rental housing and tenant protections in...
Big Landlords Beware: Activists In Berlin Celebrate The City’s Right To Expropriate
If you haven't been following the rental housing fight in Berlin, Germany, it's time to catch up. Berlin is a city/state where renters far outnumber homeowners. A considerable majority...
Will The ‘Crisis Of The Day’ Forever Delay The Human Right To Adequate Housing?
Waiting lists exist worldwide for those who need affordable housing but don't have it. Ultimately, do these lists represent a positive movement towards a human right to adequate housing...
U.S. National Green Bank Can Help Stretch Affordable Housing Dollars
So, what does a green bank do, anyway? According to the article linked below, green banks help make investments in climate change by facilitating loans to customers that banks...
Major UK Housing Associations Struggle With Shaky Finances
In 2021, the United Kingdom government published The Social Housing White Paper serving notice that tenants deserved to be on the same page as their landlords. While not expecting...
Helping Homeowners With Low Incomes To Avoid Homelessness
In the United States, there are homeowners with very low incomes. Their housing costs are high when compared with those incomes. Even for someone who owns their home without...
Why Living in Skellefteå, Sweden, Might Be Everybody’s Cup Of Teå
The Human Right to Housing commitment of the United Nations has evolved to include the addition of an all-important word: 'adequate.' The Human Right to Adequate Housing is a...
Finding The Connection Between Housing And Health Outcomes
Since starting affordablehousingaction.org, we've been watching and reporting on the relationship between housing and health. We're aware that in the 1980's, when health research began noticing that additional $$...
A Form Of Self Loathing? SF Opinions Trash The City’s Homeless Solutions
Does this survey from a California city reflect the future of your urban region?
Human behaviour can be described by patterns. Opinion surveys are useful form of collecting patterns. So...
Take Comfort: You’re Never Too Old For The Crime Of Helping Others
The cop who arrested Norma Thornton knew perfectly well it was a public relations nightmare. Given the comments in media outlets all over North America, thousands, maybe even hundreds of...
Pardons Begin To Open Doors To Public Housing In The U.S.
A small, but significant piece of good news from the United States: a crack has opened in the zero-tolerance wall that continues to seal off public housing from those...
High Interest Rates Add To Financial Woes Of People With High Housing Costs
Businesses that charge more than 60% interest on money they lends to customers are committing a criminal offence in Canada. Sounds pretty high, doesn't it? It turns out that...
Corruption And The Homeless Industrial Complex: Does It Exist?
We know there are overwhelming problems where people who are homeless gather together in unofficial tent camps. Celebrity Dr. Drew Pinsky warns us of "tent encampments with 'multiple rodent-borne,...
Garden Allotment Wars: Something Public Housing Needs To Support?
Potty: United Kingdom slang for someone who is a little bit daft. (Daft, in turn, is slang for someone who is somewhat potty) Its origins are not generally agreed...
A Proposal To Raise Incomes For Canada’s Poorest Adults
Some people may dread reaching the age of 65, but it's a good news day for others. Why good? People who receive social assistance in Canada can look forward...
Universal Basic Income — Cherry-Picked. A Contradiction In Terms?
Recently we featured a post on a Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment in Spain. We raised a question: why do Universal Basic Income plans seem to always be the...
Outreach Police Officer Stabbed To Death In Homeless Encampment
Tent encampments are little islands of anarchy, with inhabitants attempting to survive in opposition to, or at best outside of, society's rules. Encampments of people experiencing homelessness in North...
This Is Historic Wales. Does Just Anybody Have A Right To Live Here?
Wales, which is part of the United Kingdom, is currently experiencing a 'right to adequate housing' crisis — one that is frequently ignored by countries that have signed the...
Assessing The Potential Of Co-operatives To Expand The Supply Of Non-Market Housing
What is the potential for limited equity housing co-operatives to add to the supply of the non-market housing stock? The two kinds of housing co-operatives that get aired in...
Shelter Or Starvation? Tough Choice On An Empty Stomach
Middle class and up? You can afford to be wasteful. There's at least a little bit of money to burn.
Very low — even no — income? Every penny has...
“The Poor Will Always Be With Us:” COVID Showed That To Be A Lie
When will America climb out of its 2001 foxhole? Not since the British burned the White House down in 1812 has the country collectively faced such a threat. Was...
Did COVID Interventions Make Us More Resilient?
Emergency planners, the people we task with preparing us for emergencies, often say, "the current plan is only as good as the last emergency." In other words, we're good...
How Canada’s Housing Crisis Affects Newcomers
Canada made a big deal of welcoming refugees from Syria in 2015. Settlement services and communities geared up as the country prepared for a host of new children in...
