Resilience

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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),...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 $$...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The Spanish region of Catalonia will soon be taking a kick at the Universal Basic Income (UBI) can. UBI is invariably of interest to idealists, not to mention individuals...

A study by the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona has identified some 355,000 citizens who spend at least a portion of their time caring for the...

Have you ever been in the situation where someone told you with great authority that you had to do some particular thing? Whatever it was, you didn't want to...

2022 marks the halfway point in Canada’s 10 year National Housing Strategy. It’s an occasion for reviewing and renewing the Strategy. Housing is something we all need, but despite being...

When this writer moved to Toronto, he rented an apartment in a building with 150 units because he knew one person who lived there. When he moved out two...

America is facing an extraordinary debt crisis. Before the COVID pandemic, it was already a new 'normal'. Overwhelming debt creeps up on people in differing ways. Where housing rental is...

Jacob Beaton and Jessica Ouellette were rookie gardeners when they bought a property near Kitwanga in a rural part of British Columbia. In the first year, the garden produced...

How to best rehabilitate people who are chronically homelessThe folks who sleep rough for lengthy and/or repeated periods of time are considered to be chronically homeless. into functioning citizens...

Poorer citizens in New York City have suffered a form of whiplash with the election of their new Mayor, Eric Adams. Adams is both Black (hopeful hoorays) and a former...

The Welsh Government is giving local governments more the power to control the use of homesLocal residents are having more and more trouble finding homes they can afford. Tempers...

The Canada Mortgage And Housing Corporation (CMHC) is the country's federal housing agency. In the roughest sense it is the equivalent of the US Department of Housing and Urban...

Brownsville, Texas borders on Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico. It sits in the delta of the Rio Grande River. It is low and flat, floods regularly and "gets...

The Church of England's R number is too low. That suggests its long term survival is in question. Could a social program, such as providing housing for the poor,...

As the public inquiry about the Grenfell Tower fire grinds onFor example, read this account in The Guardian: ‘A merry-go-round of buck-passing’: inside the four-year Grenfell inquiry , it...

The headline above is a line from Canada's national anthem, unfortunately adjusted to circumstances. The impetus for such an outrageous(?) modification comes from a book review in nature. The review...

Climate change is a compelling argument for doing things differently. In northern climates at least, our homes contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and rising global temperatures. Researchers have...

When it comes to finding scapegoats for rising crime, America is hardly alone in demonizing the poor and vulnerable. Still, it's success over decades in pointing the finger towards...

The Resilient Cities Network assists cities that are looking for assurances that they will continue to prosper in the future. The Network's assessment tools requires cities to evaluate shocks...

Some libraries in the United States are adding a new lending feature: seeds. Bridget Shirvell, writing in Civil Eats, shares stories from public libraries in Mystic Connecticut, from Oakland...

Best public stories about Cabrini-Green? Of course there can't be any, can there? That grotesque citadel of crime, depravity and lost souls — a Chicago public housing complex better...

To mark Earth Day this year, the National Housing Federation (NHF) summarized developments in energy saving activities among social housing providers. We've chosen to pair the first subject covered: "Electric...

The world is scheduling the abandonment of gas and petroleum power. So bring on electricity! That demand is being energized by activists and, increasingly, by government. And when governments...

In North America, when someone is diagnosed with dementia, people often think in terms of care facilities with locked doors. In the Netherlands, it's another story. Some of the elderly...

Social housing landlords are often well-placed to help stretch the food budget of their tenants by providing/allowing space for tenants to 'grow their own.' Tips abound for community gardens...

Government-Planned Starvation of youth? Well, not technically, but let's detour on the subject via an oldster . . . me. Really, it's three months since my last small Canada Pension...

This post celebrates the advent of the U.S. National Public Housing Museum (NPHM). Physically, it is still a bright and glossy figment of the imagination. A visit to the...