The Critical Homeless Search for WASH in the Modern City
It's hard to imagine there is anybody on earth who has not experienced a WASHWASH: WAter Sanitation Hygiene event at least once in their life. We...
Are They ‘Homeless,’ Or Are They ‘Un-Housed?’ And Why Does It Matter?
Feel free to tackle what some seem to consider an important issue posed in the headline of this post. Ten months after the publication of an article on the...
Will American Social Housing Die A Neoliberal Death Of A Thousand Cuts?
Neoliberal thought has changed the world for several decades of application by governments and industries. That change has ultimately not fulfilled its dreams, although many still continue to adhere...
Foundations To The Right To Adequate Housing – How Countries Sign On
Everyone should have the right to housing. The statement is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't really tell us much about what it means on the...
Foundations To The Right To Adequate Housing – Monitoring And Reporting
Everyone should have the right to housing. The statement is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't really tell us much about what it means on the...
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...
Housing First – What Is It And How Does It Help To End Homelessness?
A report about housing and homelessness policy in Ireland has recently been published. It is called 'From Rebuilding Ireland To Housing For All: International And Irish Lessons For Tackling...
ACEs – What Are They And Why Do They Matter For Homeless Children?
In child development, ACE refers to Adverse Childhood Experience. Witnessing violence or being sexually abused are two examplesMore details are available at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:...
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...
Financialization Of Housing In Canada Exposed
Canada's National Housing Advocate has just released a study about the financialization of housing. Financialization of housing is about treating housing as a commodity for profitIt includes the structures...
Right to Buy: A Dream That Even The Poorest Can Be Become Home Owners
United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher popularized a political philosophy of small government, together with a free market for all manner of goods and services. The political theories that...
Rental Deserts – What Are They And Do They Matter?
Researchers at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies have picked up the idea of food desertsFood deserts are areas that lack access to affordable and nutritious food. Read more...
Supportive Housing: What Is It? How To Add More That Is Needed
Canada and the United States need more supportive housing, the kind that is affordable for people with very low incomes and provides support to help with activities of daily...
Homelessness: What Is Functional Zero, And Why Does It Matter?
The idea of getting homelessness down to zero might seem like an impossibility, but communities across Canada and the U.S. are working away at it. In fact, Medicine Hat,...
Resilience: What Is It? What’s It Got To Do With Affordable Housing?
Resilience is a measure of how well a crisis, calamity, or catastrophe can be withstood. As the term is used in this blog, it comes in two flavours.
Community resilience...
Co-living: What Is It? Who Does It? Why Bother?
What is it?
Co-living, in its broadest sense, means living with others. Since society has several traditions that involve co-living, not the least of which is the family, its currently...
Housing Co-Operatives: What Are They And What Are They Good For?
What Are Housing Co-operatives?
When you start to look into housing co-operatives, you might be struck more by their diversity than what they share. Their contribution to a country's housing...
YIGBY: What Does It Stand For? Will It Catch On?
Just a quicky . . . Seems it's the silly season for acronyms. The latest is YIGBY. To get the full flavour of this new affordable housing acronym, you may wish to work up to it by reviewing your knowledge of:
Permitted Development Rights: Housing Stumbles As Red Tape Crumbles
These days, there's a constant industry-driven drumbeat of propaganda that targets excessive housing regulation. It's the prime stumbling block for affordable housing everywhere, don'tcha know?
Cut the red tape and...
Opportunity Zones: What Are They? Drawing Back The Curtains In The Land Of Oz
Opportunity Zones? What are OZs? How Do They Work? What can OZs do for the affordable housing crisis? Why it is that what they can do may not be...
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?...
Preventing Homelessness: What’s The Big Deal?
When Ben Franklin said “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, he was talking about fires. It ought to apply to homelessness as well. Yet for...
Land Trusts – What Are They? What Do They Mean For Affordable Housing?
Land trusts are an alternative to private land ownership. Key features are:
Ownership by a third party (a trustee)
Controls on the use of the land
Constraints on the...
What Is Housing First? Why Is It So Popular?
Housing First is an approach to ending homelessness. Its key features include
Personal outreach to people who are homeless, with the specific purpose of encouraging them to accept assistance...
Social Rent: What Is It? How Does It Help Us Understand Affordable Housing?
We are in an era of proliferating definitions for affordable housing. They have multiplied to the point of utter confusion, not only for those who discuss and attempt to...
Upzoning: What Is It? How Will It Help Build More Affordable Housing?
Upzoning is a convenient way to describe a zoning change that increases the density of housing within an existing residential zone.
There are a limited number of ways that urban...
Trendy YIMBY Affordable Housing Activists Are Sheltered In A House Of Straw
YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) should more appropriately be named a finger-pointing Yes In YOUR Backyard, as YIMBY activists between the lot of them are unlikely to have enough...
Brownfields: What Are They? What Can They Offer Affordable Housing?
A recent UK article calls out the housing industry for its antipathy towards brownfield housing development. What is a 'brownfield' development, as opposed to a 'greenfield' one?
Brownfield is the name...
Affordable Housing: What’s In A Definition?
There is an affordable housing crisis. We’ve been reading this often as we scan news stories to include in blog posts at affordablehousingaction.org.
It turns out that the term affordable...
Lazy Land: What Is It? Where Can You Find It? How Can It Help The Affordable Housing Crisis?
'Lazy' land is usually, but not necessarily always, public land that is not really being used for a heck of a lot. In fact, it may be nothing more...
ADU’s: What Are They? What Are Their Strengths For Affordable Housing?
ADU is the short form for Accessory Dwelling Unit. They are also known as second suites, secondary rental units, grannie flats, in-law flats, accessory apartments and probably many more...
Gentrification: What is it? How Does It Contribute to the Affordable Housing Crisis?
Gentrification is a disease of affordable housing neighbourhoods. It has come about by a change in that great middle class "home ownership dream" promoted by banks and developers who...
Limited-Equity Cooperative: What Is It? How Can It Help Finance Affordable Housing?
What is a Housing Cooperative?
It's a communal form of home ownership that allows cooperative members to buy an ownership share in a residential building. Those shares are bought at...
Form-Based Code: What Is It? Why Is It Different From Conventional Planning? How Does It Help Affordable Housing?
Form-based code is a method of land use regulation promoted by the Form-Based Codes Institute, which operates out of Washington D.C.
Urban planning is in many ways like flying blind....
Sweat Equity: What is it? Who Uses it? What Does It Offer To Affordable Housing?
Sweat equity undoubtedly pre-dates currency. When there isn't any cash, you can pay with goods. When you have no goods to pay, you can pay with the sweat of...
Redlining: What Was It? And Should We Be Asking “What Is It?” Because It’s Still With Us, And It’s...
As elsewhere, private banks in the U.S. are profit-driven, with the interests of their shareholders first and foremost in their hearts. Because of this, they have traditionally been reluctant...
Renovictions: What Are They? What Can A Tenant Do To Combat Them?
Renoviction is coined from 'Renovate' and 'Eviction'. Strictly speaking, it refers to landlords who claim some form of work is needed for a period of time that makes it...
Inclusionary Zoning: What Is It? Why Do It? Who’s Doing It?
Researchers in the United States are investigating inclusionary zoning as a regulatory tool to improve health outcomes. Their findings are reported in the journal Health Affairs.
Land uses are regulated...
Public Banks: What Are They? What Might They Offer Affordable Housing?
Public banks — those are the ones that are open to the public, right?
Yes . . . and no. Although people may casually refer to a "public banking system,"...
UK Affordable Housing Viability Assessments: Can Developers Abuse The Privilege?
What happens when a UK developer, eager for a housing contract that includes a fat government subsidy, deliberately ignores the true cost of the housing and paints a too-rosy...
