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Posts Tagged ‘affordable housing’

Give Us Your Tired … Houses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2016| 1 Comment »

Here’s a creative way to address the urgent need for housing in this country: make a deal with Canada to take the houses it doesn’t want anymore.

Kirk Johnson has the story at the NY Times.

“In the San Juan Islands of northwest Washington State, where a severe shortage of affordable housing threatens the economy and the community, a small nonprofit group has found an unlikely way to help anchor families that are struggling to stay — by lifting up unloved houses in Canada, hoisting them onto barges and hauling them to where they are needed. …

“The structures had what builders call good bones, and the group, the San Juan Community HomeTrust, discovered that the cost of transporting them across the Haro Strait from Canada and restoring them here was comparable to the cost of building from scratch. …

“The number of people living in poverty in the county has risen about 17 percent since the end of the recession in 2009, according to census figures, even as the economic recovery in Washington and around the nation gained steam.

“ ‘It’s kind life or death to keep our working families here,’ said Peter Kilpatrick, the project manager in refitting the houses to be imported by the San Juan Community HomeTrust. When the rewiring, painting and structural repairs are finished in June, buyers who have already met income and residency requirements can take possession.

“Through a combination of donated land, government and foundation grants and local fund-raising, the homes will cost the buyers — a hospital worker, several teachers and a massage therapist among them — from $160,000 to $210,000. The median market price here was almost $500,000 at the end of last year.” More here.

Nothing like a little recycling ingenuity applied to a problem! In fact, I was just commenting to a blogger who’s teaching in El Salvador that the locals’ skill at repairing and reusing items is a great foundation for creative problem solving in general. (Please read Milford Street’s report from El Salvador, here.)

Nancy DeVaux
Houses from Canada were transported by barge to the San Juan Islands in Washington State, where affordable housing is badly needed.

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Millennials Find Housing with Elderly

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2016| 2 Comments »

In Helsinki, Finland, where young people traditionally leave home at 18 but can no longer afford urban rents, Millennials are applying by the hundreds to live with the elderly.

According to Kae Lani Kennedy at Matador Network, “Retirement homes are serving as more than a community for the elderly. These facilities are providing affordable housing for the city’s growing population of homeless millennials.

“ ‘It’s almost like a dorm, but the people aren’t young. They’re old,’ explains Emil Bostrom, a participant in ‘A Home That Fits,’ a new housing project that allows millennials to move into retirement communities. Bostrom is a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher, and though he has a steady income, it is not enough to compete with 90,000 other renters in a city that has roughly 60,000 affordable rental properties. …

“Bostrom, along with many other young adults, can enjoy discounted rent in exchange for socializing with the seniors in their community. …

“By interacting with a younger generation, the elderly involved with ‘A Home That Fits’ have the opportunity to be engaged in an active and diverse community, instead of being left behind in a forgotten generation.” More here.

And check out a post I wrote about the same phenomenon in Cleveland, here. Both initiatives sound like fun to me.

Video: Seeker Stories

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Fiber Optics Given to Public Housing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Here’s an idea that could give a welcome boost to underprivileged children: a free connection to the Internet at their home.

It seems that Google, in the spirit of its discontinued motto “Don’t be evil,” is piloting a new public service.

Matt Hamblen at Computerworld reports, “Google Fiber [recently] announced free gigabit Internet service to residents of selected public housing projects connected to its fiber optic service in U.S. cities.

“The program was launched at West Bluff, an affordable housing community in Kansas City, Mo., where 100 homes have been connected to Google Fiber. Across the Kansas City area, Google is now working with affordable housing providers to connect as many as nine properties that could reach more than 1,300 local families.

“Google described the program as an extension of its work with ConnectHome, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Obama administration. …

“In addition to free Internet, eligible residents will work with ConnectHome partners like Connecting for Good and Surplus Exchange to be able to purchase discounted computers and learn new computer skills, Google said.” More here.

Depending on what the housing developments are like to live in and whether they provide supports like the Family Self-Sufficiency program to move people to independence, this could be a useful piece of the difficult poverty-reduction puzzle. So, good on Google!

Photo: ConnectHome 
A resident of West Bluff in Kansas City and her son are among the first of 1,300 families in area affordable housing units to receive Google Fiber gigabit Internet service at no cost.

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Nice Homes from Shipping Containers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2015| 2 Comments »

This is not a story about creating housing for the homeless, although it could be. It’s about cutting some of the expense of construction by recycling maritime shipping containers. A company doing just that was featured in April in a NY Times interview that Vivian Marino conducted with Paul M. Galvin.

“Mr. Galvin, 52, is the chairman, chief executive and a founder of SG Blocks, a publicly traded company that repurposes maritime-grade steel cargo shipping containers into green building blocks for use in commercial, industrial and residential building construction. The containers are provided by ConGlobal Industries, a partner.”

Galvin says, “I had gotten into real estate development through a charity that I co-founded and was involved in running, and we were developing housing programs for individuals and families with AIDS. So we had to figure out a way to give them continuum care — we had to get good at real estate. And we started to develop affordable housing.

“If you’ve ever done any development in New York, you know that the construction process is not always as predictable as you would like, and so I saw this as a way to create a sustainable alternative in the marketplace and eliminate some of the risk of site-base construction. …

“We’re doing a restaurant today — Do you know Bareburger? — in Oyster Bay Cove. It’s an 11-container restaurant, so around 2,300 square feet. We just did the first seven containers between 8 o’clock and 12 o’clock today. And then tomorrow morning the last four will come. And the building will be closed in a day and a half. …

“We meet or exceed all of the structural codes.  … We’ve really approached this as an engineered building system. Every building system has some constrictions. Every product and every site works for containers. I would say that within reason we’ve been able to date to create the structure and the space plan that the structure affords.”

More here.

Photo: SG Blocks

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Tallest Street Artwork

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Time for a new post on street art. Have you been following the Banksy-in-New-York saga? He was living in the city for a while last year, creating a new piece of street art every day. People ran around to find it, some New Yorkers even trying to charge admission. An HBO movie was made about it.

Banksy is always interesting, but today I want to tell you what street artist Stik has been up to.

The Londonist website says, “Street artist Stik has just finished creating the tallest piece of street art in the world — a 38.2 metre high mural on a condemned council tower block in Acton [a district in the west of London].

” ‘Big Mother’ depicts a mother and child looking forlornly from their council block at the luxury apartment complexes being built around them. The mural is visible from not only the Piccadilly Line, but also on some London flight paths.

“Stik, who was once homeless, said: ‘Affordable housing in Britain is under threat; this piece is to remind the world that all people need homes.’ ”

And I guess in this season a homeless mother and child is especially resonant.

Thank you to @ecpulford for retweeting the story from Bernadetta Keefe (@nxtstop1).

Stik’s website is here. His minimalist, wistful beings remind me a bit of Finnish artist Tove Jansson’s children’s books about the Moomin family.

First picture below, cover of paperback Finn Family Moomintroll

Second picture: Joyce/Division
The 38.2 metre mural has been painted on a tower block which is due for demolition in 2016. Image © Stik

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Tiny House Village

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 6, 2014| 6 Comments »

Photo: Shareable
The tiny village in Austin will include tiny houses, mobile homes, teepees, and refurbished RVs,

Housing the homeless is not something that we as a country have done very successfully yet. Some solutions work for some families, but many solutions don’t.

Some communities have tried supportive housing, which provides extra services that some homeless families need. Others build wonderful programs to get people on the road to independence. But I have also read about weird little pods just big enough for one person to sleep in. (That was in a design article. You never hear afterward how these designs work out for actual humans.)

Austin, Texas, has recognized that failing to house the chronically homeless costs the city too much. So it is inaugurating a village of tiny houses that will have a lot of community-building elements and could be just the ticket. My friend Mary Ann put this on Facebook.

Kelly McCartney writes at Shareable, “In Austin, Texas, a project to offer affordable housing to some 200 chronically homeless citizens is on the move. Community First! Village, which has been in the planning stages for nearly 10 years, is set to soon break ground on a 27-acre property sprinkled with tiny houses, mobile homes, teepees, refurbished RVs, a three-acre community garden, a chapel, a medical facility, a workshop, a bed and breakfast, and an Alamo Drafthouse outdoor movie theater.

“Supporter Alan Graham, of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, notes that the price of not housing these folks costs taxpayers about $10 million a year, not to mention the emotional and psychological tolls on the homeless themselves. …

“Graham has been working with the homeless in his community for more than 14 years and cites broken families as the leading cause of homelessness. With Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Graham has not only helped feed the homeless all these years, but he has helped transition them into homes and jobs, as well.” More.

3/2/14 Update: At the Associated Press, Carrie Antlfinger describes how the movement has spread, here.

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