Housing

Organizing Rural And Small Towns For Affordable Housing And Racial Justice

June 17, 2024 Joel Bleifuss and Justin Perkins, Resilience. Organize! Farmers, Housing, Racial Justice, rural communities, Worker Rights and Jobs

In March, the Rural Democracy Initiative conducted a wide-ranging survey of rural and small town voters that found the number one issue for people was rising costs, particularly the cost of buying a home. When asked if the rising cost of housing preventing people from buying homes was a major or minor problem where they lived, 68% or respondents said it was a major problem, including 64% of Democrats, 71% of Independents and 68% of Republicans. That comes as no surprise to Jaime Izaguirre, a housing organizer in Dubuque, Iowa, for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Not only is the cost of buying a house beyond the reach of many, finding an affordable, well-maintained apartment or house or mobile home to rent is increasingly difficult in rural and small town America.

A Pandemic-Era Eviction Prevention Program Inches Toward Permanence

June 14, 2024 Marielle Argueza, Next City. Create! Evictions, greensboro, Housing, North Carolina, Pandemic

Courtroom 215, located in Guilford County Courthouse in Greenboro, North Carolina, can feel like a machine, spitting out judgments as quickly as fresh eviction cases are filed. For those unfamiliar with the civil court system, it can be daunting, especially without legal help navigating the process. Unlike criminal court, where defendants have a right to an attorney if they cannot afford one, there is no federally-upheld right to counsel in civil cases. It’s all dependent on the city or county. According to the National Coalition for Civil Right to Counsel, as of March 2024, tenant representation through an attorney is as low as 4% and landlord representation as high as 83%. NCCRC also found that only 14 out of 50 states have a robust right to counsel specifically for eviction proceedings.

Lessons From A Downtown District That’s Bucking National Trends

May 27, 2024 Rory Thomas, Next City. Create! Community Wealth, Housing, Memphis, Tennessee, Urban Design

While many urban downtowns around the country are continuing to be plagued by office and retail vacancies, a 2.6-square-mile area in Memphis’s downtown is bucking the trend. In Memphis’s medical district, eleven new businesses opened last year — 10 of them owned by women and people of color, and supported by almost $150,000 in targeted grants. More and more district residents are now supporting these businesses, thanks to over 400 new housing units coming online. With dozens of events activating the district’s many public spaces, these new neighbors are welcoming tens of thousands of visitors: The Juneteenth Festival in Health Sciences Park welcomed about 12,000 guests alone.

A Unique Community Land Trust Making Homeownership Affordable

May 23, 2024 Barry Greene, Jr, Next City. Create! Community, community land trusts, Housing, land banks, Richmond, Virginia

When Michael Haggins’ credit score disqualified him for a mortgage preapproval in 2021, he was crushed. A single father who grew up in Richmond, Haggins dreamed of owning a house in his hometown where his two sons could play freely. A shortage of just five credit score points — plus systemic inequities and a national housing crisis — left them all living with his mother. But today, Haggins is the proud owner of a home in Church Hill, thanks to Richmond’s Maggie Walker Community Land Trust (MWCLT) and its pioneering model for creating permanently affordable housing. “I don’t think I could’ve done it without their help, honestly,” says Haggins.

The Fight To Reclaim Texas’ Highways For People

May 16, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Resist! Cars, Highways, Housing, Texas, Transportation, Urban Design

Freeways rip apart neighborhoods, displace primarily Black and Brown people and increase greenhouse gas emissions — so why do we keep building them? According to a new book from Austin-based journalist Megan Kimble, “City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways,” it doesn’t have to be this way. Right now, a new generation of freeway fighters is battling freeway expansion across the country. Kimble’s book profiles three campaigns in Texas to build places for people, not cars: Stop TxDOT I-45 in Houston, Rethink35 in Austin and the campaign to remove the I-345 highway in Dallas.

Detroit: $1,700 Duplex Is Now One Of The City’s Most Energy-Efficient Homes

May 12, 2024 Tom Perkins, Next City. Create! Detroit, Energy, green housing, Housing, Michigan

In 2016, the home Kendal Kuneman’s grandmother grew up in sat abandoned in Detroit like so many others. Its doors and windows were gone, the roof was failing, part of a stairwell was missing, and scrappers had stripped the home of its metal. But the family connection drove Kuneman to buy the duplex for $1,700 from the Detroit Land Bank with the notion of transforming it into a green home. Seven years later, the Faust Street house is something else entirely: It is among the most energy-efficient homes in Detroit, fully electrified, and on the path to becoming net zero.

When You’re Unsheltered, ‘Public Safety’ Doesn’t Include You

April 24, 2024 Dionicia Roberson, Next City. Educate! Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Philadelphia, Police, Public safety, Supreme Court

I’m going to tell you something you already know: Every human being is entitled to a roof over their head and a place to sleep at night. This is an indisputable truth, part of the catechism of humanistic virtue. In a world that lived up to its self-professed ideals of opportunity, any condition of homelessness would be rare, brief and non-recurring. The reality is cultural attitudes toward impoverished people – fueled by toxic portrayals, fear mongering in the media and systematic dehumanization – have made homelessness not a community problem to be solved, but an individual offense to be punished, and defines those who suffer this condition as enemies to the idyllic peace of ‘good (read: housed and well-fed) people’.

Clean Energy Investments Must Prioritize Climate-Resilient Housing

April 18, 2024 Sara McTarnaghan and Oriya Cohen, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, Clean Energy, climate crisis, Energy, green housing, Housing

Whether it’s a homeowner wanting to install a heat pump, a restaurant looking to invest in solar panels, or a neighborhood organization hoping to add local green energy capacity, cost and ease of financing pose barriers to improving climate resilience for many people businesses, and organizations nationwide. Too often, traditional banks are skeptical of or have not previously supported climate investments. Filling this gap requires intentional policymaking, which the Biden Administration has prioritized through its new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a first-of-its-kind $27 billion fund to finance a sustainable climate future for generations to come.

SCOTUS Is Set To Make A Watershed Ruling On Homelessness

April 14, 2024 Mandy Chapman Semple and Nathaniel Fields, Next City. Create! Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Supreme Court

This month, the Supreme Court will begin to hear one of the highest-profile court cases about homelessness in generations. City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Gloria Johnson considers whether a local government can outlaw sleeping outside if adequate shelter is not accessible. If the Court sides with Grants Pass, cities will be able to rely on punitive policies that do little to nothing to decrease homelessness and often cause worse outcomes for unhoused people in the process. If it favors Johnson, local governments will be required to demonstrate adequate shelter is available for an individual before resorting to harsh enforcement tactics.

A Radical Vision For The Housing Crisis In The West Of Ireland

April 10, 2024 Aysha Khan, Next City. Create! Housing, Ireland, Transportation, Urban Design

Transit-oriented development is a land use planning approach that concentrates high-density, mixed-use development – housing, groceries, retail, employment, childcare – within walking distance from rapid transit services. Centering development around transit hubs helps create vibrant, active, affordable and accessible neighbourhoods where both businesses and people – residents, workers and tourists alike – can thrive. Polysee chose a 32-hectare parcel of land by Oranmore station, just outside Galway City, to model what this could look like.

First City-Wide Rent Reduction In The History Of New York Upheld

March 29, 2024 John Mage, Portside. Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, Legal System, New York (NY), Rent, Victory

New York State’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 permits the regulation of residential rents (“rent stabilization”) on the declaration of a housing emergency in New York City when the vacancy rate falls below 5%, or by similar declarations in municipalities in the suburban New York City counties of Nassau, Westchester and Rockland. A “Rent Guidelines Board” then has the power to set guidelines for rent adjustments. Today about half of all apartments in New York City are rent stabilized.

Finally, A Path Toward ‘Modern Housing’ In 2024

March 15, 2024 Katelin Penner, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, History, Housing, New York City (NYC), Social Housing

In 1934, the architectural critic Catherine Bauer published one of the most important books ever written on housing. “Modern Housing,” based on years of research in Europe, recounts the sharp differences between the American and European approaches to the similar housing crises both regions experienced after World War I. Political movements for dignified housing forced many European nations, such as England, Germany and the Netherlands, to invest in what Bauer termed “modern housing”: non-speculative, affordable homes with adequate space, light, ventilation and community space.

Missing From Biden’s State Of The Union: A Plan For The Rent Crisis

March 9, 2024 Tara Raghuveer, In These Times. Create! Housing, Joe Biden, Rent, State Of The Union

Demetrius Mosley works on trucks all day, assessing crash damage and fixing brakes on 18 wheelers. He earns $29 an hour. On the first of every month, he purchases a money order from a local Kroger store to pay his rent, the biggest bill in his budget. Mosley moved to Louisville, Kentucky three years ago with his four kids and their mom. The family rented a trailer in Pioneer Acres, a mobile home park. Rent was $885 per month. Since then, the owner has added fees and fines and hiked the rent to $1,100. He couldn’t afford to feed his kids, so he sent them to live with family in Florida.

I’ve Been Unhoused; It Could Happen To You, So Let’s Stop Criminalizing It

March 3, 2024 Eleanor Goldfield, Truthout. Educate! Economic insecurity, Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights

For a period in 2005, I was one of the more than 740,000 people who were experiencing homelessness at that time in the U.S. On an eastern section of Sunset Boulevard where tourists never venture, there’s the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic — less chic than it sounds. Still, they had services ranging from medical care to showers, and for those seeking the latter, they’d give away those little test packets of shampoo and conditioner that used to come in magazines and in the mail. Herbal Essences was a favorite. After a quick rinse and a change of clothes, I could walk out of the clinic being treated like a real person until some indication of my situation betrayed me.

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