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Social Housing

There’s A Severe Housing Crisis In The US: The Work To Make Housing A Right

October 29, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , , , , ,
A new report, Billionaire Blowback on Housing: How concentrated wealth disrupts housing markets and worsens the housing affordability crisis, explains how the United States has entered a state of hyper-gentrification in which the average person has to compete with a large corporation when it comes to buying or renting a home. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every homeless person. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report, and Mehrdad Azemun of Peoples Action, about the housing crisis, the vision for a homes guarantee and how people are working to make housing a human right.

Social Housing Isn’t Just A Vienna Thing

August 2, 2024 Leo Miranda, Next City. , , , ,
When it comes to housing people for highly affordable and highly livable homes for the long term, Vienna, Austria has no equal. The average Viennese pays a quarter or less of their post-tax income on rent and utilities and half of the city lives in public or subsidized housing. These buildings aren’t shabby or poorly-maintained either. “It looks like the housing we can’t afford in New York,” says Samuel Stein, housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. Vienna prioritizes housing supply, subsidizing the construction of 7,000 subsidized units a year while maintaining over 220,000 city-owned units. As Vienna grows its social housing stock, it suppresses housing costs overall.

Venezuela: Government Delivers 4.9 Million Homes

May 3, 2024 Andreina Chávez Alava, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
The Venezuelan government marked the 13th anniversary of Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission (GMVV) by celebrating the 4.9 millionth home delivered to working-class families. On Tuesday, President Nicolás Maduro unveiled the new milestone by inaugurating the “Parque Hábitat El Ingenio” housing project, located in Guatire city, Miranda state. In a televised broadcast, Maduro handed the apartment keys to a young couple and their child alongside local authorities. One of the beneficiaries, young mother Marisabel Quiñonez, said she was studying electromedicine for free at the National Experimental University Francisco de Miranda.

Finally, A Path Toward ‘Modern Housing’ In 2024

March 15, 2024 Katelin Penner, Next City. , , , ,
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.

Housing Coalition Asks Government To Socialize Corporate-Owned Housing

July 7, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
On Wednesday, July 5, the housing rights coalition in Berlin urged the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-Social Democratic Party (SPD) government to honor the mandate of the 2021 Berlin referendum and introduce legislation to socialize the properties of corporate realtors to solve the escalating housing crisis in the city. The previous SPD-Greens-Die Linke government in Berlin had established a commission of legal experts to assess the legality and feasibility of implementing the mandate of the referendum known as Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. (DWE).

How A New Generation Of Activists Are Reinventing Housing

June 14, 2023 H. Jacob Carlson and Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Nonprofit Quarterly. , , ,
What is social housing? The simple answer is that it is a systemic approach to providing homes that treat housing not as a commodity, but as a human right. But to make it more than just a slogan, you need policies and institutions to make that right into a reality.       Not so long ago, social housing was rarely discussed in the United States. But today there are over a dozen social housing campaigns across the country: from municipal efforts in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Seattle, Kansas City, and San Francisco; to statewide campaigns in California, New York, and Rhode Island, to mention a few. Some are grassroots campaigns; others are led by elected officials.

The UK Is Mired In An Energy Crisis, But Not On Goldsmith Street

December 13, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. , , , ,
When the Goldsmith Street social housing development was completed in Norwich, UK, in 2019, it was the country’s largest residential complex built to energy efficient Passivhaus standards. At the time, it was dubbed a “modest masterpiece” and won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize. Now, as the UK braces for the first full winter of a cost-of-living crisis and the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is winning its residents something even more important: savings on their heating bills. “We don’t have to put the heating on so it’s cheaper,” resident Jayed Abdas Samad told The Guardian. “We feel very lucky.” Passivhaus standards were first developed in Germany and are the go-to standards for new construction there.

Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission Achieves Major Milestone

April 11, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
On April 7, the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro celebrated the delivery of a record 4 million homes to its citizens as part of a social housing program called the Great Housing Mission of Venezuela (GMVV). During a joint radio and television broadcast, President Maduro emphasized that the handing over of the 4 million homes was a “historic” event and a “world record.” “Nothing and no one is going to stop us,” he added.

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