Housing and Community Development

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  • 1.  How to build more Affordable Housing?

    Posted 01-12-2016 04:04 PM

    How to Build more Affordable Housing?

     
    All US cities have a shortage of affordable housing units and long waiting lists for them. Some estimate that only under a quarter of eligible households actually receive housing assistance in any form, public housing, housing vouchers or private but federally assisted housing. The under-supply occurs in thriving and prosperous parts of the country as well as in poor and struggling regions.
    A public housing development dating to the 1930s in Fort Worth, TX,
    slated to be demolished as part of RAD (photo: ArchPlan)
    For every 100 extremely low-income (ELI) renter households in the country, there are only 29 affordable and available rental units. Extremely low-income households—a definition used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—earn 30 percent of area median income or less. [...] 
    Nationwide, only 28 affordable, adequate, and available units exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. (Baltimore: 43)
    Perception of Public Housing in the US. (photo: The Atlantic)
    Not one county in the United States has an even balance between its ELI households and its affordable and available rental units. As a result, ELI households have to search harder for a place to live, spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, or live in substandard housing. (Urban Institute)

    What causes this pervasive scarcity of affordable housing and what are the right remedies? Of those two questions, the first is relatively easy to answer: .... to read the full article click the below link:

    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?

    Archplanbaltimore remove preview
    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?
     
    View this on Archplanbaltimore >
    ------------------------------
    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
    ------------------------------
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 2.  RE: How to build more Affordable Housing?

    Posted 01-15-2016 04:45 PM

    As an answer to such question, is to find the construction method and construction materials which can satisfy the need.

    As architects, I think search for materials and methods, and forget of statistics and economic conditions.   Architects are designers and builders, only.

    I am trying and have a solution based in using a method which uses non skilled workers, fast deliverer, and a product with minimum maintenance, efficient, capable of resisting natural disasters, as tornados and fire and all the others calamities, including termites and mold.    Design the bathrooms accessible, the construction will last longer and the owner will appreciate moving around even in wheelchair.

    Soon I will finish my studio in such fashion to invite everybody to come and kick the walls and feel the ambiance with no HVAC blasting.





    ------Original Message------

    How to Build more Affordable Housing?

     
    All US cities have a shortage of affordable housing units and long waiting lists for them. Some estimate that only under a quarter of eligible households actually receive housing assistance in any form, public housing, housing vouchers or private but federally assisted housing. The under-supply occurs in thriving and prosperous parts of the country as well as in poor and struggling regions.
    A public housing development dating to the 1930s in Fort Worth, TX,
    slated to be demolished as part of RAD (photo: ArchPlan)
    For every 100 extremely low-income (ELI) renter households in the country, there are only 29 affordable and available rental units. Extremely low-income households—a definition used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—earn 30 percent of area median income or less. [...] 
    Nationwide, only 28 affordable, adequate, and available units exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. (Baltimore: 43)
    Perception of Public Housing in the US. (photo: The Atlantic)
    Not one county in the United States has an even balance between its ELI households and its affordable and available rental units. As a result, ELI households have to search harder for a place to live, spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, or live in substandard housing. (Urban Institute)

    What causes this pervasive scarcity of affordable housing and what are the right remedies? Of those two questions, the first is relatively easy to answer: .... to read the full article click the below link:

    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?

    Archplanbaltimore remove preview
    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?
     
    View this on Archplanbaltimore >
    ------------------------------
    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
    ------------------------------
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 3.  RE: How to build more Affordable Housing?

    Posted 01-19-2016 09:34 PM
    I think we all could be inspired by the work and philosophy of Alejandro Aravena, the Chilean architect who has just received the Pritzker prize, advocating social and collaborative approach and sustainable design to address low income housing and need for affordable shelter.

    "Aravena is 48 years old and from Santiago, Chile. He studied architecture in Chile, and later taught at Harvard before becoming the director of Elemental. For much of the past fifteen years, Aravena, through his studio, has worked on projects like the one at Quinta Monroy-projects that have taken community ideas and needs into special consideration, and turned the standard idea of emergency housing on its head. Aravena has gone on record saying that temporary shelters in times of disaster are a waste of money. He advocates instead for quickly building longer-term, "incremental" structures and letting families flesh out the details. That's how he rebuilt a residential complex in Constitución, Chile, in the wake of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the country in February 2010. Each unit in the complex was literally one-half of a house-the left side, to be exact-that was later completed through the new resident's own investments. They aren't homes to be thrown away, like emergency shelters. They're for keeps." Wired.com


    Hamid M. Kashani - AIA, LEED GA
    President - Principal Architect

    Habitat Architecture, Inc.
    9540 Wyoming Ave. S.     
    Minneapolis, MN 55438     
    PH: 952-946-9700     
    www.habitatarchitecture.com



    ------Original Message------

    How to Build more Affordable Housing?

     
    All US cities have a shortage of affordable housing units and long waiting lists for them. Some estimate that only under a quarter of eligible households actually receive housing assistance in any form, public housing, housing vouchers or private but federally assisted housing. The under-supply occurs in thriving and prosperous parts of the country as well as in poor and struggling regions.
    A public housing development dating to the 1930s in Fort Worth, TX,
    slated to be demolished as part of RAD (photo: ArchPlan)
    For every 100 extremely low-income (ELI) renter households in the country, there are only 29 affordable and available rental units. Extremely low-income households—a definition used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—earn 30 percent of area median income or less. [...] 
    Nationwide, only 28 affordable, adequate, and available units exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. (Baltimore: 43)
    Perception of Public Housing in the US. (photo: The Atlantic)
    Not one county in the United States has an even balance between its ELI households and its affordable and available rental units. As a result, ELI households have to search harder for a place to live, spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, or live in substandard housing. (Urban Institute)

    What causes this pervasive scarcity of affordable housing and what are the right remedies? Of those two questions, the first is relatively easy to answer: .... to read the full article click the below link:

    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?

    Archplanbaltimore remove preview
    Community Architect: How to Build more Affordable Housing?
     
    View this on Archplanbaltimore >
    ------------------------------
    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
    ------------------------------
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13