Environment

There’s no denying that affordable housing can be expensive to build. But we need to look at the long-term benefits of those investments to see the bigger picture.

Because their programs provide the most deeply affordable housing in the country, public housing authorities should be both supported in improving fair housing outcomes and held to account when they fall short.

Climate change is an especially large threat to low-income residents. The Inflation Reduction Act offers a chance to act.

How can we get more accessory dwelling units built, keep them affordable, and make them forces for increasing racial equity?

Policymakers and building designers have gone from pushing for energy efficiency to focusing on reducing carbon emissions by using more electrical-based systems. What are some of the benefits and challenges of going all-electric, and how can affordable housers move forward?

Holmdel, New Jersey, moved its affordable housing to flood-prone land, raising a question about planners’ ethical obligations to speak up against such moves.

As ADUs gain national attention, cities are searching for the best ways to legalize their development and encourage construction.

What lessons can Ida offer to affordable housing managers and owners whose properties are at risk of damage from extreme weather events?

The devastation that communities in the Rio Grande Valley experience is twofold: the initial destruction of the floods and the cycle of debt and poverty as a result of predatory loans.

In Louisville, low-income and Black populations living in neighborhoods dealing with decades of industrial pollution are now suffering the worst public health outcomes of COVID-19.

Officials in large and small cities along the East Coast are realizing that maybe they shouldn’t rebuild on land that repeatedly floods. Instead they’re focusing on buyouts, building affordable housing on higher ground, and other mitigation efforts.

Los Angeles’ Green New Deal is an opportunity to demand the type of investment in housing required to actually address the crisis we face. It would be an awful mistake to back down.