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Austin is planning to grow significantly over the next few years. 60,000 new units are planned for the city, to be complete in the next few years, according to KVUE. This month, the Austin City Council voted to support a new housing plan for the city that could bring up to 135,000 new... View full entry
Many baby boomers poured millions into these spacious homes, planning to live out their golden years in houses with all the bells and whistles.
Now, many boomers are discovering that these large, high-maintenance houses no longer fit their needs as they grow older, but younger people aren’t buying them.
— wsj.com
The Wall Street Journal reports that wealthy baby boomers in America's far-flung retirement suburbs are having trouble selling their McMansions. The problem? The homes are too big, too expensive, and too far away from everything else. Another issue: Too many multi-million dollar homes are... View full entry
2020 Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker has unveiled an ambitious housing and homelessness prevention plan. With his plan, the current junior senator from New Jersey and former Newark mayor takes a multi-faceted approach that aims to address many of the structural issues that underpin... View full entry
The Berlin activists who staged a protest at a vacant government building didn’t imagine they’d end up leading a €140 million redevelopment project. — Places Journal
During the 1960s, the Haus der Statistik was built for the national statistics office for East Germany. The massive complex spreads over eight blocks at half a million square feet, comprising three connected mid-rises and some smaller buildings. As years passed, the Haus der Statistik's history... View full entry
When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office in 2013, the city was home to 22,993 homeless residents [...].
The number of unhoused people living within city limits now stands at 36,300—and 75 percent are unsheltered.
With homelessness up 58 percent on his watch, the mayor struck an apologetic tone in a letter sent to residents Tuesday.
— Curbed LA
"As your mayor, I take full responsibility for our response to this crisis," wrote Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in an open letter this week. "And like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need, I am both heartbroken and impatient. While we have housed more... View full entry
Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally [...]
“We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions.”
— The Guardian
Meanwhile in the U.S., major cities that have seen an influx of new wealth, such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles, continue to struggle in their fights against extreme poverty and homelessness despite allocating increased funding. View full entry
Mayor London Breed’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year will soar by $1.2 billion — making it the largest in city history — and boost investment in tackling the city’s most urgent problems: housing and homelessness. — SF Chronicle
The housing and homelessness crisis in major cities, especially in San Francisco, has been an ongoing issue. Mayor London Breed met with city officials and San Francisco residents to address new plans to address solutions towards the increased initiative towards housing and homelessness. With an... View full entry
The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. — The Los Angeles Times
Homelessness is surging in Los Angeles County and across California, where most major cities have seen double-digit increases in their share of residents experiencing homelessness since last year. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Los Angeles Times, “At this point of... View full entry
A growing number of entrepreneurs are leading the way, challenging our antiquated housing system and creating new ways for housing to be more equitable and affordable across the board.
However, they need support navigating the complex policy environment and accessing the necessary capital. The Housing Lab will advise promising ventures while they evolve their business models and connect them with the industry leaders and capital to achieve greater scale.
— The Terner Center for Housing Innovation
In California, the collapse of proposed statewide legislation that would have eliminated single-family zoning and could have boosted density along transit corridors has left housing activists scrambling. While state legislators regroup to tackle the structural issues, like zoning, underpinning... View full entry
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is moving to allow federally-funded homeless shelters to deny people admission based on their gender identity. A proposed HUD rule will allow federally-funded shelters to establish policies “consistent with state and local... View full entry
Seattle’s upzoning plan is set to take place throughout the city, but only 6 percent of single-family neighborhoods will be affected. These neighborhoods will be rezoned to allow for smaller, denser housing, while encouraging developers to keep existing structures and turn them into multifamily housing — like duplexes — in order to preserve a neighborhood’s aesthetic. — NBC News
Since 2010 Seattle's population has seen a hike of 16%, so have the rents and the property prices. And while real estate in the city is booming, little of the development is targeted towards the growing demand for affordable housing. Today 75% of Seattle's residential land is zoned for... View full entry
Hawaii and Honolulu laws require most new developments to set aside a certain percentage of units as affordable rental housing, but it’s not enough. In five years, Honolulu will still need thousands of additional new units. That has elected officials looking for other solutions to the problem, and some think they’ve found one in Singapore. — Marketplace
The housing proposal put forward by Hawaii State Senator Stanley Chang is called Affordable Locally Owned Homes for All, or ALOHA, and looks to replicate the public housing program of Singapore which has a comparable median household income. Marketplace's Ryan Finnerty reports that the "vast... View full entry
A YWCA building in San Pedro has been sold to a non-profit housing developer and is expected to provide 35 homes and on-site daycare for single women with children, all of which will be affordable. The organization, which is one of the oldest and most active chapters helping women and... View full entry
As the tech companies Uber, Airbnb, Lyft and Pinterest prepare to go public, thousands more instant millionaires are expected to flood the market in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. All the while, the middle class and working poor are scrambling for shelter. — The Guardian
This week the non-profit rise International (Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise) announced its winner of the international architecture competition which focuses on affordable housing projects. During the 2018-2019 competition, designers were challenged to design high-quality, sustainable... View full entry
