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The number of those living in the streets and shelters of the city of L.A. and most of the county surged 75% — to roughly 55,000 from about 32,000 — in the last six years.
But the crisis has been decades in the making. If homelessness continues to escalate at current rates, it will swamp even the best efforts.
— Los Angeles Times
Despite declaring homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and committing drastically increased funds to housing and services, Los Angeles is failing to improve the lives of its unsheltered citizens. View full entry
Dutch social renters wanting to move to a new apartment can now use an app to swap houses with other renters. One precondition, both renters need to ‘like’ each other’s apartment to get a match. [...]
Young renters with small apartments may swap with older residents who live in bigger apartments. In this way, the issue of scheefwonen (skew living — when people live in apartments that do not match their needs and desires) within the Dutch rental sector could be solved.
— Pop-Up City
"After two apartments are matched, the users are introduced to each other, after which they have to find out if their rental agreements are compatible enough for the renters to swap house." View full entry
Stacker was one of 188,000 people who applied for 20,000 spots in the voucher waiting line for the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles. And that line won’t be moving quickly. The Housing Authority’s Section 8 director, Carlos VanNatter, said only about 200 vouchers become available here every month, basically when a pay raise makes someone ineligible or someone dies. — marketplace.org
While the national average wait time for Section 8 vouchers is currently more than two years (with nearly half of all housing authorities having closed their lists to new applicants), the situation in big cities like New York and Los Angeles is so dire that residents have to apply for a coveted... View full entry
In the 1970s, a state agency tapped some of the best young architects in the country for an ambitious affordable housing effort that—despite its flaws—could not be matched today.
Twin Parks, an affordable housing project in the Bronx, does not comport with expectations. [...]
Overall, it provides palpably better affordable housing than what’s typically offered in the U.S., and maintains an engaged community.
— CityLab
CityLab writer Anthony Paletta looks back at the origins of the 1970s Twin Parks affordable housing development in the Bronx and its (now) famous architects who were then just gaining traction in their young careers, most notably Richard Meier, James Polshek (and this year's winner of the AIA Gold... View full entry
Despite being in the midst of a housing crisis, the United Kingdom seems bent on destroying some of the finest examples of social housing the post-war era has to offer, even tampering with the heritage-listing system in order to do so. The Robin Hood Gardens council estate, an icon of brutalist... View full entry
In the summer of 2016, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman charged Croman with 20 felonies, including harassing tenants at rent-regulated apartments within his various properties as well as falsifying rental income in order to secure as much as $45 million in financing. This fall, Croman plead guilty to charges of grand larceny, tax fraud, and an additional fraud charge relating to false statements. — Curbed NY
The notorious Manhattan landlord Steve Croman, who owned nearly 150 buildings across the city, has agreed to pay $8 million to his former tenants, the largest-ever settlement with an individual landlord in the state. Additionally, he has been sentenced to serve one year of jail time at Rikers... View full entry
How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?
That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet [...] many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. [...]
This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund.
— marketplace.org
A real estate developer in Hawaii is under scrutiny for its plans to build a residential high-rise that has two separate entrances: one for high-income residents and another for low-income earners.
[...] will include 78 affordable rental units for people earning 80 percent or less of the area median income, as required by Honolulu’s affordable housing strategy. The other 351 units will be market-priced condominiums. If things go as ProsPac plans, the units will be separated with two entrances.
— huffingtonpost.com
Various examples of so-called "poor doors" in New York City, London, and Vancouver made the headlines in previous years, sparking heated debate across a number of Archinect comment sections. View full entry
"By investing in Framework, our city will now be home to the first skyscraper made from wood in the United States. This project not only reflects Oregon’s leadership in the newly emerging wood products industry of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), it also demonstrates our city’s commitment to finding innovative ways to quickly deliver affordable units during our housing crisis,” said Portland Mayor, Ted Wheeler. — Portland Housing Bureau
LEVER Architecture's project, Framework, has been awarded 6M from the city of Portland as a recipient of the City's "Fast Starts" Affordable Housing Program. The program aims at providing financial and city level assistance in the development and deployment of affordable housing projects that aim... View full entry
A big obstacle to attracting new recruits is the stigma around working in the public sector. There remains a widely-held stereotype that planning departments are the realm of dusty, tweed-jacketed types, nested in their booths for the last half century. Williams says that when he started at Croydon, a colleague pitied him, assuming he had ended up there because he couldn’t get a job in an architecture practice. — The Guardian
With the explosion of STARCHITECTS collecting major commission after major commission in the same manner children collect toys, a young office in London, Public Practice, has found a niche all to their own — one who's historical stigma only expanded Public Practice's potential and... View full entry
A prototype affordable housing scheme for post-Daesh Mosul by Weston Williamson + Partners has received an honourable mention in the Rifat Chadirji Prize. It was the only UK entry among the finalists. The prototype focuses on housing some of the city’s 900,000 internally displaced people who... View full entry
The number of apartments deemed affordable for very low-income families across the United States fell by more than 60 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to a new report by Freddie Mac.
The report by the government-backed mortgage financier is the first to compare rent increases in specific units over time. It examined loans that the corporation had financed twice between 2010 and 2016, allowing a comparison of the exact same rental units and how their affordability changed.
— The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports about a new report by Freddie Mac: "More renters flooded the market after people lost their homes in the housing crisis. The apartment vacancy rate was 8 percent in 2009, compared to 4 percent in 2017. That trend, coupled with a stagnant supply of apartments, resulted... View full entry
“It is an absolutely dumbfounding surprise [...] I stopped following architecture years ago, so I had no idea there was this renewed interest in my work until recently. I thought my buildings were a curiosity of the past that people had largely forgotten about.”
Brown is now celebrated for his inventive housing schemes and enjoys the accolade of being the only living architect to have all of his work in the UK listed. But recognition has been a long time coming.
— The Guardian
Social housing pioneer Neave Brown, now 88 years old, was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the UK's highest accolade for architecture, just a week ago. The Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright got a chance to chat with Brown about his career and good London housing. Current condition... View full entry
Acres of prime real estate are opening for redevelopment as America’s malls struggle to compete with Amazon and other online giants, offering developers a rare shot to remake swaths of land in the country’s built-out metropolises.
In particular, real estate experts say, the demise of retail centers provides one of the best chances to add needed housing [...].
— Los Angeles Times
In his article, LA Times reporter Andrew Khouri also points out the drawbacks of these new development opportunities, writing "residents voiced concern that the development will make the area more attractive to those of higher incomes and put upward pressure on rents in the surrounding area, even... View full entry
This year’s house marks the 50th project built by first-year students in the Yale School of Architecture’s professional degree program. Since it started in 1967, the building project has produced structures for communities around New Haven, including the Bridgeport band shell, pavilions in East Rock Park and Lighthouse Point Park, and since 1989, affordable housing units for over 30 families. — Yale News
First-year graduate students at Yale School of Architecture and Design have built a family house in New Haven. The two units are separated by a walkway but under the same roof. The project was realized in collaboration with Columbus House, a New Haven-based homelessness services provider. Most of... View full entry
