NEWS
Billion-plus affordable housing plan on Miami agenda
Why Sustainability Is Pivotal to Affordable Housing
Miami’s city commission has yet to fully approve the affordable housing master plan, a strategy to address the city’s growing affordability crisis. But that could change this month, with the commission slated to take it up again, this time against the backdrop of a pandemic that could further compound the problem.
The coronavirus outbreak has put the U.S. housing crisis in the spotlight and underscored the need for affordable housing. With COVID-19, it has also become more apparent that housing quality can significantly impact an individual’s overall health. Therefore, multifamily developers need to focus on creating housing that addresses health, safety and comfort, and strives for lower operations costs
Expanding the Supply of Affordable Housing for Low-Wage Workers
Rising income inequality, combined with high housing costs, and a shortage of affordable rental housing across the nation and particularly in large metropolitan regions, has been creating a significant financial burden for growing numbers of working families, especially those of low-income workers. And the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns and layoffs have exacerbated this problem. Lower-wage workers in particular are the most likely to have incurred a loss of income due to the pandemic.
Need for affordable housing is 'another pandemic'
The Republican mayors of Miami and Mesa, Ariz., on Tuesday stressed the importance of government intervention to support affordable housing, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. “Our cities are exploding in terms of growth, which means that it’s becoming more and more difficult for the market to provide the kind of affordable housing that is needed."
Housing Affordability Tracker created in partnership with the University of Miami
In October 2019, Miami-Dade County and Commissioner Dennis C. Moss worked with the county’s Department of Public Housing and Community Development (PHCD) to host “Closing In On 10,000 – A Housing Summit” to increase understanding and build additional support for the creation of 10,000 new affordable and workforce housing units within a year.
Radical Change in the Building Industry Is Desperately Needed
By now it’s common knowledge that we have little time to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. It’s also common knowledge that the way we make buildings, which represent about 39 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 36 percent of energy consumption in the world, will have to change. In the United States, the increased plausibility of a Green New Deal is raising questions about how public investment can and must shape cities and buildings.
How Affordable Housing Design Strengthens Social Resilience
Urban resilience is the ability to efficiently adapt and change a city over time, as circumstances dictate. Urban resilience includes any number of types of resilience, such as economic, physical, social, and ecological resilience, to name a few. The concept of urban resilience is similar to the concept of urban sustainability but less static. A perfectly sustainable city is one where the three pillars of sustainability — equity, ecology, and economy — are in perfect balance, presumably forever.
On World Cities Day UN-Habitat Releases 2020 Report on The Value of Sustainable Urbanization
Across the globe, ever since 2014, every year on the 31st of October, World Cities Day is celebrated. To mark this event, UN-Habitat has released its World Cities Report 2020 on the value of sustainable urbanization, focusing on the most up-to-date and pressing topics. Analyzing the intrinsic value of cities in generating economic prosperity, mitigating environmental degradation, reducing social inequality, and building stronger institutions, the report highlights how together these can drive transformative change.
Building Equitable, Healthy, and Climate Change-Ready Communities in the Wake of COVID-19
Low-income and tribal communities as well as communities of color have long borne the brunt of environmental pollution, unjust housing policies, economic inequality, and disparate access to affordable and quality health care.The lack of investment in these communities coupled with historic and systemic racism has resulted in toxic air, properties contaminated by industrial pollution—or brownfields—high unemployment, chronic illness, and crumbling infrastructure.
In these super-sustainable new apartments, you may never pay a heating bill
Building designed and constructed to the passive house standard have a number of sustainability goals in mind—including a tightly sealed exterior, sustainable energy use, and improved air quality—making them both efficient and extremely cheap and sustainable to heat and cool. And this style, once reserved for expensive single-family homes, is becoming increasingly popular for new multi-family projects.
New Plan Seeks to Increase Affordable Housing in Miami
The rent is just too high for a lot of people living in South Florida. In Miami, many renters spend at least half of their paychecks on housing. And consider this: The median household income for people in the city of Miami is $34,000. The average rent is around $1,800 across apartment sizes. That would cost someone making an average income two-thirds of their paycheck before taxes.
The Pandemic Threatens The Already Vulnerable Affordable Housing Crisis
The perfect storm of affordable housing crisis is brewing right now: a threat made up of the already low supply that is hitting the increasing post-pandemic demand head on. Before the pandemic, supply was an issue. The National Low Income Housing Coalition published the GAP report in late 2019 that shows a shortage of seven million affordable homes for low-income households at or below the poverty guidelines, or 30% of the area median income.
Wells Fargo, Enterprise Launch $20M Affordable Housing Ideas Challenge
The banking giant is partnering with affordable housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners on the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge. The national competition is aimed at finding innovative and scalable solutions to matters like construction costs, financing and resident services.The challenge would award six $2M grants, and Enterprise will offer two years of advisory services to assist in implementing the winning proposals.
Affordable housing for all: key to building a resilient post-COVID-19 world
As the intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs and flows, this year’s theme for World Habitat Day – “Housing For All – A Better Urban Future” couldn’t have been more befitting. With almost 90% of all reported cases of COVID-19 in urban areas and the close link between deprivation and infection rates, there is an urgent need to critically look at the fault lines in our cities and communities.
How multifamily owners can deliver social impact to build resilience for a post-pandemic world
In the past, our nation has responded to natural disasters—earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods—by rebuilding damaged properties to higher standards that make them more resilient to the next big event. As we look for ways to respond to the health and economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, we must take a similar approach that rebuilds and strengthens the resilience of our people so that when the next global crisis occurs, everyone will have shelter from the storm.
Despite Coronavirus-Recession Concerns, Affordable Multifamily Investors Tout Their Resiliency
As the nation’s current public health crisis shuts down the economy and sends the population into isolation, stakeholders are observing data analytics and federal bills in the pipeline for aid to adjust and apply resources where needed to offset any economic impacts. In this case, loss of income from unemployed renters in the near-term is one, but that’s not where the story ends or begins, according to Needell.