Affordable Housing
Since the 1920s, our society has steadily become more urban and less rural, clustered in cities and the near suburbs. From the tenements of the 30s to the housing projects of the 60s and 70s, cities have often played catch-up, trying to develop affordable housing and enhance the housing affordability for low-income residents and low-income families without the full involvement of the individuals and communities who will live in, and with, these “solutions.”
Even the best previous approaches have not secured long-term housing for unemployed and low-wage workers, low-income residents, and low-income families. Many residents struggle for affordable housing or even stay in the same house or even in the same community long enough. Rents are unsustainable, and the dream of homeownership recedes from the possibility for such low-income families.
Lack of affordable housing, including high-cost – relative to income – and inferior-quality rental housing, has been linked to numerous negative social outcomes, including ill health, decreased life expectancy, inferior education, and lower incomes. There also is a racial aspect to these housing disparities— in 2018, 31% of Black renter households were severely burdened (i.e., their housing costs exceed 50 percent of income), compared with 21 percent of their White counterparts.
We think there’s a better way. Our experience has taught us affordable housing is more than a supply of low-cost living spaces in an impersonal housing block. It is a planning process that begins with communities, demands our best innovations, and can result in lasting, cross-generational social uplift and economic progress.
One such project is a project targeted toward mixed-income and first-time home buyers. Over 20 percent of the units are designed as live-work units with a mission to incubate and preserve local micro-businesses and neighborhood start-ups. At the same time, the remaining are convertible for live work. The primary goal was not profit but rather to promote business and homeownership among area residents in danger of being displaced as the neighborhood changed.
Policies and planning permission by the federal, state and local levels have driven the decisions on what and where to build in the city. They will continue to affect our ability to develop and deliver affordable and desirable housing. As housing architects, we believe that quality, the affordable home, should be a right. We are committed to designing and developing solutions in San Francisco, Golden Gate Park and Fillmore Park that help mend the economic and racial inequalities embedded in our country’s unbalanced state of housing. We also believe that when communities – the people who will live in what we design – come in on the ground floor of the planning process, the results have an immediate positive impact and enduring value.
Public and private sector entities alike face major challenges to making sustainable growth happen in a way that is appropriate to the needs of their communities, is cost-effective, and enhances the local and global environment. In the past, neighborhoods have been razed for new infrastructure. Our whole philosophy process puts homes for people at the center of the infrastructure debate.
We have significant experience collaborating with developers to design low-rise and high-rise affordable housing developments that promote sustainability, wellness, and self-worth. It should have a community room, public library, and more facilities to be an affordable building but high-value place. Our developments are also models of low-cost construction that maintain design excellence. In every development project we undertake, we work to create low-cost buildings and healthy homes that increase well-being – mental and physical — are affordable and are built to last.
