NYTimes, April 2021 excerpt https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/politics/progressives-infrastructure-legislation.html When Mr. Biden outlined his proposal last month, he called for more than $40 billion to improve public housing infrastructure. At an event in New York on Sunday, a group of lawmakers from the state, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, pushed for at least double that figure. “Public housing has been neglected, left to get …
RMI’s Healthy, Zero Emission, Affordable Housing for All program: Scale Zero
Scale Zero: Healthy, Zero-Emission, Affordable Housing for All RMI / Boulder, Colorado To meet 1.5°C climate targets and ensure equal access to healthy, affordable buildings, we must dramatically accelerate the pace of building retrofits. Scale Zero will establish a coordinated policy and retrofit implementation approach that will advance supportive policies and reduce the cost associated with zero-emission retrofits in five …
Black and Latinx metro area residents represent only 12% of people making the average annual wage or more, even though they are 25% of the population. And fewer than half of Black Coloradans and 54% of Latinx own their homes, compared to ~75% of whites
Colorado Sun, February 2021 U.S. News & World Report has ranked Colorado as having the No. 1 economy in the nation and consistently ranks our cities among the top five places to live, with Boulder holding No. 1 and Denver No. 2 for the last two years. Even before the pandemic, not everyone has been able to access the economic and social opportunities we …
How Neighborhood Infrastructure Affects Wellbeing – GESC neighborhoods in Denver
Globeville, Elyria, Swansea, and Cole residents live in the most polluted zip code in the country, according to a recent national environmental risk index. How Neighborhood Infrastructure Affects Wellbeing https://news.ucdenver.edu/on-the-street-where-you-live/ There is a reason Denver’s I-70 expansion and National Western Complex redevelopment projects cut right through the Globeville, Elyria Swansea, and Cole (GESC) neighborhoods. These communities have historically had low socio-economic …
Pragmatists for Clean Air and Building without Gas
CASE STUDY: DIAMOND RAIL – ALL-ELECTRIC VS. TYPICAL Diamond Rail (v.4) Diamond Rail is Giv Group’s fourth (v.4) all-electric multifamily design. Site: 535 West 300 North, Salt Lake City, UT 84116 Status: Ground broke February 2020 Units: 80 (Studio – Three Bedroom) Affordability: 68% Affordable (25-50% AMI), 32% Market HVAC System: Cold-weather mini-split Water Heating: Centralized hybrid electric tank w/ unit meters Project Savings (before rebates): $133,434.32 …
Single family housing that keeps multi-family out is exclusionary and extends homelessness
Exclusionary zoning such as single-family zoning makes it illegal to build anything other than single-family homes and is prevalent in suburbs. Single-family homes are more expensive than apartments, townhomes, or duplexes, and that makes rent costly, too. Even in mixed use residential districts ordained minimum lot sizes can force larger and more expensive units. ** Feb 2021 on vox.com https://www.vox.com/22252625/america-racist-housing-rules-how-to-fix This is …
Hurricanes kicked off a vicious cycle of disaster capitalism and homelessness in Louisiana
Hurricanes Tipped Off ‘Vicious Cycle’ Of Homelessness In Louisiana: Residents of Southwest Louisiana continue to endure the turmoil set off by Hurricanes Laura and Delta, and rooted in systemic inequities and exacerbated by the fossil fuel industry, Southerly reports. “People who are poorer than they were six months ago are expected to spend more on housing than they did six …
community-scaled Internet service providers are far more effective at delivering fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access
Access to high-quality broadband is more important than ever, but monopoly control of essential public service leaves many disconnected, underserved, or paying too much for substandard service. Recommended: Removing state laws that discourage or prevent local governments from building or partnering for broadband networks. Supporting a diverse range of locally-based solutions, including municipal broadband networks, partnerships between communities and locally-owned companies, …
How Cities Are Reimagining Neighborhoods and What it Means to Thrive
PHILLIPE CUNNINGHAM & MEGHAN SAHLI-WELLS Feb 2, 2021, Next City A Tale of Two Upzones Minneapolis May Ban New Drive-Throughs, Citing Greenhouse Gases and Health Effects Housing in Brief: Portland Just Ended Single-Family Zoning When Minneapolis ended single-family zoning it was in part to undo the racial segregation, caused by policies like redlining (as seen in this historic map), that still defines …
Tiny home villages, affordable housing and transit oriented development expanding
A tiny home village opened in the Cole neighborhood in late 2020 The researchers’ latest assessment compared village residents to a control group of people experiencing homelessness over a year that ended in October and included the pandemic. The researchers found that villagers were four times more likely to be working or in school and reported lower levels of anxiety, …