Housing Crisis Research Articles

Redesign of a Primary Care–Based Housing Intervention to Address Upstream Housing Needs

Summary The stark inequity in safe, affordable housing due to unfair policies and practices (e.g., redlining) underpins inequities across multiple social determinants of health (SDOH) and health outcomes. Suboptimal housing is associated with poorer health, less effective health care engagement, and higher health care costs. In response, some health care systems address patients’ housing needs. Since 2018, Brigham Health’s social care team (SCT) has been supporting 15 primary care practices to address patients’ SDOH. Rather than focus only on unhoused patients, Brigham’s housing program also supports patients who are at risk of eviction or living in unsafe or unhealthy housing conditions (i.e., upstream factors) to prevent illness by addressing housing needs before they become a housing and health crisis. Most patients reporting housing needs are at risk of eviction or housed in unsafe or unhealthy conditions; however, intervening with this group is complicated by the number of identified needs of varying acuity and the scarcity of affordable housing. Here, the authors describe the efforts of Brigham Health’s SCT to redesign housing intervention by triaging cases to identify patients whose housing needs acutely affect their health and for which there are potential remedies and to accompany and support patients to pursue those remedies. Via a team-based process improvement project, the SCT refined its housing intervention to better direct its housing advocates’ deep expertise toward patients who could benefit most from their support. Data revealed inefficiencies in the original intervention design. Using Plan–Do–Study–Act cycles, they designed a triage protocol guided by well-defined housing case types. This team-based triage approach preserved housing advocates’ effort and expertise for complex housing situations — enabling upstream intervention, which many health care–based interventions do not focus on. The authors describe their learning process and offer recommendations for systems expanding SDOH screening with limited resources for addressing housing needs. They did achieve some positive outcomes: 14.1% of 262 cases obtained a housing accommodation, and 16% were permanently housed (8% accepted a new housing placement offer; 8% avoided eviction and maintained stable housing). However, at the conclusion of this study, they had unclear outcomes for many patients: 13.3% were lost during follow-up procedures, and another 53.4% were on housing waitlists. New efforts, supported by additional funding, will include a mixed methods evaluation that provides a difference-in-differences analysis of associations between housing program participation, health care utilization, and health outcomes, as well as interviews to better understand patients’ experiences.

Airspace Rights and Affordable Housing Supply

Murray and Gordon develop an “airspace rights” conception of zoning to critique recent reforms that upzone land without recapturing the value of privatized land use rights. This comment offers two objections to the arguments presented by the authors. First, given that zoned capacity determines long-run housing supply, upzoning offers one potential solution to the affordable housing crisis. Second, Murray and Gordon’s “public recapture” proposals could exacerbate the affordable housing crisis unless recaptured value is applied towards targeted affordable housing investments. For these and other reasons, Murray and Gordon fail to make a compelling case for recapturing the value of privatized airspace rights.

Manufactured Ignorance and the Violence of Not‐Counting: The Experience of Censo Popular of Unhoused People in Buenos Aires

AbstractWhile the unhoused population continues to increase in the context of a housing crisis in the city of Buenos Aires, the local government fails to produce accurate statistics about it. As a response to this, a coalition of grassroots organisations carried out the Popular Census of Unhoused People (PC) in 2017 and 2019 to challenge the numbers yielded by official surveys and demand appropriate responses from the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (GCBA). This paper works with different meanings of the verb “to count” to explore how the PC enacts a politics of counting focused on making visible and making count the unhoused population. The PC helps us to have a better understanding of the GCBA's concealment of the houselessness problem and the violence associated with it, while it brings into play other knowledges and lived experiences of the city for a different urban politics.

“They are always focusing on the person who is doing the worst”: Exploring how crisis shapes young people's pathways in and out of supportive housing in Vancouver, Canada

Housing instability, homelessness, and mental health among young people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada, and elsewhere have increasingly been framed through a language of crisis. The declaration of overlapping housing, mental health, and addictions crises in our own setting has prompted a wide range of interventions, including the rapid expansion of supportive housing programs that include integrated housing-based substance use and mental health care. There is growing evidence demonstrating that these models are effective at stabilizing people who are experiencing protracted housing instability, mental health, and substance use related health concerns. We recount stories of three young people who have lived in supportive housing to argue that achieving the relative stability afforded by these interventions is partially contingent on maintaining a delicate balance between being in a state of “too much” or “too little” in crisis. These stories demonstrate two key findings. First, being in crisis has made these young people visible to housing, substance use, and mental health programs that may not otherwise be available to them. Secondly, entering periods of protracted or intense mental health crisis may reopen pathways into unstable housing and homelessness by activating undesirable institutional responses that conflict with young people's desire for self-determination in relation to their care. This study underscores that supportive housing should be part of a broader youth focused system of housing and care that seeks to address the needs of young people before they enter states of crisis.

Ireland: Political Developments and Data in 2022

AbstractIreland in 2022 saw the return of normal politics after two years of the pandemic. The ebbing of the health crisis saw the emergence or re‐emergence of new crises. The invasion of Ukraine had an impact on Irish politics as there was a surge of refugees accommodated in Ireland and an increase in inflation. The government introduced measures to mitigate the impact of the cost‐of‐living crisis, but the growing population and a lag in construction activity caused the housing crisis to worsen. None of what the government sought to do was able to mitigate these problems in the short to medium term at least. By the end of the year, the pressure the number of refugees had put on housing services led to anti‐refugee protests, hitherto unknown in Ireland. Ireland also saw a new Taoiseach (Prime Minister), though the government remained substantively the same following the planned rotation of the head of government.

Understanding the Challenges of Affordable Housing Provision in Nigeria: An Analysis of Key Factors and Policy Implications

Affordable housing remains a critical issue in Nigeria, with numerous factors contributing to its scarcity. This paper examines the key factors contributing to the lack of affordable housing in Nigeria, including high construction costs, inadequate urban planning and land use, limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure, corruption and bureaucracy, limited government support and policy implementation, and high urban area land costs. High construction costs escalate housing prices, posing challenges for low-income earners to afford homes. Inadequate urban planning and land use policies result in spatial inequality, scarcity of available land, and increased housing costs. Limited access to finance restricts low-income earners' ability to secure mortgage financing for affordable homes. High urban area land costs further exacerbate the affordability challenge. Inadequate infrastructure hampers housing development and increases construction costs. Limited government support and policy implementation hinder effective affordable housing provision. Corruption and bureaucratic bottlenecks also hampers the process. These factors underscore the complex nature of the affordable housing crisis in Nigeria and necessitate a comprehensive approach involving collaboration between the government, private sector, and communities. Policy recommendations include improving policy implementation, fostering public-private partnerships, enhancing access to finance, strengthening urban planning strategies, investing in infrastructure, and providing increased government support for affordable housing initiatives. Addressing these factors will contribute to the creation of sustainable and inclusive housing solutions, ensuring that affordable homes become accessible to all Nigerians.

Die Bereitstellung von leistbarem Wohnraum in Zeiten der Wohnkrise

Limited-profit housing associations are established players in Vienna’s housing market. The exorbitant rise in land and construction costs in recent years and increasing demand for affordable housing have far-reaching implications for the provision of affordable housing in Vienna. These developments are causing shifts not only in the housing market in general, but also within the nonprofit sector. This paper approaches these shifts at the level of limited-profit housing associations and examines a) which interpretations of affordability and related challenges can be found in the field of limited-profit housing, and b) which practices are applied in the provision of (affordable) housing. Empirically, the article draws on interviews with board members, managing directors and project developers from the limited-profit housing sector, which were conducted between 2020 and 2021. Finally, implications for the limited-profit sector in Vienna and for the provision of (affordable) housing are discussed. English title: The provision of affordable housing in times of the housing crisis. Interpretations and practices of the non-profit sector in Vienna

Home Sweet Home: Strengthening Pagibig Fund’s Housing Programs towards Building Sustainable Homes

A global housing crisis is caused by a number of things: overpopulation, inflation, the lack of affordable housing units, low income, land and labor shortage, and there are many international and nationwide efforts to combat this housing shortage. Among the several sustainable and affordable housing initiatives and programs by the Philippine government is the conception of the Pag-IBIG Fund, tasked to be responsible for national savings and affordable home financing. The objective of this study is to formulate and propose an action plan that would help strengthen Pag-IBIG Fund’s housing programs to promote sustainable housing among low-income Filipino workers. To formulate this, various literature suggest the need to gather the perceptions of both low-income and minimum-wage individuals who are members of the Pag-IBIG Fund and the Pag-IBIG Fund housing developer partners. To determine the housing problems, perception of sustainable housing, and effectiveness of Pag-IBIG’s housing programs, the researcher employed a quantitative approach with the use of a survey with data analyzed through various statistical treatments. Results show that the respondents concur that physical inadequacy, limited selection, and proximity are common housing problems of Filipino low-income earners. The study’s results served as the researcher’s basis in formulating the action plan containing a policy brief and a public relations plan for information dissemination.

Displaced for housing: analysing the uneven outcomes of the Addis Ababa Integrated Housing Development Program

ABSTRACT The population of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city is growing at a remarkable pace. Similar to other places in the Global South, rapid urban population growth poses significant challenges for Addis Ababa, the most important of which is acute housing shortage. Around 80% of the housing stock in the city is considered sub-standard, lacking essential utilities and services. In recognition of the severity of the housing crisis, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which governed Ethiopia from 1991–2018 introduced the Integrated Housing Development Program (IHDP), an ambitious plan to construct hundreds of thousands of condominium units. However, despite the IHDP’s pro-poor aims, the program has been criticized for failing to benefit the city’s poorest residents. Focusing on IHDP-induced displacement and resettlement to re-politicize the issue, this article demonstrates how in some instances, the IHDP not only failed to benefit the urban poor but actually deepened material inequality.

Belgium’s Successful Ride on the Elephant? The Diverging Effects of High Homeownership Rates on Inequalities

ABSTRACT This paper studies the contradictory effects of pro-homeownership policies on inequalities through the case of Belgium. While the literature describes high homeownership rates as levellers of wealth inequalities, this paper finds, using national microdata from ECHP and EU-SILC, that different mechanisms underlying homeownership growth have had contradictory effects on economic inequalities, even in the absence of a housing crisis or increase in income inequalities. Inequalities in the weight of rental costs have risen for newly contracted rental agreements in the last decade, while wealth inequalities are rising because of an increasingly exclusive mortgage-credit market. Current measurements of wealth inequalities are based on the distribution of net wealth, thereby missing the evolution of the difference between mean wealth and no wealth and the dynamic nature of wealth accumulation. Therefore, inequalities are rising in Belgium as poorer renters are increasingly constrained by rental costs when they are increasingly excluded from accessing homeownership.

Overcrowded housing reduces COVID-19 mitigation measures and lowers emotional health among San Diego refugees from September to November of 2020.

Refugee communities are vulnerable to housing insecurity, which drives numerous health disparity outcomes in a historically marginalized population. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the ongoing affordable housing crisis in the United States while continuing to highlight disparities in health outcomes across populations. We conducted interviewer-administered surveys with refugee and asylum seekers in San Diego County at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to understand the social effects and drivers of COVID-19 in one of the largest refugee communities in the United States. Staff from a community-based refugee advocacy and research organization administered the surveys from September-November 2020. 544 respondents participated in the survey, which captured the diversity of the San Diego refugee community including East African (38%), Middle Eastern (35%), Afghan (17%), and Southeast Asian (11%) participants. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) reported living in overcrowded conditions (> 1 individual per room) and 30% in severely crowded conditions (> 1.5 individuals per room). For each additional person per room, self-reported poor emotional health increased. Conversely, family size was associated with a lower likelihood of reporting poor emotional health. Crowded housing was significantly associated with a lower probability of accessing a COVID-19 diagnostic test, with every additional reported person per room there was approximately an 11% increase in the probability of having never accessed a COVID-19 testing. Access to affordable housing had the largest effect size and was associated with fewer people per room. Overcrowding housing is a structural burden that reduces COVID-19 risk mitigation behaviors. Improved access to affordable housing units or receiving vouchers could reduce overcrowded housing in vulnerable refugee communities.

A Sanctioned Encampment as a Strategy for Increasing Homeless Veterans' Access to Housing and Healthcare During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic intersected with a housing crisis for unsheltered Veterans experiencing homelessness (VEHs); congregate settings became high risk for viral spread. The VA Greater Los Angeles responded by creating the Care, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Service (CTRS), an outdoor, low-barrier-to-entry transitional housing program on VA grounds. This novel emergency initiative offered a protected outdoor environment ("sanctioned encampment") where VEHs lived in tents and had access to three meals a day, hygiene resources, and health and social services. To identify contextual factors that supported and impeded CTRS participants' access to healthcare and housing services. Multi-method, ethnographic data collection. VEHs residing at CTRS, CTRS staff. Over 150hours of participant observation were conducted at CTRS and at eight town hall meetings; semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 VEHs and 11 staff. Rapid turn-around qualitative analysis was used to synthesize data, engaging stakeholders in iterative participant validation. Content analysis techniques were used to identify key factors that impacted access to housing and health services among VEHs residing in CTRS. Staff varied in their interpretation of CTRS' mission. Some conceptualized access to health services as a central tenet, while others viewed CTRS as an emergency shelter only. Regardless, staff burnout was prevalent, which lead to low morale, high turnover, and worsened access to and quality of care. VEHs endorsed trusting, long-term relationships with CTRS staff as paramount for facilitating access to services. Though CTRS addressed basic priorities (food, shelter, etc.) that traditionally compete with access to healthcare, some VEHs needed on-site healthcare services, at their tents, to access care. CTRS provided VEHs access to basic needs and health and housing services. To improve access to healthcare services within encampments, our data suggest the value of longitudinal trusting relationships, adequate staff support, and on-site health services.

Housing as a Battlefield Between Self‐Organization and Resistance: The Case of Reclaim the City

Cities are a place of transformation, since cities are being challenged through various processes, among them gentrification. Likewise, cities are a space for innovation and new solutions, as many changes start locally. Reclaim the City is one such local movement: It is a response to weak statehood which results in a limited ability to solve the housing crisis and the continuation of spatial segregation in Cape Town. Gentrification deepens the housing crisis and has an impact on the most vulnerable groups, black and colored people, who are affected by eviction. Based on a qualitative study, this article first unpacks the weakness of the city authorities regarding housing and then analyzes the relationship between Reclaim the City and the city. This relationship is not to be understood as a binary, conflictual liaison; rather, the relationship is complex, involving resistance but also complementarity, because in the self-organized occupation Reclaim the City offers what the city is not able to provide. The response of the authorities is ambivalent: They welcome self-organization and yet try to control and delegitimize the occupation by criminalizing the occupants. The relationship between Reclaim the City and the city thus shows that self-organization does not necessarily lead to new interfaces between the state and social movements, as often discussed in the context of new municipalism, but rather housing becomes a field of social contestation in that the city and Reclaim the City negotiate for mutual acceptance and legitimation, at times with an open end.

‘I guess I really survived many crises’: On the benefits of longitudinal ethnographic research

AbstractBuilding on my ongoing ethnographic research with people living with HIV in different European countries, the paper focuses on RD, a Catalan man I have interviewed three times since 2014. In RD's life narrative, ‘crisis’ is a recurring theme including both the most blatant forms, like the severe housing crisis in Spain that followed the global financial crisis, and the most ordinary ones like domestic violence. Analysing the impact of crises in RD's perception and experience of the present, interwoven with the past(s) and the future(s), the paper discusses two main benefits of longitudinal ethnographic research. First, it allows to capture how crisis is not just a moment or a phase in RD's life, but acts as context generating a recurring experience of an ‘uncanny present’ shaped by logics of return and repetition of the past, and anticipation of the future. Second, it supports RD's self‐awareness around his ability to navigate the unknown when experiencing the ‘uncanny present’; this highlights the ethical care dimension entailed by such methodology.

TD Bank Foundation targets housing crisis

Corporate Philanthropy ReportVolume 38, Issue 7 p. 1-12 News TD Bank Foundation targets housing crisis First published: 12 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1002/cprt.31639Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume38, Issue7July 2023Pages 1-12 RelatedInformation

Living rooms: Anne Tallentire’s Material Distance

Cultural geography has a long and fruitful tradition of working at the intersections between geography and performance art: in this piece we build upon this by considering how artistic practice can shed light on the housing crisis via a focus on quotidian practices of housing design. Here, we focus on Anne Tallentire’s exhibition Material Distance, which took place in 2022–23 at the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK. A conceptual artist working with moving image, installation, performance and photography, Tallentire’s work has frequently addressed issues of spatial cognition, homemaking and transience. Material Distance extends this interest by foregrounding issues of housing size, adopting the abstract forms of representation – floorplans, measurements, technical drawings – which professionals use for determining the material and physical requirements of domestic inhabitation. Contrasting abstract and lived experiences of home, and comparing housing constructed on post-war council estates with some of the smaller homes recently converted from industrial or retail premises, Tallentire’s work invites us to develop a critical awareness of dimensionality through an embodied encounter with art that is relational, performative and experiential.

“Jeg fatter ikke, hvad jeg laver i denne lorteby”

This article sets out to investigate how contemporary Danish fiction has responded to Copenhagen’s proliferating housing crises. Inspired by the notion within the burgeoning field of ‘literary urban studies’ that literature has a unique micro-sociological perspective to offer on the current urban condition, the article presents analyses of novels by Laura Ringo, Jonas Suchanek and Thomas Korsgaard. On that basis it argues that the novels through their depiction of urban precarisation spurred by the neoliberal housing market can be construed as counternarratives to the ruling discourses about the city’s recent regeneration.

The True Cost of Financialization: Housing, Human Rights, and Climate Change

Local governments can play a pivotal role in the fight against the housing and climate crisis. Through their actions they can deliver healthy, happy, inclusive, sustainable cities, which ensure the protection of our environment. While this is clearly an essential enterprise, it will be no mean feat. To succeed will require a fundamental reimagination of our current housing system and the investment structures behind it. Globally, housing has become increasingly financialized. Rather than being treated as a fundamental human right—a place where individuals, families, and communities can live in peace, security, and dignity—housing is often primarily valued as a vehicle for generating wealth ( Farha, 2017 ). Real estate investment has transformed into an extractive industry ( Sassen, 2014 ). It incentivizes the construction of housing, generating greater levels of greenhouse gas emissions, while increasing rents and housing costs, all as a means of generating profit ( Farha et al., 2022 ). To protect our societies and our planet, governments must create policy frameworks that affirm housing as a fundamental human right and centralize the environment, thereby shifting housing investment toward more regenerative practices that contribute to the provision of decent, affordable, and sustainable housing for all. This Policy Guidelines article explores three ways in which the financialization of housing is negatively impacting both the climate and the right to housing and provides policy recommendations based on The Shift Directives: From Financialized to Human Rights Based Housing, to support governments in developing human rights-based policy that can address the climate and housing crises.

Homelessness, Housing and Health:: The Secrets ALICE Will Not Tell You.

The number of individuals and families facing homelessness in Delaware far outstrips the available stock of subsidized or low-income units. This article reviews facts and figures that paint a grim picture of the plight of persons experiencing homelessness or unstable housing conditions. It discusses low-income, rent-stressed families who do not earn enough to meet basic needs such as food, transportation, childcare and health care. It further explains why the housing crisis has an impact on all of us, whether or not we, ourselves, ever have been without a home. Finally, it provides several possible steps to take to address this seemingly unsolvable puzzle.

Moving the 15-minute city beyond the urban core: The role of accessibility and public transport in the Netherlands

The 15-minute city – providing every resident's daily needs within a 15-minute walk, cycle or public transportation ride – has recently gained popularity among policy makers as a means for a more sustainable and just future. While the goal of a more equitable and sustainable city is laudable, we note that half of the world's population (still) lives in non-urban areas and thus seek to explore how the concept of the 15-minute city might extend into suburbs, exurbs and even the countryside. We do this via an empirical analysis of 16 years of travel survey data in the Netherlands and evaluate the relevance of the 15-minute city concept in non-urban areas. We frame our analysis via three specific aspects of the 15-minute concept: (i) differences in reliance on cars in urban and non-urban areas; (ii) differences in extra travel time across the urban-rural continuum if all car-based trips were replaced by public transport; and (iii) the effect of accessibility of goods and services on extra travel time if all car-based trips were replaced by public transport. Based on our findings, we argue that practical implementations of the 15-minute city (focused on the urban core) risk missing the particular challenges facing non-urban neighborhoods, especially in terms of car reliance. As planners rush to address the affordable housing crisis in the Netherlands and elsewhere, these short-comings highlight the importance of expanding research and policy practice in terms of scope (i.e. including non-urban areas) and focus (i.e. considering other reasons for individual travel beyond goods and services) to better reflect the lived experience of people across all geographies.