Housing Crisis Research Articles

Computing Typology: Generative Design for Creating Housing Solutions from Type Analysis in Bogota

AbstractThe article delves into the integration of a typological discourse within contemporary design practice, offering insights into a generative system aimed at processing design scenarios from typological analyses. By identifying architectural types within the context of Bogota’s periphery, this research showcases the potential of computational methods to formalize typological principles in design. It also explores the possibilities of digital design to facilitate the production of customized housing solutions on a mass scale. This study contributes to the debate about the role of typology in design practice, highlighting the possibilities inherent in leveraging computational tools to enhance architectural synthesis. Additionally, it investigates the potential of a digital design framework to offer alternative solutions to the housing crisis, addressing the growing demand for affordable, high-quality housing in Latin America.

Moving on: The overrepresentation of Black and minoritised households in out of area housing placements in England

Based on freedom of information request data supplied by English local authorities, this paper identifies significant under-reporting of out of area housing placements in government statistics alongside an overrepresentation of Black and minoritised households amongst such placements. In a context of neoliberalism, housing policy has become abstracted from contextual factors that shape experiences of housing. With housing increasingly commodified, this paper explores housing challenges beyond economic factors to include historical legacies and exclusion. Housing is therefore positioned as a conduit between people and place, with place understood as a spatial representation of social and economic networks. The fracturing of these networks illustrates a geographical manifestation of housing policy, crisis, and exclusion. This paper reflects on the social and economic context that drives such experiences and situates the overrepresentation of out of area housing for Black and minoritised households.

A Study of the review of Housing Policies of State Governments in India

The purpose of this study is to analyse and assess the housing policies put in place by the different state governments in India. The supply of housing is heavily influenced by governmental policies & initiatives, notwithstanding the importance of this sector to the economy. The responsibility for addressing India's acute housing crisis—a crisis that affects 18 million people—is on the individual state governments. There needs to be a swift response because the nation is still facing a major difficulty with access to excellent housing. In India, many different tactics have been explored, some of which have been successful and others ineffective. In India, every state has developed its housing policies because this is the responsibility of the individual states' governments. Government housing programs in India began with five-year plans. Understanding the importance of this field, the research examines how state governments have responded to the varied & ever-changing housing demands of their citizens.

The devastating dance between opioid and housing crises: Evidence from OxyContin reformulation

Housing instability and drug misuse are two of the United States' most pressing challenges, each bearing profound health and societal consequences. A crucial yet largely underexplored question is the extent to which the opioid crisis has intensified housing instability. Our study ventures into this relatively uncharted nexus, investigating how the OxyContin reformulation, a pivotal moment in the U.S. opioid epidemic, impacted eviction rates. Employing a dose-response Difference-in-Differences model and analyzing eviction data from 2004 to 2016, we demonstrate that the OxyContin reformulation precipitated a significant increase in evictions, especially in areas with weak eviction protections or limited access to psychiatric treatment resources. Channel analyses reveal increased marijuana initiation and heightened mental and physical health issues following the reformulation. Moreover, the OxyContin reformulation leads to greater reliance on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, signaling an escalated financial strain on governmental resources. Finally, we find evidence of increased marital disruption post-reformulation. Our findings underscore the urgent need for collaborative efforts between public health and housing authorities to address both the opioid and housing crises.

Incentivising the market to build affordable housing: The New York City toolkit

Affordable housing is among the biggest policy challenges facing cities worldwide. Treating New York City as a case study, this paper reviews a multifaceted toolkit to combat the housing crisis. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how the government incentivises real estate developers to build affordable housing, with both financial incentives such as tax abatements, tax credits and loans funded by tax-exempt bonds and non-financial means such as zoning regulations. The study demonstrates both the successes achieved by New York City and the unintended consequences that emerged from these interventions, and the research argues that beyond financial and economic considerations, long-range spatial planning factors play a pivotal role in the formulation of effective affordable housing policies. The research underscores the need for policy makers globally to take a holistic approach and integrate various elements of city growth to address the intricate challenges posed by housing crises in urban environments.

Time-series satellite remote sensing reveals gradually increasing war damage in the Gaza Strip.

War-related urban destruction is a significant global concern, impacting national security, social stability, people's survival and economic development. The effects of urban geomorphology and complex geological contexts during conflicts, characterized by different levels of structural damage, are not yet fully understood globally. Here we report how integrating deep learning with data from the independently developed LuoJia3-01 satellite enables near real-time detection of explosions and assessment of different building damage levels in the Israel-Palestine conflict. We found that the damage continually increased from 17 October 2023 to 2 March 2024. We found 3747 missile craters with precision positions and sizes, and timing on vital infrastructure across five governorates in the Gaza Strip on 2 March 2024, providing accurate estimates of potential unexploded ordnance locations and assisting in demining and chemical decontamination. Our findings reveal a significant increase in damage to residential and educational structures, accounting for 58.4% of the total-15.4% destroyed, 18.7% severely damaged, 11.8% moderately damaged and 12.5% slightly damaged-which exacerbates the housing crisis and potential population displacement. Additionally, there is a 34.1% decline in the cultivated area of agricultural land, posing a risk to food security. The LuoJia3-01 satellite data are crucial for impartial conflict monitoring, and our innovative methodology offers a cost-effective, scalable approach to assess future conflicts in various global contexts. These first-time findings highlight the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further damage and support the release of hostages and subsequent reconstruction efforts.

Beyond Cerdá: Public housing in the Barcelona periphery

Mass migration into the city of Barcelona in the 1950s created an estimated deficit of 100,000 dwellings by the close of the decade, and by the early 1960s an estimated 100,000 people were living in shanty towns in and around the city. In an effort to address this crisis, central State and local housing authorities constructed a series of housing estates in the urban periphery, beyond the central ensanche (expansion), the centrepiece of Ildefonso Cerdá’s 1860 master plan for the city. Using secondary sources, original photographs taken at the end of the Franco era, and more recent Google Earth images, this article discusses the role of the main housing authorities at the time, and examines the planning process that allowed the construction of these housing estates and their subsequent demolition or remodelling in the post-Franco era. The article finds that the public authorities allowed planning regulations to be contravened, or used loopholes and special measures within the planning laws, to construct housing units of minimal dimensions and generally poor quality in areas often zoned for other uses. More recently, “special plans” have been used effectively to improve or replace the majority of these estates. The article concludes that political will was the dominant factor in determining housing construction in the Franco era with the planning process being largely an irrelevance, and that residents’ associations have led the struggle for improvements in these estates in the post-Franco era, with the revised planning laws providing an effective framework for change.

Housing Instability and Children’s Health and Education

This Viewpoint examines data from the National Survey on Children’s Health reflecting effects of the housing crisis and mentions political response among voters and candidates.

Immigrant labour, rural economies, and the question of housing

AbstractThere is a renewed interest in policy initiatives that aim to ruralize and regionalize immigration in Canada. These efforts are visible through temporary foreign worker programs linked to Provincial Nominee Programs, as well as the increase in the number of refugee resettlement programs in smaller communities. Against this backdrop, cities in Canada are experiencing a housing crisis. There is a tacit assumption that immigrants in smaller and more rural settings will fare better with respect to housing. This paper examines the assumptions underpinning efforts to ruralize and regionalize immigration—namely that immigrants to smaller centres will find more affordable and available housing. By presenting two case studies of small towns that have successfully leveraged immigration to meet their labour market needs, this paper demonstrates that housing remains a critical issue for newcomers, even outside of large urban centres. Further, the paper argues that discussions about housing need to be linked to broader policy conversations about immigration and labour, especially in contexts where transnational corporations leverage immigration and temporary labour programs to secure their workforce, without parallel investments in infrastructure and housing.

Poetry as Gift to Articulate Oppression Across Transdisciplinary Health Scholarship

Those of us on the 'fringes' of society find ourselves there because of crises that happen in our communities—housing crises, colonization, and many more crises that intersect to make up our human condition. What happens now on the 'fringes' of society directly connects to past and on-going legacies of oppression in systems of health because such systems marginalize folks as part of systemic strategic plans. It is important to trace and articulate these historical and on-going legacies of violence so that we can build something more useful. This manuscript weaves liberatory social theory throughout a collection of poems on class struggle and racial oppression for movement toward just futures. This collection of poems traverses disciplinary boundaries and uses poetry as a buffer against being burned down for people engaged in the work of liberation and justice with desire to confront legacies of colonialism and enslavement in our everyday practice.

Homelessness, Housing Crisis and Solutions Made by Citizens

Homelessness, Housing Crisis and Solutions Made by Citizens

Housing and Displacement as Risk Factors for Negative Health Outcomes Among People Who Inject Drugs in Los Angeles, CA, and Denver, CO, USA.

The United States is currently experiencing a housing and homelessness crisis. In response, many cities have adopted policies of displacement that move unhoused people from place to place. Recent research indicates that these policies may have negative health impacts on unhoused people who use drugs. We sought to examine health risks associated with government-enforced displacement among unhoused people who inject drugs (PWID). We interviewed a community-recruited sample of opioid-using PWID in Los Angeles, CA and Denver, CO between April 2021 and November 2022 (N = 472) about their demographic/socioeconomic characteristics, drug use patterns, housing status, government-enforced displacement including items discarded during displacements, and health risks. We constructed binomial generalized linear regression to examine the risk ratio of non-fatal overdose, and syringe and cooker/cotton sharing between four groups of participants: housed, unhoused and not displaced, unhoused and relocated voluntarily, and unhoused and displaced in the last three months. In the last 3 months, 52% of participants were unhoused and displaced by the government. Among those who were displaced, median number of government-enforced displacements was 3 with 69% reporting loss of syringes, 56% loss of naloxone, and 22% loss of buprenorphine medicine. In multivariate models, risk ratios for unhoused and displaced participants were higher for nonfatal overdose and cooker/cotton sharing as compared to housed participants. Risk ratios for syringe sharing amongst unhoused participants did not differ significantly. Unhoused and displaced PWID experience elevated health risks. Ending the use of government-enforced displacement of unhoused PWID is essential to reducing health risk in this population.

Living the Dream-Housing Perceptions and Quality of Life of Older People Living in Manufactured Home Villages

This study aimed to examine the quality of life (QoL) of manufactured home village (MHV) residents and their perceptions of village life. Surveys of 259 residents aged ≥60 years living in two MHV communities in New South Wales, Australia was undertaken. QoL scores were like that of older people in Australia generally. Residents mostly reported positive perceptions of village life. Higher QoL scores were associated with living with someone and perceptions that village supports were available. Given the housing crisis in Australia and elsewhere, MHVs may be an affordable housing option where older people can enjoy a good QoL.

Intersectionality of gender and age (‘gender*age’): a critical realist approach to explaining older women’s increased homelessness

ABSTRACT Older single women in Australia are increasingly experiencing homelessness. Age and gender seem inherently related to single older women’s housing crises, but no attempt has been made to account for the causes of their homelessness through an intersectional lens. This article develops a complex and contingent causal explanation of the structures and mechanisms implicated in growing homelessness for this group. We demonstrate an original use of critical realist-informed intersectional analysis which is characterized by stratified social ontology and emergence. We theoretically reframe existing literature to demonstrate how the intersectional causal powers of gender and age (‘gender*age’) discrimination and conventional life course experiences intersect to generate financial precarity for older women. Our causal model explains how economic insecurity, structural and individual contexts, and crisis events interact, challenging older women’s housing security and precipitating first-time homelessness later in life.

A UTILIZAÇÃO DE CRÉDITOS FISCAIS NAS PARCERIAS PÚBLICO-PRIVADAS PARA HABITAÇÕES DE BAIXA RENDA

This article examines the use of tax credits in public-private partnerships (PPPs) for the development of low-income housing in the United States. PPPs offer a collaborative approach to addressing the housing crisis by combining resources from both the public and private sectors. Tax credits, such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), play a crucial role in incentivizing private investment in affordable housing projects. This study analyzes the effectiveness of these partnerships and the impact of tax credits on expanding low-income housing. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing such initiatives, highlighting success stories and lessons learned.

Relational geographies of urban unsustainability: The entanglement of California’s housing crisis with WUI growth and climate change

One of California’s most pressing social and environmental challenges is the rapid expansion of the wildlands–urban interface (WUI). Multiple issues associated with WUI growth compared to more dense and compact urban form are of concern—including greatly increased fire risk, greenhouse gas emissions, and fragmentation of habitat. However, little is understood about the factors driving this growth in the first place and, specifically, its relationship to urban–regional housing dynamics. This paper connects work in urban social science, urban and regional planning, and natural sciences to highlight the potential role of housing crises in driving displacement from the urban core to relatively more affordable exurbs, and with this, WUI growth. We analyze this relationship in California, which leads the nation in lack of affordable housing, scale of WUI growth, and many associated WUI hazards, including wildfire. We offer three related arguments: first, that California’s affordable housing crisis, with its effect of driving migration to exurban areas, should be recognized as a significant urban form-related sustainability challenge; second, that to understand this challenge scholars must expand the spatial scale and analytic toolkit of both urban and WUI analysis through relational, mixed methods research; and third, that political and programmatic efforts to address California’s housing crisis should undergird efforts to address WUI growth and climate change. Ultimately, we argue that expanding access to affordable urban housing can produce a more sustainable and just urban form that mitigates WUI-related climate and environmental impacts and reduces the vulnerability of growing numbers of WUI residents living in harm’s way.

Book Review: Collateral Damages: Landlords and the Urban Housing Crisis by Meredith J. Greif

Book Review: <i>Collateral Damages: Landlords and the Urban Housing Crisis</i> by Meredith J. Greif

Housing and respiratory health among Indigenous peoples in Canada

Indigenous (First Nations, Metis and Inuit) peoples bear a disproportionate burden of infectious and noninfectious respiratory disease in rural and urban communities in Canada. Biologic and behavioral determinants exist and have relevance, but the primary determinants are socioeconomic, environmental and political. Although Canada has recently declared a national housing crisis, crowded and poor-quality housing, or no housing at all, has been experienced by generations of Indigenous peoples. Crowding in homes or shelters increases risk of exposure and dose to infectious agents. Indoor air pollutants are due to housing defects, sources of heat and smoke, and include mold, endotoxin, mite allergens, gases and particulate matter, which in turn are associated with respiratory irritation and disease. Environmental radon is a noted risk factor for lung cancer in communities located in high risk regions. Studies have demonstrated that interventions in Indigenous communities on both the social and biomedical fronts, to improve housing and health care, result in improved well-being, of which respiratory health is only one component.

Beyond Shelter: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Canada’s Housing Crisis

The affordable housing crisis in Canada has reached a critical juncture, with far-reaching consequences for individuals, families, and communities across the nation. As property prices soar and income levels fail to keep pace, an increasing number of Canadians find themselves struggling to secure suitable housing. This opinion article argues that addressing the affordable housing crisis requires a comprehensive approach that involves the collaborative efforts of governments, architects, and builders. The article examines the multifaceted nature of the affordable housing crisis, highlighting its impact on various socioeconomic groups and the challenges faced in finding solutions. It emphasizes the importance of affordable housing in fostering economic stability, promoting health and well-being, bolstering educational outcomes, and nurturing social cohesion and community development. The government&amp;apos;s role in addressing the housing affordability crisis is discussed, focusing on the burden of government fees and taxes, zoning and regulatory compliance, and proposals to mitigate their impact. The article advocates for reforming fees, implementing policy alterations, and adopting a proactive and collaborative approach to create a more conducive environment for affordable housing development. The architects&amp;apos; role in addressing the housing affordability crisis is explored, highlighting the potential of architectural design competitions in promoting innovation, community engagement, and recognizing excellence in affordable housing design. The article emphasizes the importance of architectural innovation and creativity in envisioning and designing sustainable, community-centric housing solutions that cater to residents&amp;apos; psychological and social needs. The role of builders and developers in addressing the housing affordability crisis is also examined, with a focus on integrating sustainability for cost reduction, adopting new construction methods and materials, forming public-private partnerships for sustainable housing projects, and investing in education and training for sustainable practices. The article concludes by emphasizing the urgent need for a collective commitment to action, demanding bold leadership, creative thinking, and unwavering determination to build a future where every Canadian has access to safe, adequate, and affordable housing. It underscores the importance of a holistic approach that addresses the direct and indirect factors contributing to the housing affordability crisis, ultimately cultivating a more equitable and sustainable housing market that benefits current and future homeowners while bolstering the overall economic and social well-being of the nation.

Identification of indicators of urban affordable housing location choice for low-income households: a Delphi analysis

ABSTRACT The rapid growth of urbanization has resulted in an unprecedented housing crisis, particularly in developing nations. Tackling housing challenges is essential for the sustainable development of cities. One of the prime challenges in this domain is the identification of suitable locations for developing affordable housing projects. This research aims to identify the indicators that affect the choice of affordable housing locations for low-income households. Through exploration of relevant literature, a comprehensive list of 48 indicators was identified and classified into five categories; neighborhood embedded characteristics, urban characteristics, economic context, and social and housing characteristics. The Delphi method was adopted to gain consensus on the parameters identified. To encompass diverse viewpoints, experts were chosen from five metropolitan cities, including Jaipur, Lucknow, Patna, Mumbai, and Chennai, representing five geographical zones across India; criteria for selection included expertise in affordable housing, low-income housing, or sustainable development. 36 indicators gained consensus through a two-round Delphi survey with 0.71 as the value of Kendall’s coefficient of Concordance. The parameters of mobility, high employment opportunities, and proximity to various facilities were found to be significant when considering location choice. The indicators determined can help identify the relative locations of affordable housing development in urban areas.