Keeping Affordability in Focus As Columbus Revitalization Picks up Steam

America has the largest number of homeless women and children in the industrialized world - it’s a depressing statistic exacerbated by a housing crisis that forced thousands of families out onto the street. The first-ever large-scale study on the topic finds that permanent, stable housing can be more cost-effective than shelters.

Many subprime borrowers in the United States are financially unable to buy a home themselves. An unconventional lender is trying to make it easier for low-income people to buy houses despite the tighter requirements that other lenders adopted after the mortgage bust.

Cleveland has a list of lead-safe homes, a result of decades of cleaning up hazards with tens of millions of dollars in HUD grant money.

Passive houses can generate more energy than they consume but are expensive to build. Non-profits across the nation are getting low income families into these types of renewable homes with state subsidies and volunteer work.

Foreclosure affects millions of homeowners and millions more owe more on their mortgages than what their homes are worth, but Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP), offers assistance. As a free service to borrowers, ESOP holds lenders accountable with fair lending agreements, creates constructive communication, and ultimately saves homes.

Artists need cheap living costs, but their presence improves a community and the property values. The State of Colorado and private developers are creating affordable housing and work spaces for artists in neighborhoods they want to thrive.

New Orleans implemented an extraordinary 10-year plan that engaged unprecedented cross-sector collaboration between government, non-profit, and private entities to provide housing and housing services to the city's homeless veterans. The city's success in providing homes for every single veteran formerly on their streets motivated cities across the nation to tackle the crises using similar means, leading to a 1/3 decline veteran homelessness since 2010.

An innovative program by an unusual bank allows low-income people in Cambodia to take out a 15-year fixed mortgage with little or no documentation - contradicting traditional loan assumptions and creating means for some of the country's poorest people to completely change their lives. The bank and its investors are now making a profit, and more than 700 mortgages and building loans have been provided.

Milwaukee County’s mental health system put more resources in expensive emergency care rather than invest in programs that offer continual care. As a result, Milwaukee County identifies nine solutions from other cities that have had success in repairing mental health systems. Solutions include the ending of reliance on emergency care, expand community support programs, change laws, and supportive housing.

To address the increasing unaffordability of housing in Berlin, the city introduced a new rent control law to prevent rates from exponential growth. The city has also outlawed vacation rentals in certain zones of the city and created a program that aims to have 30,000 new rental properties available over the next decade.