New York Has a Public Housing Problem. Does London Have an Answer?

Grove Park Renewal aims to help residents from the majority-black area of northwest Atlanta become homeowners by turning vacant properties into newly renovated, affordable homes. The nonprofit also offers an affordable rental program that allows qualifying individuals and families to live in one of its properties at a more affordable, income-adjusted rate.

Affordable housing in San Francisco is becoming more and more unattainable. When the landlord tried to change its status to not be rent-controlled to not, a group of residents at said building banded together with a nonprofit to preserve the building. A nonprofit, the Mission Economic Development Agency, bought the property from the landlord so that its residents could maintain their rent in a very expensive city. Organizations like MEDA are key to helping the city and its residents transition over time to ownership.

Eighteen "purpose built communities" across America have revitalized neighborhoods through a comprehensive approach that includes building mixed-income housing, providing better educational opportunities and offering health and wellness services. The model focuses on establishing a strong "cradle-to-college education pipeline" which attracts upper-income families and creates socio-economic diversity. Community centers, green spaces, and grocery stores all revitalize and bring new development to these neighborhoods. Rivercrest, a neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama is seeking to replicate the model.

A chef shows the "absurdity" of gentrification with a creative fundraising campaign. At one of Tunde Wey’s pop-up dinners, he charged $12 for a plate, but charged white people $30, to spark up conversations about racial wealth inequality. His H*t Chicken Sh*t, “a dinner series to end gentrification,” successfully raised $52,000 to go towards residents of North Nashville, “a historically Black neighborhood,” and their affordable housing.

Unlike many other countries who have found public housing facilities to be highly prone to crime and toxic loan practices, Singapore uses a mix of resident home ownership, policing, and mixed-income developments to create thriving, clean housing options that may provide a model for other countries.

As rents in Madison, Wisconsin, skyrocket, alternative housing options are emerging. One such option is cohousing, a form of community living in which residents live in multiple units. One unit, Linden Cohousing, has 75 members living across its 45 units, enjoying not only affordable housing but also the community aspect of cohousing. Madison currently has four active cohousing communities, with more on the way.

In 2008, ROC USA began helping form resident-owned mobile home communities, and since then has assisted in the creation of over 300 such communities in 21 states throughout the U.S, consisting of almost 22,000 homeowners throughout the U.S. The organization works with philanthropic organizations, other nonprofits, insurers, banks and government entities to raise commitments in advance of a park’s purchase.

Cooper Park Houses community is a historically Black, low-income housing complex. While the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated longstanding issues of gentrification and access to housing, the Cooper Park community has worked to advocate for themselves and their community, fighting industrialization and development that could put their homes at risk by banding together and collaborating with other local organizations.

Housing activists have been living in an abandoned building — Prestes Maia — since 2002. Through their years of activism, occupying the space and working to make the 22-story high-rise livable Prestes Maia is being transformed into social housing for the families that have been living there for the past several years.

Community of Hope offers day shelter services and intensive case management for unhoused residents in the Las Cruces area. In the fiscal year 2020-2021, the program served 3,263 people, connecting them to affordable, income-based housing solutions.