Pragmatic Housing Policies Considered

The Indian city where Gandhi established his first ashram can be grueling if you live in a slum: 50 ºC temperatures, poor ventilation, no running water. A group of women had had enough and agreed to work with developers.

An affordable housing development in Mount Laurel, N.J., holds promise for integration by placing the development in an upscale suburban area. Since 140 affordable units were built in 2000, there has been no effect on crime rates, property values, or taxes, in reference to nearby suburbs.

A new book chronicles each below-market subsidized housing project ever built in New York, highlighting in particular Co-op City, where residents have come to care for their city-subsidized homes.

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.

It's been a decade since the city of Rochester, New York, committed to tackling its lead poisoning problem head on. What resulted was a more than 80 percent drop in the number of children with high lead levels. It's a change leaders believe is sustainable.

Lead poisoning is not purely a problem of the poor - it can affect any child living in an older home, or playing on contaminated soil. New solutions journalism efforts aim to increase transparency about the risks and to help parents decide whether their children should be tested.

To break through gridlock on fair housing, city planners, citizens, and government officials in wealthy Westchester County, New York, try a new tactic: Using a simulation game to try out different development scenarios. The result has been increased civic participation and efficiency.

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.

France’s cities, including Paris, are among the world’s most expensive to live in. In 2015, France passed rent control laws that restrict outlandish rent increases through the Rent Observatory that oversees the different zones and contracts, as well as a website that tells residents if their prospective landlords are charging too much. One year later, the regulations have been effective at controlling the rent by 30% in Paris.

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.