A key provision of the Obama's Blueprint for Change promotes an increase in the supply of afforable housing, while a companion provision calls for establishing "Promise Neighborhoods" to bring a comprehensive strategy to fighting neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. So can America build itself out of the housing crisis? In a provocative white paper written for the National Trust for Trust, Donovan Rypkema argues not. Instead, he say that we can no longer throw away our older houses and our historic neighborhoods. They are needed today to supply affordable housing. Read the full white paper
A key provision of the Obama's Blueprint for Change promotes an increase in the supply of afforable housing, while a companion provision calls for establishing "Promise Neighborhoods" to bring a comprehensive strategy to fighting neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. So can America build itself out of the housing crisis? In a provocative white paper written for the National Trust for Trust, Donovan Rypkema argues not. Instead, he say that we can no longer throw away our older houses and our historic neighborhoods. They are needed today to supply affordable housing. Read the full white paper.
Rypkema goes on to observe that "new construction and mobile homes will be critical to addressing the affordable housing crisis in the next two decades, but clearly those are insufficient solutions given the magnitude of the problem. Where, then, can we find affordable housing? Exactly where it is being found today, in our older and historic neighborhoods.
But older and historic neighborhoods contribute far more to America today than a sense of evolution and history. Older and historic neighborhoods, unlike any other areas, are providing homes for families from every financial strata, but particularly for those in need of affordable housing.
How significant are older and historic neighborhoods in providing affordable housing? Consider
this:
• 32 percent of households below the poverty line live in older and historic homes
older and historic homes
and historic homes
• 29 percent of elderly homeowners live in older and historic homes
less than $500
To put it another way, if today we had to replace the older and historic homes currently occupied by households below the poverty level, using the most cost-effective of Federal housing programs, it would cost American taxpayers $335 Billion. Numbers that large often lose their meaning. How much is $335 Billion? Nearly $1,200 for every man, woman, and child in America."
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