How do Social and Public Housing Associations respond to tenant needs? It is hard to imagine a better example of responsiveness to tenant needs than what is taking place in Copenhagen. I recently met Ulia Gregor who works for a large social housing organization called DAB Copenhagen. In fact, her organization has over 50,000 units.… Read More Great Advice from Denmark on Supporting Social Housing Tenant Rights
Housing authorities across the USA are always trying to develop or redevelop new or existing affordable housing. In some cases, these redevelopments are multi-million and even billion dollar real estate deals. In these instances, the redevelopment brings jobs, infrastructure and opportunities to areas that might be economically depressed. Lets examine three of the larger projects… Read More 3 Massive Public Housing Redevelopments Taking Place in the USA
I recently met and heard from Carina Dantas who works with and in the social housing and aging industry within Portugal. She spoke at the International Housing Festival about demographic change within social housing. Mrs. Dantas let us know that the aging population is growing dramatically not only in Portugal but all around the world.… Read More Growing Old in Place: Can Housing Providers Find an Answer?
There are often complaints that the public sector is not innovative enough or is far behind the private sector. While there is truth in that statement, there are still hundreds of housing authorities around the world trying out and experimenting with new ideas to help the citizens and residents of their communities. Here are a… Read More 5 Brilliant Public Housing Innovations
I recently had a chance to meet and hear from Dr. Rudiger Ahrend the head for the Urban Programme in the OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development. He gave a presentation at Housing Europe’s yearly conference regarding the rise of large cities and the challenges that it presents for housing. Dr. Ahrend… Read More How the National vs. Local Disconnect is Harming Cities
I recently had a chance to meet and hear from Dr. Rudiger Ahrend the head for the Urban Programme in the OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development. He gave a presentation at Housing Europe’s yearly conference regarding the rise of large cities and the challenges that it presents for housing. Dr. Ahrend… Read More Housing Policy: How the National vs. Local Disconnect is Harming Cities
I met Dr. John McPeake the CEO from Helm Housing Association in Northern Ireland recently and had the pleasure of hearing about how his agency is working on helping those with dementia. . Dr. McPeake let us know that in the UK the average age exceeded 40 for the first time in its history. By… Read More Public Housing-Supporting Residents with Dementia: Lessons from Northern Ireland
The International Social Housing Festival is underway in Amsterdam and is bringing many interesting minds from academia, social housing companies and other think tanks together. Today we had the opportunity to hear from Martin van Ham who is a professor of Urban Renewal at the University of Delft spoke about segregation and inequality. He brought… Read More Segregation in European Social Housing- A Path to Move Forward
In my short career in social housing, I have noticed that many programs revolve around helping work able households improve self-sufficiency. There is a national program (FSS) just to do that in coordination with housing programs. However; housing providers often serve a large number of senior and disabled households. While there are a number of great examples… Read More How the Dutch Lead the Way in Senior Housing Innovation
What is Social Housing in Spain, Really?? One thing you must remember when talking about public or social housing is that there is not really a great definition from country to country. Spain is not really any different here. What the Spanish consider social housing is not really rental in nature. Most of… Read More Public Housing in Spain: The Basics
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