Claim OwnershipOur Homes: Ending the Housing Crisis
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© Stanley Chang
Description
A live, weekly, web series exploring the intricacies of and solutions to Hawaii's housing crisis from a global perspective.
Hosted by Hawaii State Senator Stanley Chang.
Hosted by Hawaii State Senator Stanley Chang.
39 Episodes
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In this episode of Our Homes, Ellen Carson and Keith Webster (advocates for Faith Action for Community Equity, a nonprofit focusing on housing and homelessness solutions) speak about an empty homes tax under consideration by the Honolulu City Council. Modeled after Vancouver, Canada’s tax, Honolulu’s proposal would be levied on an empty home’s assessed value, on a graduated rate with a 3 year phase. Faith Action for Community Equity believes this would disincentivize non-resident buyers and create a funding mechanism to support more housing construction and homeless services.
In this episode of Our Homes, Dr. Cameron Murray, Australian economist and author of “The Great Housing Hijack,” speaks about the myths surrounding housing markets in Australia and elsewhere. Murray believes that high housing cost jurisdictions suffer from inequitable distribution of housing, not mere supply shortage. These housing shortages have been observed over the centuries, meaning that regulation alone cannot explain them. An alternative to the free market is required to aid those who cannot access a home. Jurisdictions need to implement a low-price alternative to rent or buy homes, like the Singapore model, which is already available to certain groups in Australia, like military servicemembers. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
In this episode of Our Homes, Kenzie Bok, the Administrator for the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), shares BHA’s plan to end the City’s housing shortage in part by building 3,000 mixed-income Faircloth units. This decision was spurred by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s decision to almost triple the subsidy amount available for Faircloth units. The authority has currently identified two sites, and Bok speaks on the current obstacles and the importance of their mixed-income, mixed-use, and revenue neutral building plans. Bok further speaks on the necessity of government’s role as provider of safe and affordable housing. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
In this episode of Our Homes, Dan Rinzler, Associate Research Director with the California Housing Partnership, shares his evaluation of Tahanan, a recently constructed permanent supportive housing (PSH) project in San Francisco. Tahanan’s development utilized cost-saving measures in financing, design, and construction, reducing residential costs and development times by roughly 40 percent compared to other PSH projects in San Francisco. Tahanan’s success and departure from common development practices represent an opportunity to reassess PSH requirements that delay and increase costs on this critical need. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
In this episode of Our Homes, Shreya Arakere, Liz Da Costa, and Alex Dayman from Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Arizona's Medicaid program, discussed how Medicaid waivers are a new funding source for housing the homeless in Arizona. Arizona’s Medicaid will be able to provide six months of transitional housing for individuals moving from insecure environments like homeless shelters and group/foster homes. Arizona’s Medicaid will also offer case management, educational outreach, and other housing services under their Housing and Health Opportunities Waiver (H2O). With nearly 37,000 homeless and at-risk residents, Arizona’s new source of funding for housing the homeless will positively impact their state immensely. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
The Big Housing Build is a social housing plan to build 10,000 new and affordable homes across regional Victoria. Victoria’s population of 6.7 million in March 2023 is forecast to grow to 11.2 million by 2056. The state's exponential population growth coupled with issues of homelessness, the growing social housing waiting list, and rising costs of housing and living, act as the driving forces behind the Big Housing Build.
Australian politician Sheena Watt, who serves in the Victorian Legislative Council for Northern Metropolitan Region since 2020, discusses the Big Housing Build in Victoria, Australia. Watt is the first Indigenous Australian woman to represent the Australian Labor Party in the Parliament of Victoria. She is the point person to talk to for the housing build across Victoria. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Ian Ross.
Initiative 135 (I-135), is a Seattle initiative that creates a new social housing developer to build, acquire and manage public, affordable housing in the city. Tiffany McCoy and Camille Gix believe that the key strategies that helped pass the initiative were centering the initiative around a positive vision, humanizing higher income renters (teachers/healthcare workers who may need affordable housing), highlighting the beneficial differences between this model compared to others, and using international/national examples for proof of concept.
Tiffani McCoy is the advocacy director at Real Change and serves as the co-chair for the House Our Neighbors coalition. McCoy acted as the campaign manager for I-135, overseeing all campaign communications and field efforts from the start of the campaign through the victory. Camille Gix is a graduate student at the University of Washington and policy intern at Real Change. She was also on the steering committee for I-135, helping draft the initiative. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Ian Ross.
Since 2020, Covid-19 affected Hawaii’s housing market. At the beginning of the pandemic, housing prices dropped by an insignificant amount. As the pandemic continued into 2021, 2022, 2023, housing prices began increasing again, following the predicted trajectory of growth. Paul Brewbaker believes that the new wave of working from home plays a role in housing price increase.
Paul Brewbaker is the principal of TZ Economics, a Hawaii consultancy doing corporate work, development impact analysis, and litigation support. His background is in research on the Hawaii economy and in country risk and financial risk analytics from 25 years as a commercial bank economist. He discusses the latest data about the Hawaii housing market in the wake of the pandemic. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Social housing in San Francisco’s needs to meet two criterias: owned by the city, a nonprofit, residents, or a residents’ association that ensures permanent long term affordable housing and serves all income qualified households with a maximum average of not more than 80% of median income across all units. There are many new social housing developments underway in San Francisco including developing churches into social housing and using land trusts to make affordable housing.
Hans How is a member of the C&C of San Francisco Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board, a public body formed to provide oversight on San Francisco’s funds for the creation of social housing. He also acts as a program manager for housing initiatives at Meta. He discusses the city's new social housing programs. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
At Optico Design, Stefan Pellegrini works within the field of missing middle housing. Missing middle housing are house-scaled buildings with multiple units in walkable neighborhoods used to address shifting household demographics between baby boomers and millennials. Millennials are less likely to have children and are in need of affordable housing that comes in forms of duplexes, townhouses, live/work housing, apartments, etc..
Stefan Pellegrini is an architect, urban designer, and planner who advocates for equitable design and social and environmental justice in cities, with a focus on physical placemaking strategies that empower residents, build social capital, and nurture community. He is a principal with Opticos Design, Inc., an urban design, planning, and architecture practice based in Berkeley, California. His work spans more than twenty years and includes mixed-income neighborhoods, downtown urban design plans, community revitalization strategies, and regional plans and codes across the US and abroad. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Bangladesh is considered the most vulnerable country to climate change with sea level rising threatening its coastal regions, Himalayan snow melts flooding its northern regions, and frequent natural disasters occurring (cyclones and hurricanes). On top of climate related issues, Bangladesh also faces major economic concerns as one of the poorest nations in the world. Both climate and economic matters affect energy access for poorer neighborhoods in Bangladesh. Mark Jones examined energy justice for informal settlements in the global south with a slum in Dhaka as his case study.
Mark Jones, Associate Professor at the University of Queensland School of Architecture, extensively researched issues relating to climate change including emissions mitigation, urban climate response, bio-physical adaptation and social resilience. In 2020, Jones completed his PhD at the University College London, conducting research in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Sanford Murata wants to build bigger and better. He is proposing a better way to use the land of the Ala Wai Golf Course. Drawing from the Chinese idea of a "Sponge City", this project will store and filter excess water in the canal and release it at opportune times. The project will have two developments: "Ala Wai Village" and "Ala Wai Green". The "Village" would be a series of multi-use affordable housing with 3600 residential units and the "Green" would be a multi-use resource park which would help filter and use the water from the Ala Wai canal to grow a beautiful green space.
Sanford Murata, a real estate professional who studied architecture and urban land economics at the University of California at Berkeley proposes a new Ala Wai village. He has been involved in planning, development, and ownership of a range of real estate projects in Hawaii, his newest being the Ala Wai village. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Assemblymember Alex Lee currently has Assembly Bill 2053 (AB 2053) pending before the California State Legislature that will help the state achieve social housing for all. Social housing is mixed income, publicly developed housing for all that avoids concentrated poverty. He hopes that AB 2053 creates a self sustaining neighborhood with equitable housing for all, no matter their economic status.
Alex Lee represents California’s 25th Assembly District, located in the Silicon Valley region. Assemblymember Lee, elected in 2020, became the youngest Asian American legislator and first openly bisexual state legislator in California history. In the State Legislature, he has made housing affordability and tackling the housing crisis his top priority. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Edward Pinto and Tobias Peter discuss their research on housing and the housing crisis in Hawaii. Hawaii has the highest median home price in the country, second highest cost of rent, and second highest rate of homelessness per capita. The plunge in Hawaii’s housing market began in the early 1970s when the state passed environmental and land usage policies causing a housing shortage and increase in housing prices. There is dire need for affordable housing in Hawaii but the state is predicted to face a shortage of 60,000 housing units by 2025.
Edward Pinto is a senior fellow and the director of the Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is currently researching ways of increasing the entry-level housing supply for first-time buyers and renters who earn hourly wages, as well as examining the current house price boom that began in 2012. Tobias Peter is a research fellow and the assistant director of the AEI’s Housing Center, where he focuses on housing risk and mortgage markets. Peter wrote a variety of reports on housing policy, specifically on the impact of federal policy on housing demand and homeownership, housing finance risks, and first-time home buyers. His pieces have been published in policy journals and in the popular press, including in The Wall Street Journal, American Banker, and Business Insider. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
The Biden-Harris administration has made efforts to promote housing development. While the Build Back Better bill has stalled, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the American Rescue Plan passed last year have been essential in supporting American housing. Erika Poethig explains that at the heart of almost every issue from crime to poverty is related to a lack of housing stability. By investing in creating more housing units, maintaining our available stock of housing, and assembling coalitions of agencies and governments, the U.S. can make housing affordable.
Erika Poethig, the Special Assistant to the President for Housing and Urban Policy at the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, discusses America’s housing problem and federal housing policy. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
America's investment on public housing has slowly shrunk over the past two decades. According to Paul Williams, this has led to housing being underbuilt and overpriced. But with this investment comes questions about how it will be paid for and what it will look like.
Paul Williams is a social housing researcher whose work has been used by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and the House Financial Services Committee in putting together the largest investment in housing ever made. Williams discusses the importance of investing in our public housing. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
In 2009, Kirstin Downey published The Woman Behind the New Deal, a biography of path-breaking government official Frances Perkins, a book that was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book prize and named one of the top ten biographies of the year by the American Library Association. She discusses Perkins, her work, and her impact on American worker rights.
As an award winning investigative journalist, Kirstin Downey, has been reporting on problematic real estate loans and mortgage meltdowns for the Washington Post. She has also worked as a special correspondent for Honolulu Civil Beat, reporting on how actions taken in Washington affect the state. She is currently writing a new history of Hawaii during the first 50 years after Captain Cook arrived, with a focus on Kauai’s Chief Kaumualii. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Alfred Twu discusses 1000 homes per acre, a proposal used to address housing shortages. Supermarkets, convenience stores, banks, barber shops, etc., all need at least 1000 or more households nearby to support their businesses. Twu argues that the conveniences associated with the 1000 homes per acre proposal benefits everyone and helps mitigate the current housing shortages in the U.S.
Alfred Twu is an architect and artist in Berkeley, California. In the past, Twu worked on various housing issues and campaigns in California at both the state and local levels with organizations such as the California Democratic Renters Council, East Bay for Everyone, and others. He has directly dealt with zoning reform, rent control, tenants rights, and social housing. Recently, he has been appointed to the Berkeley Planning Commission. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
The Soviet Mass Housing project began in the late 1950s after Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s death. The Soviet Union was in need of mass housing due to a severe housing shortage so they developed a quick low cost way of building apartments. These apartments resolved the housing shortage and provided housing for those in need.
Professor Philipp Meuser, an architect and publisher, planned and designed construction projects all over the word with a particular emphasis on Eastern Europe and Muslim countries. He is an expert in Soviet Mass Housing, completing a PhD for his research on it from Berlin Technical University. He is also the acting managing director of Meuser Architekten GmbH and head of DOM publishers. Meuser discusses how Soviet Mass Housing became the most successful home building program of the 20th century. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
Kim van Sparrentak and her colleagues in the European Union(EU) produced a report that gave recommendations on increasing accessibility to affordable housing. Housing is a human right and investors should not be able to take houses from local residents who need them. Sparrentak emphasizes that social cohesion and a greater supply of affordable housing is what is needed to combat the housing crisis around the world. She believes that homelessness in the EU could end by 2030 if the EU pursues housing as a human right.
Kim van Sparrentak, a member of the European Parliament, from the Netherlands, is a leader in European efforts to provide access to decent and affordable housing for all within the European Union. She discusses the EU’s recent approach to affordable housing. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.
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