Our Homes: Ending the Housing Crisis

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 California Housing Partnership, shares his evaluations on Tahanan, a recently constructed permanent supportive housing 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 housing projects in San Francisco. Tahanan's success and departure from common development practices represent an opportunity to reassess PSHs and governing requirements that put a burden on cost and time requirements on desperately needed housing. 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.

In today's episode we discuss how Seattle recently passed a social housing ballot initiative. We are joined by Tiffani McCoy and Camille Gix and our Legislative Aide, Ian Ross, is host.

Paul H. 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.

Hans How, Member, Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board, City & County of San Francisco.

Stefan is principal with Opticos Design, Inc., an urban design, planning, and architecture practice based in Berkeley, California. He 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. Inspired by places of all scales and the work of those that advocate for public life within them, he skillfully brings diverse people, ideas, and opinions together to shepherd successful, productive, and beautiful projects. 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. He is also a devoted educator, teaching in the Urban Design program at the University of California, Berkeley, and frequently speaking on Urban Design, Form-Based Coding, Small Town and Rural Revitalization, and Infill/Missing Middle Housing.

The Housing Reality for 1 Billion- Lessons from a Dhaka Slum Mark is an Australian architect and academic. He has extensively researched issues relating to climate change including emissions mitigation, urban climate response, bio-physical adaptation and social resilience. He has gained a depth of knowledge of the dynamics between economics, governance, energy supply, built form, urban metabolism and climate change. Mark enjoyed a successful architectural career of more than 30 years including 8 years as Director of a leading national practice. Several of his buildings were awarded prestigious awards. During his career, Mark completed part-time Masters degrees in Management and in Business. In 2015, he left architecture to undertake a Masters in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford, completing that degree in 2017. Mark's PhD (University College London), completed in 2020, examined energy justice for informal settlements in the global South with a slum in Dhaka as his case study. Mark's current role as Associate Professor at the University of Queensland School of Architecture involves teaching in Design, Practice and Construction along with a continuation in research activity.

Sanford Murata discusses the plans for a new Ala Wai village. 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! Join us as we dive into this daring proposal!

Alex Lee (李天明) represents California's 25th Assembly District which is located in the Silicon Valley region. Assemblymember Lee was elected in 2020 and became the youngest Asian American legislator ever elected 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.

Edward J. Pinto is a senior fellow and the director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is currently researching how to increase 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. This continues his previous work on the role of federal housing policy in the 2008 mortgage and financial crisis. Tobias Peter is a research fellow and the assistant director of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center, where he focuses on housing risk and mortgage markets. Working closely with the director of the AEI Housing Center, Mr. Peter has coauthored 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. He has testified before Congress, and his pieces have been published in policy journals and in the popular press, including in The Wall Street Journal, American Banker, and Business Insider.

As the Special Assistant to the President for Housing and Urban Policy at the White House's Domestic Policy Council, Erika Poethig was the perfect person to ask about federal housing policy. In this webinar, Ms. Poethig explains the Biden-Harris administration's 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. Ms. 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, we can make housing affordable. Come watch Erika Poethig break down America's housing problem and explain how we can build back better.

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. Mr. Williams is a social housing researcher whose work has been used by the Senate Banking and Housing and the House Financial Services Committees in putting together the largest investment in housing ever made. But with this investment comes questions about how it will be paid for and what will it look like. Fortunately, Mr. Williams is more than capable of explaining the importance of investing in our public housing.

Kirstin Downey grew up in Kailua on Oahu, where her father was a state harbor pilot working out of Aloha Tower. She went to Pennsylvania State University where she majored in journalism, and then worked at newspapers in Colorado, Florida and California before joining the Washington Post, where she was an award-winning economics and investigative reporter for 20 years. She was a finalist for the Livingston prize for outstanding young journalist in America. In 2000, she was awarded a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. Starting in 2005, she wrote dozens of news articles about problematic new kinds of real estate loans, reporting that foreshadowed the mortgage meltdown. She was part of a Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for covering the Virginia Tech campus slayings. She later served as an investigator for the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and as editor of FTC:WATCH, a newsletter that follows the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission. In 2009, Kirstin 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. In 2014, she wrote a biography of Queen Isabella of Castile, called Isabella the Warrior Queen, a book that BBC called one the ten most notable books of the fall. In 2015, she returned home to Hawaii, where she now works 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 a remarkable Kauai chief, Kaumualii, who fought to protect his island and his people.

Alfred has worked on housing issues in California at the state and local level, with organizations such as the California Democratic Renters Council, East Bay for Everyone, and others. Recently they have been appointed to the Berkeley Planning Commission. Alfred works as an architect and artist, and has worked on various issues and campaigns including zoning reform, rent control, tenants rights, and social housing.

Philipp Meuser Presents " How Soviet Mass Housing Became the Most Successful Home Building Program of the 20th Century." Born 1969, Managing director of Meuser Architekten GmbH and head of DOM publishers. From 1991 to 1995, studied architecture at the Berlin Technical University. From 1995 to 1996, editorial work for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland. Part-time postgraduate studies in the History and Theory of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zürich), graduating in 1997. PhD on the Soviet Mass Housing (Berlin Technical University, 2015). Federal Cross of Merit for cultural and scientific exchange with the states of the former Soviet Union (2018). From 1996 to 2001, policy advisor to the Senate Department for Urban Development as part of the Stadtforum Berlin. Visting Professorship at the Kazakh National Technical University, Almaty (2015). Tutor at the Strelka Institute Moscow (2016/2017) and the Architectural Association London (Easter Island Visiting School 2017). Since 2018 Honorary Professorship at the O.M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy in Kharkiv, Ukraine. International planning and construction projects with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe and Muslim countries. Realisation of various buildings in Kazakhstan, including for the German, British, French, Swiss and Canadian embassies in Astana. Consultant to the Federal Foreign Office in crisis regions (Afghanistan, Libya, Mali, and Yemen) since 2012. Commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office to research safety and security of Diplomatic Missions (2013).

Senator Chang speaks with Member of the European Parliament Kim van Sparrentak of the Netherlands, a leader in European efforts to provide access to decent and affordable housing for all within the European Parliament.

The Deputy Chair of the Department of Hawaiian Homelands talks about housing issues impacting Native Hawaiians.

Stephen Klineberg is a demographics expert and sociologist in Houston, Texas. As a professor at Rice University, Klineberg and his students began conducting an annual survey in 1982, now called the Kinder Institute Houston Area Survey, that tracks the area's demographics and attitudes.

Professor Tang teaches at the University of Hong Kong in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. He specializes in Land Use Planning, Property Development, and Institutional Analysis in Land and Property.

Mr. Dougherty has covered economics and real estate on and off for a decade at both The Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Sarah Karlinsky, Senior Policy Advisor at SPUR, presents, "From Copenhagen to Tokyo: Learning from International Housing Delivery Systems".

Professor David Schleicher of Yale University discusses how land use and zoning laws impact affordable housing.

In this episode of Our Homes we speak with Mary Kyle McCurdy, Deputy Director of 1000 Friends of Oregon.

In this episode of Our Homes we speak with Tara Raghuveer, Director of KC Tenants and People's Action Institute Homes Guarantee Campaign Director.

In this episode of Our Homes we speak with Scott Glenn, Hawaii State Energy Office CEO and former Office of Environmental Quality Control Director.

In this episode of Our Homes we speak with Professor Katherine Einstein. Professor Einstein's book "Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America's Housing Crisis" is one of the most thorough studies of people who oppose new housing development, how they differ from the general population, and how they reduce housing production.

In this episode of Our Homes we speak with Dr. Wolfgang Förster. Doctor Wolfgang Förster is one of the world's top experts on Vienna's unique social housing model, which houses 62 percent of the population in rent controlled, government-built housing with amenities from theaters to manmade lakes to private gyms. He is the coordinator of IBA-Vienna (the 2020-2022 international building exhibition on New Social Housing). Wolfgang works in his own company PUSH-Consulting (Partners on Urbanism and Sustainable Housing). Since 2001 he has been Head of the Vienna Housing Research. He is a Delegate of Austria to the UNECE Committee on Housing and Land Management, and Chair of this Committee since 2009. Wolfgang also chairs the EUROCITIES Working Group on Housing and has been coordinator of several EU-projects. In 2013 Förster suffered a stroke which interrupted his professional career for two years. In 2015, he received the honorary Medal for Achievements for the Federal State of Vienna. Förster studied architecture, planning and political sciences in Vienna and Graz. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Ryan Catalani.

On this episode we speak with Scott Wiener, California State Senator. Similar to Senator Chang in Hawaii, Senator Wiener serves as Chair of the Senate Housing Committee in California. This episode is hosted by Ryan Catalani.

In this episode, we interview Susan Kirsch, the prominent Californian community advocate. We discussed her experience on changing the narrative on housing shortage in California, building a momentum that would influence the legislative process, and empowering local leaders for community education.

In this episode we speak with Rick Holliday, Founder, Factory OS, Making Modular Construction Work.

In this episode we speak with Wayne Kawamura, Senior Auditor, City & County of Honolulu. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Ryan Catalani. Our Homes was produced In partnership with Faith Action for Community Equity. Faith Action for Community Equity is a grassroots, interfaith 501(c)3 non-profit organization driven by a deep spiritual commitment to improving the quality of life for our members and all the people of Hawaii. Through our common values and collective power, we address the root causes of social justice challenges facing our community. More information can be found at www.faithactionhawaii.org Episode

In this episode we speak with David L. Callies is Benjamin A. Kudo professor of law at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law where he teaches land use, state and local government and real property. Prior to coming to Hawaiʻi he practiced local government and land use law with the firm of Ross & Hardies of Chicago during which time he also taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Architecture and Urban Planning and served as an Assistant State's Attorney. He is a graduate of DePauw University, the University of Michigan Law School (J.D.) and the University of Nottingham (LL.M.), and a past foreign fellow and present life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. Our Homes was produced In partnership with Faith Action for Community Equity. Faith Action for Community Equity is a grassroots, interfaith 501(c)3 non-profit organization driven by a deep spiritual commitment to improving the quality of life for our members and all the people of Hawaii. Through our common values and collective power, we address the root causes of social justice challenges facing our community. More information can be found at www.faithactionhawaii.org

In this episode, we interview Professor Philip Garboden from University of Hawaii on his research regarding affordable housing. We discussed solutions for relieving families from the housing burden, how the covid pandemic is amplifying the housing crisis, and how housing intercept with race. Our Homes was produced In partnership with Faith Action for Community Equity. Faith Action for Community Equity is a grassroots, interfaith 501(c)3 non-profit organization driven by a deep spiritual commitment to improving the quality of life for our members and all the people of Hawaii. Through our common values and collective power, we address the root causes of social justice challenges facing our community. More information can be found at www.faithactionhawaii.org

In this episode we speak with Brian Hanlon, CEO of California YIMBY. YIMBY, standing for “Yes In My Back Yard” is a pro-development movement that aims to build more housing in urban areas where affordable homes and rents have become unobtainable for many people. Brian discusses with us the movements origins, meaning, goals, and initiatives moving forward to build more equitable, affordable cities. Our Homes was produced in partnership with Faith Action for Community Equity. Faith Action for Community Equity is a grassroots, interfaith 501(c)3 non-profit organization driven by a deep spiritual commitment to improving the quality of life for our members and all the people of Hawaii. Through our common values and collective power, we address the root causes of social justice challenges facing our community. More information can be found at www.faithactionhawaii.org

In this episode we speak with Emily Hamilton, Director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, on inclusionary zoning, affordable housing development, and policy and program initiatives to support and grow a thriving, obtainable housing market at all levels of income. Our Homes was produced In partnership with Faith Action for Community Equity. Faith Action for Community Equity is a grassroots, interfaith 501(c)3 non-profit organization driven by a deep spiritual commitment to improving the quality of life for our members and all the people of Hawaii. Through our common values and collective power, we address the root causes of social justice challenges facing our community. More information can be found at www.faithactionhawaii.org