Join USGBC National Capital Region (USGBC-NCR) and the Greenbuild Host Committee on September 24, from 6 – 8 p.m. at KPMG for “Building for Climate Resilience: Adaptions and Strategies,” the second of two speaker events examining the growing global focus on resilience. Part of USGBC-NCR’s lead-up to Greenbuild Voices on Resilience Campaign, these events will explore the convergence of sustainability and resilience and how our region can work collectively to make our community stronger and more adaptable. Resilience takes us a step beyond sustainability, asking the building community to “think forward” and to design and construct based on anticipated future conditions rather than past or current standards. How can we design and build our cities and homes in such a way that they will not only withstand potentially catastrophic future events, but also serve as resources to help us recover from them?
The rising threats of global warming, extreme weather, and uncertain economic conditions make it imperative that green building leaders understand our regional vulnerabilities and adopt best practices for absorbing climate impacts. “Building for Climate Resilience: Adaptions and Strategies” will feature a panel of industry leaders discussing how they face head on the challenges of creating and investing in a resilient future. The panel will explore climate resilience through real world examples, focusing on projects that have been engineered and designed to incorporate diverse, innovative solutions that improve their capacity to withstand the uncertainties of a changing environment. Discussions will include the Envision rating system, resilience theory in practice, and an engaging case study on the Brock Environmental Center, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Living Building Challenge and climate resilient building.
The panel for this event will include:
Tickets for this event are $25 for USGBC-NCR members and members of USGBC-NCR Host Committee Partner Organizations, and $40 for nonmembers. Learn more and register at: http://usgbcncr.org/event/resilience-speaker-event/
Change All Souls Housing Corporation has issued a Request for Qualifications to become the Redevelopment Company / General Partner for the restructuring, redevelopment & recapitalization of the 406 Unit Columbia Heights Village located in the Columbia Heights Neighborhood of Washington, D.C. on Seven (7) acres of prime real estate one block south of the Columbia Heights Metro Station.
Summary of Request for Qualifications (RFQ) Process
Purpose – CHANGE All Souls Housing Corporation (CASHC) is seeking proposals from qualified for profit and non-profit development organizations to partner with CASHC in the redevelopment and recapitalization of Columbia Heights Village Apartments (CHVA).
As a first step in this process, CASHC will identify a small number of potential partners from which it will seek more detailed proposals.
This Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is designed to identify interested parties that have the experience and expertise to participate in a more in-depth Request for Proposal (RFP) process to be conducted during October and November.
Deadline for submitting electronic or hard copy RFQ is September 25th at Noon.
For Further Information & a Full Copy of the RFQ, Contact:
Frank Lucician, Executive Director
CHANGE All Souls Housing Corporation (CASHC)
flucician@cashousingdc.org
2900 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
571.409.9995
By Lisa A. Sturtevant, PhD
Vice President for Research, National Housing Conference
This fall, over 1.6 million children across the Washington DC metropolitan area will return to school. However, for many, insufficient family incomes and a lack of an adequate supply of affordable housing means that in addition to homework and tests, many children and their families will be worrying about where they will live or how they will pay the rent.
Across the Washington DC metropolitan area, nearly 11 percent of households with children—nearly 150,000 households—have incomes below the poverty line. Thousands more families live just above the poverty threshold, which was $24,250 for a family of four in 2015. Many of these families struggle to find safe, decent, affordable housing in a region where the fair market rent for a two bedroom home is about $1500. Even those earning higher incomes face challenges finding affordable housing and paying for other necessities. Analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that a family of four (2 working adults, 2 children) in the Washington DC region needs to have an income of over $80,000 in order to provide the basic necessities, including stable and affordable housing.
When families have trouble finding safe, stable, affordable housing, children’s school performance can suffer. What exactly are the links between housing and education? And how can local housing providers and educators work together to improve outcomes for children?
Moving can help or hinder children’s education depending on the context. If a family moves from a high-poverty neighborhood to a low-poverty neighborhood, children can benefit from attending higher performing schools. However, when a family moves because of unstable housing situations, rising housing costs, or other difficulties, there can be adverse impacts on children’s educational outcomes.
Residential moves often led to interruptions in instruction, excessive absenteeism, chaotic household environments not conducive to studying, stress, and disruptions of peer networks. Research has shown that residential moves—especially moves that are frequent or during key education time periods—can have a significant negative impact on school performance.
Eviction, foreclosure, losing a housing voucher, and escalating rents are all reasons families may be forced to move. Local programs that help families stabilize their housing situations can help reduce disruptive moves and promote better school outcomes. Working to preserve market rate affordable housing is also an important step for helping to ensure residential stability.
Some Affordable Housing and Mobility Policies May Help Families Move to Communities with Higher Quality Schools
While frequent moves can have a negative impact on educational achievement, moves to neighborhoods with access to better schools may have a positive impact on school performance. While research on the effectiveness of mobility programs is mixed when it comes to educational outcomes, well-designed programs with a strong counseling component have been shown to be successful. A recent study in Montgomery County demonstrated that children in public housing that moved into inclusionary housing units had higher reading and math scores compared to children who did not move.
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– Tina Hike Hubbard, Director of Education
Enterprise Community Partners
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Strengthening housing mobility programs is important to helping families have options to move to neighborhoods with better schools. Creating a regional consortium where vouchers are administered at the metropolitan level is one way to expand the impact of the federal housing choice voucher program. Baltimore operates its voucher program at a regional scale and could serve as a model though the multi-state structure of the Washington DC region makes designing a regional program more difficult.
Affordable Housing Can Reduce Overcrowding and Other Sources of Housing-Related Stress
Research has shown that there is an association between overcrowding and reduced academic performance for children. Living in crowded conditions can be stressful and can lead to behavior and attention problems among children. Overcrowding may reduce parental responsiveness by creating social overload and withdrawal. Overcrowding may increase noise and chaos that interfere with children’s studies. Or the problem could simply be a lack of space to sit down and do homework.
In many communities, there is a gap between the number of families with children and the number of housing units that are big enough to accommodate them. In high-cost and gentrifying markets like Washington DC, it can be difficult to build family-sized units. However, by proactively creating policies that encourage or incentivize larger units (i.e. with two or more bedrooms), the District—as well as the surrounding suburbs—can expand affordable options to lower-income families.
Affordable Housing Can Reduce Homelessness Among Families with Children
Children who experience homelessness face numerous barriers to good educational outcomes, including difficulties accessing preschool and Head Start programs, adverse living conditions that impede cognitive development and study time, and difficulties obtaining personal records for enrollment in public schools. Homelessness can have different long-term effects on children depending on their age at the first episode of homelessness. Research suggeststhat homelessness is particularly detrimental in the long run for infants and toddlers than for older children.
While the region’s homeless population declined slightly between 2014 and 2015 according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Point-in-Time enumeration, however the number of homeless individuals and families increased in some jurisdictions including Montgomery County. And while family homelessness declined slightly between 2014 and 2015, the number of homeless families has increased nine percent since 2011. Local efforts to prevent homelessness among young children and pregnant women are an important part of creating a stable home environment so that children can be prepared for academic success.
The results from the research are clear—a lack of stable and affordable housing can be associated with poor school performance. A supportive and stable home environment is a critical complement to the efforts of teachers, principals and other educators who are committed to the academic success of all children throughout the region.
Next month: Innovative Affordable Housing: Examples from Around the Country
Tell us a little about yourself:
My background includes a BA in philosophy and political science from Mount Holyoke College and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.
Currently, I serve as the Chief of Staff & General Counsel for the Menkiti Group, a real estate services firm dedicated to transforming lives and communities through real estate. Our aim is specific: focus on developing the whole ecosystem of a livable neighborhood, and we do this by channeling resources into residential neighborhoods anchored by mixed-income housing and walkable main street corridors. In this context I design and lead strategic cross-disciplinary initiatives that advance the development of urban neighborhoods, which includes the development of assets along commercial main streets as well as affordable and market-rate housing.
I am extraordinarily excited about this portfolio because it spans from large mixed-use and affordable housing deals to the repositioning of neighborhood commercial assets – all in service of neighborhood transformation.
What would you consider the biggest challenge in our industry? And what have you done to proactively address the dynamic?
The scarcity of institutional capital in underserved urban areas.
At the Menkiti Group, we work in emerging neighborhoods in-and-around Washington, D.C.; and we often face a scarcity of institutional capital willing to invest in underserved urban areas. To us, it’s both an opportunity and a challenge: a challenge to drive capital into underserved communities; and an opportunity to play a foundational role in the renewal of a community’s real estate assets.
We are investing in and developing affordable housing and commercial assets in underserved neighborhoods, because we see inherent value in these communities. And we are able to successfully enter these markets because of our proximity to the neighborhoods we work in and our relationships with community members. These connections allow us to accurately assess risk and value opportunities unrecognized by traditional developers and financers. So, we’re taking a risk – sometimes without the benefit of institutional partners.
What piece of advice do you wish you had gotten sooner?
If you want to have a transformative impact in a community (or really anywhere), build a strong network of people aligned with a common vision.
People tend to work in silos and advocates often compete with each other for limited resources, but a unified, networked approach is much more effective. When I worked in government, it always struck me that advocates dedicated to the same social issues rarely coordinated with each other. They would have different messages and wouldn’t align their positions on policy or the allocation of resources. The result? Diffused energy and a blunted impact.
In the affordable housing realm, we need a systemic reform to meet the demand for affordable units. Our affordable housing stock is disappearing at a rate much faster than we can subsidize and replace it. The catch-up subsidy game we’re playing now is well-intentioned, but ultimately it’s a losing battle. Market forces require a systems-level response to housing affordability, and this type of reform is only possible when a powerful network of people is tightly aligned around a common objective.
How does your HAND membership help you in your community development efforts?
HAND is one of the best organized and well-positioned networking platforms for professionals in our industry. Participation in HAND provides the Menkiti Group with access to people and institutions that are pathways for growth, new initiatives and collaboration.
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Door Prizes: Are you interested in donating a door prize to this year’s Annual Meeting? Email annualmeeting@handhousing.org to coordinate with our team.
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