An eviction prevention program is working to ensure evictions do not happen in the first place.
The United Way of King County has provided $500,000 of flexible funding as aid for more than 1,000 affordable housing units across the county. It is a partnership with the affordable housing developer HNN Communities.
Marlo Klein, senior community impact manager for homelessness prevention for United Way of King County, said the goal of the pilot program is to ensure someone already in affordable housing does not lose it.
"We already have a homeless crisis going on and it's so important to keep people in their housing whenever possible; prevent the trauma of homelessness," Klein explained. "There's not enough space or resources for housing for folks to find that they can afford."
Klein pointed out the program provides funding for anything putting someone at risk of eviction, comparing it to a savings account.
For instance, she recalled a woman in one of the HNN units was having car trouble, preventing her from getting to work and child care. Funds from the eviction prevention program were able to help.
"Our money's being put to use in a lot of creative ways for household's unexpected needs that jeopardizes their ability to pay their rent on time, and we can fill that gap," Klein emphasized.
Klein noted the inspiration for the program came while she was managing a different eviction prevention program at the King County courthouse before the pandemic. She noticed a lot of people being evicted were coming from affordable housing programs and wondered what could be done to help.
"As a result of what we learned before the pandemic started at the courthouse, we decided to kind of move our work a little bit more upstream to help people avoid even getting an eviction in the first place," Klein concluded.
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A coalition of advocates is using a novel approach to address the housing shortage in Missoula, helping renters become owners.
Prices and availability continue to be a problem in Montana.
Neighborworks Montana and the North Missoula Community Development Corporation are expanding the co-op concept in Missoula, notorious for its housing shortage.
Neigborworks Montana Executive Director Kaia Peterson said co-ops are successful because they hire the property management company that works for them.
"So, these are existing apartment buildings, and what we're doing is instead of an individual investor owning that building, we're helping the residents form a cooperative," said Peterson. "So, the residents are creating a business together - in the business form of a cooperative - and that cooperative buys and owns and operates the building."
Co-op ownership eliminates the possibility of an investor buying the building and increasing rent if the property value increases. The group hopes to replicate the model across Montana.
North Missoula Community Development Corporation's Executive Director Brittany Palmer said the co-op model also keeps the property in local hands and allows residents to decide, collectively, how to best use the money people are paying to live there.
"Them hiring the property management company that works for them, rather than for a landlord," said Palmer. "It goes towards also things like maintenance which they get to decide when and what maintenance and repairs are made."
The corporation owns the land underneath the buildings, so even if the co-op dissolves in the future, the corporation still decides what happens with the property. They've produced a documentary about Missoula's first co-op called Wolf Avenue Collective.
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The Utah Foundation polled municipal officials across the state to gain their insights into affordable housing. The report found many officials feel they face barriers when attempting to introduce more affordable housing into their communities - and they say those barriers often come from residents.
Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, said anxieties people may have around affordable housing may not be accurate.
"When we think about affordable housing, we think about more density. And that comes along with perhaps more traffic. And that may not be reality, but that's what a lot of people are thinking about," Teigen said.
However, those anxieties can create restrictions for those who advocate for more diverse housing options. In the survey, 79% of respondents said municipal officials pursuing affordable housing over residents' concerns face political consequences. Teigen added some officials must choose between fighting for their beliefs in the need to make housing more affordable - and remaining in office to help their constituents with other matters.
The Foundation says its report was not designed to offer specific solutions, but to illuminate the issues Utah residents face today.
Drew Maggelet, director of housing for the Call to Action Foundation, one of the report's sponsors, said affordable housing is something everyone believes in. It's the placement, standards and implementation they may disagree on.
"There is not really a coherent or clear path forward as it concerns the best way to do this. There's a very large discrepancy between what people consider 'affordable.' There is a very large discrepancy about how to fix it," he explained.
The report polled officials in communities of at least 5,000 residents and examined populations across the state. One option being discussed is making changes to zoning policies for so-called "middle housing" - a strategy that includes allowing multifamily housing in established single-family neighborhoods.
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A new design competition is looking to find better housing for Fargo's aging population.
Like many other states, North Dakota has a growing number of people increasingly burdened by their own homes. Oftentimes, they want to stay in their communities but their properties might be too large, too expensive to maintain or too unsafe to occupy.
Janelle Moos, associate state director of advocacy for AARP North Dakota, said there are not enough options for people looking to downsize.
"A lot of housing and zoning has really promoted single family homes or very large scale apartments," Moos explained. "We've kind of lost that middle ground to say, 'There are other types of housing that exist and can coexist and what people want, right?'"
AARP is asking interested architects, designers, builders and students to submit designs for those midlevel units, including a duplex, triplex or cluster subdivision. Moos pointed out the goal is to show off the viability of age-friendly homes and hopefully come away with some plans for future development.
More than 65% of North Dakota residents named housing as the state's biggest overall need in a survey last year.
The competition closes in early October and the winner is eligible for a cash prize. Moos noted people can then hire the designer, obtain a building permit and begin construction.
"The hope is that it's not just a conversation and it's not just a hypothetical," Moos emphasized. "We want to come away with several really viable, buildable, missing middle housing plans with universal divine design elements. So, by that I mean truly age-friendly."
Judges and advisers include government officials, design experts and architects from across the state. Nationwide, one group estimates a need for more than 800,000 senior housing units by 2030.
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