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Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Austin families are getting priced out. These state laws could help them stay
Austin's soul has always been its people, from the chefs preparing fantastic food to the musicians who make us the live music capital of the world. But as the city grows, we face a hard truth: Many of our people, including artists, teachers, nurses, service workers and young families, can no longer afford to live here. At Austin Habitat, we hear it daily: Families with steady jobs and deep roots are being priced out of the neighborhoods they helped shape. While demand has increased home prices, so has the lack of diverse housing options. Smaller, modest homes, backyard cottages, and condos — once common in Austin — have become rare. Austin school district teacher Steven Caplan does yard work in October 2023 in front of his Austin Habitat for Humanity home. Teachers, nurses and service workers are having difficulty finding housing they can afford in Austin. To preserve Austin's identity, it's imperative we make room for everyone who gives this city its character and charm. That's exactly what we're doing through a powerful new partnership in Northeast Austin. In collaboration with Travis County, Austin Habitat is building 48 affordable homes in Whisper Valley, a sustainable, mixed-income community. It's a bold step toward restoring balance in our housing system. Already, momentum is building — proof that local leadership matched by statewide support drives real change. This fall, we'll host the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project and build 25 of those 48 affordable homes in one week with volunteers and future homeowners. It's community in action, proof that partnerships can be compassionate, creative and focused on the shared belief that everyone deserves a home. Adrianne Todman, then serving as acting secretary of Housing and Urban Development, participates in January at an Austin Habitat for Humanity wall-raising ceremony in Prospect Heights. Austin Habitat will hold an event this fall to build 25 homes in another community called Whisper Valley. And we can do more. By embracing common-sense solutions such as allowing homeowners to build backyard homes, converting vacant offices into housing, or empowering faith-based groups to build on their land, we can open doors for more families while preserving the character that makes our neighborhoods special. This session, the Texas Legislature has a chance to act on four bills that would give cities the tools to create homes while preserving character and meeting local needs: • Senate Bill 673/HB 1779 to legalize backyard homes • SB 844/HB 24 to end landowner vetoes in housing decisions • SB 840/HB 3404 to enable housing near offices and shopping centers, and • SB 854/HB 3172 to empower faith groups to build housing Polling by Texans for Housing shows most Texans support these exact solutions — including 61% who favor allowing backyard homes, strong majorities backing housing near businesses and empowering churches and nonprofits to build homes and a majority against landowner vetoes. These ideas aren't controversial. They're practical. What they require is the willingness to imagine an Austin where opportunity is shared and neighbors are welcomed, not pushed away. Because at the end of the day, this isn't just about housing. It's about community. It's about ensuring our kids can grow up and stay here, that our teachers and nurses aren't forced to move away. The choice is ours. We can cling to outdated policies that exclude, or we can lean into a future where Austin thrives because everyone has a place here. Preserving Austin doesn't mean freezing it in time. It means ensuring the people who make it vibrant, diverse, and resilient can keep calling it home. I urge lawmakers to act. Austinites should contact their representatives and say clearly: We need these housing bills passed now. Because the future of our city depends on it. Michele Anderson is the CEO of Austin Habitat for Humanity. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: We can't preserve Austin without building for its people | Opinion
Chicago Tribune
26-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Illinois affordable housing projects on pause as Trump administration evaluates funds
Some renovation projects aimed at preserving and greening existing affordable housing properties are on hold in Chicago as the Trump administration evaluates a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program. Archer Courts in Chinatown, a 146-unit apartment building, was awarded over $11.7 million in federal funds for green energy fixes at an event a year ago with notable political officials, including then-acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman, HUD's then-Midwest Director Jim Cunningham, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Department of Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda. Now, the redevelopment is in jeopardy. 'It's very likely that on this particular project, we will not be able to make any additional investments in the property beyond what we have already made,' without the HUD grant, said Lauren Zullo, managing director of impact for New York-based developer Jonathan Rose Companies. The more than $1 billion national program, known as the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, is funded through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and provides developers with one piece of the complex and expensive capital stack required to complete affordable housing projects. The Associated Press first reported the threat to the national HUD program. About 270 projects were awarded funds, with at least 15 of these projects in Illinois — in various stages of development. The Illinois developments are slated to receive over $52.5 million, with some still forging ahead. 'The previous administration's energy efficiency crusade diverted valuable resources, including funding, from the department's mission,' said Kasey Lovett, a HUD spokesperson, in a statement to the Tribune. 'The department is evaluating options to ensure rural, tribal and urban communities have the resources they need, which are not solar panels.' HUD did not answer the Tribune's specific questions about the program. The news comes as the city and country are grappling with how to address a severe shortage of affordable housing as housing costs have skyrocketed in recent years and could potentially increase more with President Donald Trump's recently imposed and anticipated tariffs. The redevelopment projects aided by HUD dollars would help extend the lifetime of hundreds of affordable housing units in Illinois. HUD is also undergoing scrutiny in other areas and faces cuts from billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency and Trump in the Midwest region and at the national level. Eight Chicago-based U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development staffers with more than 180 years of service collectively have retired or are retiring later this year as the agency undergoes scrutiny. At least 20 local HUD workers lost their jobs or received layoff notices last month; some of these employees have since been placed on administrative leave following court orders. A dozen of these employees work in the local HUD Office of Field Policy and Management, which will wipe out the entire local department, apart from managers. Chicago-area housing organizations are also facing funding cuts from HUD, with some recently receiving termination notices for grants while others are in limbo as they wait for overdue contracts or to see what happens with expected awards. (A judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from terminating the grants in a ruling Tuesday.) The renovation at Archer Courts was to be aided by a HUD-hired consultant who was conducting studies to create development plans. That consultant's contract has now been terminated, Zullo said, and her company does not have a way to move forward on the project without that assistance. The work would include updates to aging building heating and hot water systems. And, Zullo said, the loss of this rehab project would also mean the loss of local jobs and disappointment for the building's residents. A Chicago Department of Housing spokesperson said in a statement to the Tribune that it has 'several critical projects in its pipeline that are currently dependent on these funds.' 'While we are reviewing the impact of HUD's actions, it is is deeply disappointing that our residents could be the ones most impacted,' the statement said. Brainerd Senior Center, a 60-unit, $14.5 million rehab project on the Far South Side aimed at decarbonization, was awarded a $750,000 HUD loan. It is in the 'group of a lucky few' that are more likely to receive their funding because the deal has already closed and construction has started, said Lindsey Haines, executive vice president of real estate development at Full Circle Communities, a Chicago-based nonprofit affordable housing developer. Haines said her group is still 'very nervous' about receiving the funds and has not heard anything directly from HUD. 'Any funding we need to put out the door to fill in a gap from funding we were counting on puts our ability to do our core mission at risk,' Haines said. The Preservation of Affordable Housing, a national housing developer, has three projects in Chicago in various stages of redevelopment that were awarded HUD funds. The $117 million rehab for the 240-unit Island Terrace Apartments in the Woodlawn neighborhood — whose HUD grant was put toward upgrading to a more energy efficient heating system — is completed and POAH has requested reimbursement for the $750,000 grant from HUD, said Bill Eager, senior vice president of real estate development for the Midwest region of POAH and who is based in Chicago. Eager said his company is going through the normal requisition process and has not yet heard from HUD. 'We are hopeful that money will come through,' Eager said. The other two projects, Corcoran Place and Austin Renaissance, both in the Austin neighborhood and awarded funds of about $5.6 million each, are on hold as the developer awaits word from HUD, Eager said. The New York Times first reported the Corcoran Place project's status. Corcoran Place, a 94-unit apartment building for older adults, is supposed to receive green upgrades, including an improved HVAC system, under its $39.5 million renovation. The deal was expected to close in a couple of months, Eager said. Austin Renaissance, a 71-unit complex for families, is still in the early stages of its $33.9 million redevelopment plans. Eager said that while the GRRP funds are for energy retrofits, the dollars 'unlocked an ability to do a substantial rehab' to 'improve the quality of life' for residents at properties like Corcoran Place and Austin Renaissance. 'Yes, we don't want to lose our deals, but this stuff really affects people's everyday lives,' Eager said. 'We may not be able to preserve and revitalize these properties' without the GRRP funds.
Associated Press
26-03-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
3D printed and factory-built homes could help tackle housing crisis
DENVER (AP) — As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hemp — yes, the marijuana cousin — to make building blocks for walls. It's a response to the country's shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty. 'There's not enough homes to purchase and there's not enough places to rent. Period,' said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden. One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. 'I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing.' So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents? Factory-built housing put together in a week In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line. At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped. The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said. Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said. The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who've been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns. That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family. 'You can build faster. The faster you build — even at a high quality — means the lower the price,' Schaefer said. 'We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis.' There's a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to. Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassis — like a trailer — and they aren't subject to the same local building codes. That's part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S. Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000. 3D printing is innovative but still 'a long game' Yes, there's technology to 3D print homes. A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks. Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis. It's 'a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,' Hamel said. The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It's also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape. The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari said It's 'a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,' Memari said. 'The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.' A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has 'a bright future' Hemp — the plant related to marijuana — is being used more and more in the construction of walls. The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming 'hempcrete,' a natural insulation that's mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall. Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn't need the wood studs. As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow. The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation. Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said. Still, he said, 'hempcrete has a bright future.' ___ ___
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Housing crisis spurs alternatives to building homes, from 3D printing to walls made from hemp
DENVER (AP) — As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hemp — yes, the marijuana cousin — to make building blocks for walls. It's a response to the country's shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty. "There's not enough homes to purchase and there's not enough places to rent. Period," said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden. One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. 'I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing." So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents? Factory-built housing put together in a week In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line. At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped. The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said. Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said. The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who've been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns. That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family. 'You can build faster. The faster you build — even at a high quality — means the lower the price,' Schaefer said. 'We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis." There's a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to. Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassis — like a trailer — and they aren't subject to the same local building codes. That's part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S. Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000. 3D printing is innovative but still 'a long game' Yes, there's technology to 3D print homes. A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks. Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis. It's 'a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,' Hamel said. The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It's also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape. The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari said It's 'a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,' Memari said. 'The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.' A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has 'a bright future' Hemp — the plant related to marijuana — is being used more and more in the construction of walls. The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming "hempcrete," a natural insulation that's mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall. Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn't need the wood studs. As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow. The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation. Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said. Still, he said, 'hempcrete has a bright future." ___ Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Buena Vista, Colorado. ___ Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
The Independent
26-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Housing crisis spurs alternatives to building homes, from 3D printing to walls made from hemp
As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hemp — yes, the marijuana cousin — to make building blocks for walls. It's a response to the country's shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty. "There's not enough homes to purchase and there's not enough places to rent. Period," said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden. One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. 'I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing." So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents? Factory-built housing put together in a week In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line. At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped. The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said. Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said. The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who've been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns. That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family. 'You can build faster. The faster you build — even at a high quality — means the lower the price,' Schaefer said. 'We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis." There's a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to. Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassis — like a trailer — and they aren't subject to the same local building codes. That's part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S. Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000. 3D printing is innovative but still 'a long game' Yes, there's technology to 3D print homes. A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks. Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis. It's 'a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,' Hamel said. The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It's also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape. The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari said It's 'a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,' Memari said. 'The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.' A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has 'a bright future' Hemp — the plant related to marijuana — is being used more and more in the construction of walls. The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming "hempcrete," a natural insulation that's mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall. Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn't need the wood studs. As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow. The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation. Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said. Still, he said, 'hempcrete has a bright future." ___ Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Buena Vista, Colorado. ___
