Adaptive Affordability - housing models that challenge the status quo.

Visionary models which challenge the status quo are needed to change the game on housing affordability. While this is slow moving in many global cities, the most progressive start-ups, property owners, and city governments are exercising increased levels of ingenuity to respond. New housing, finance and construction models are coming to the fore to achieve new modes of affordability– not only providing lifelines to vulnerable groups, but pushing the envelope for housing design.

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Leading the charge is Commune, a French start-up providing affordable, co-living residences for single parents. Representing 25% of families in France, a single-parent scenario means reduced income, resources and time. As an asset manager, Commune counteracts this by offering low-cost fully-furnished comfortable homes with access to facilities and services like a baby-sitting, meal preparation, play halls, and even raclette machines – all within a like-minded community.

Similarly, the African Canadian Affordable Housing Lab Project shares this link to community and social sustainability. Run by the, Rwandan Canadian Healing Centre, the project aims to create housing that is low-cost, intergenerational, and culturally relevant for African Canadians. Replicating a traditional African village, the housing will focus on the values of community and family, while also embedding opportunities for healing and wellbeing.

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Another way to unlock housing affordability, is to leverage financially and environmentally sustainable solutions in construction. Othalo, a tech-construction company, is doing both at once. Utilising plastic waste to build modular homes, Othalo will produce low-cost housing, provide local jobs, and circumvent material shortages. Their first project is set to commence in Africa with prototypes already underway.

Also proving success with modular homes is the Hilda L. Solis Care First Village, a 232-unit development in Los Angeles by NAC Architecture. The streamlined construction enabled a six-month turnaround from concept to occupancy, and allowed the rapid settlement of local homeless people. The quick timeframe also allowed the city to receive an almost immediate return on investment, and is likely to incentivise similar future projects.

Looking ahead - Provocations for what’s next

• One thing that won’t change in the foreseeable future, will be the need for affordable housing. This is likely to increase as polarities between rich and poor continue to widen in certain economies, and displacement due to war and climate change increases. In response, future housing will be tailored to the acute and culturally specific needs of diverse groups. To drive systemic change, it should also connect with services supporting healing and prosperity. This scenario begs the questions: What new typologies of housing and ownership models are needed for this unique situation? And what cultural nuances need to be supported? Organisations such as Commune and the African Canadian Affordable Housing Lab Project offer much to learn from.
• History has shown us that construction and material costs have typically risen overtime, and is a trajectory society has come to expect. But what if we rejected this norm, and mandated the opposite? Could industries devise and exclusively utilise the most cost-effective ways to create housing – without compromising on quality? Beyond materials, this may require a review of the development and delivery journey – ascertaining opportunities to streamline and pass savings on to residents.
• As the world’s challenges become more intertwined, innovators from increasingly disparate sectors will join forces to solve multiple problems at once. Innovation has shown us that this is where the most novel, astounding and inspiring solutions lie. We are right to collaborate and ask, how might housing affordability relate to challenges in fields of medicine, food production and fashion? And how might we combine capabilities, create efficiencies, and support multiple human and non-human stakeholders?? These are the types of questions Frank Cato Lahti posed in founding Othalo, asking: “What if one could use the plastic waste problem to solve the housing deficiency problem?”.