Issue 6: We’re in the grip of a home and housing crisis – and here’s what we can do about it

Welcome to the sixth issue of Innovation For Better Lives, our monthly newsletter where we share the tools, practices and people that inspire us to do better every day.

This month, TACSI’s Future of Home team has put together a list of projects, books, videos and resources to illustrate the scale of the housing crisis we find ourselves in, and shine a light on some of the innovative solutions people are developing all over the world to address this challenge. Check them out here:

1. This excellent retrospective from Saul Eslake | Economist is a great place to start unravelling the mess that is Australia’s home and housing landscape. In 10 minutes, this?video steps through the last 60 years of housing policy, and explains how it’s ended up making the market less and less affordable (in spite of attempts to improve affordability)

2. And if you’re looking to deep dive into years of successive misguided policies, this piece from Peter Mares for Assemble Papers digs into the nitty-gritty details?

3. For a snapshot of the rental crisis we find ourselves in right now, The Guardian has put together this helpful (if not slightly depressing) synopsis?

4. Push is a critically acclaimed documentary that explores the way cities are evolving and the consequences of gentrification

5. WikiHouse is a decentralised, open-source modular building system that's changing the way we approach the design and fabrication of small buildings and houses. Anyone can access plans for free and connect with a local fabricator to start building with their system

6. The Atlas of Informality is a database that attempts to track informal settlements (slums) across the world, and how they’ve changed over the last 15 years

7. An exciting new US-based venture called Lotus Campaign is acting as a bridge between people experiencing homelessness and landlords. It was a recent finalist in Fast Company's World Changing Ideas 2023 – we love seeing socially responsible companies like this being recognised on the world stage??

8. Ghana's informal settlement residents show how a community mindset can encourage social innovation to solve urban challenges?

9. We all know that affordability is the greatest challenge in the housing landscape, but what about adequacy? This fact sheet on the right to adequate housing from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights looks not only at what adequate housing actually is, but also at the responsibilities of governments to provide adequate housing

10. It’s easy to get caught up in the large-scale worldwide impacts of climate change, but we’re already seeing the more granular local impacts playing out. The effect of climate-related disasters on the quality, stability and affordability of housing is set to cause both huge economic fallout and untold human suffering

11. India’s ‘slum-free’ redevelopments are an excellent case study on why building affordable housing without addressing underlying forces behind housing insecurity is misguided. We also loved this take on how important the unique ways people use or build their spaces to make them feel like 'home' – this is something we don’t think is talked about enough

12. A new exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art explores how architects are applying blue-sky thinking to create artful solutions to some of New York City’s toughest public housing issues, and how the city is adapting these ideas for real-world projects

13. Another architect has identified a ‘Goldilocks zone’ for converting office buildings to housing. Find out what that means and see the effect this could have on CBDs?

14. In response to widespread shelling and destruction from the war, a pilot project in Bucha, Ukraine is exploring ways that temporary homes can be built quickly at scale across the country

15. If you’re on the pulse of housing policy in Australia, you’ve probably been following the fight over the Housing Australia Future Fund. A spokesperson for The Greens, who blocked the bill, was on the 7am podcast recently to explain why

16. Designing a Legacy is a new docu-series from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that seeks to explore the connection between the design of spaces we inhabit and our sense of place?

17. Finding a rental is hard right now – but for those leaving prison, it’s truly catastrophic. Find out how the rental crisis is disproportionately affecting people who have had contact with the justice system

18. Underscoring this issue is the fact that 33% of people in prisons were homeless before prison, and 54% expect to be homeless when released. Justice Connect is an initiative that works with prisons and communities to bring these numbers down, which in turn reduces the number of people who re-offend

19. The Meaning of Home Podcast from researchers at Loughborough University explores the complexities and connections between home and homelessness. We loved their episode, which dug into the concept of resilience?

20. Housing for Hope and Wellbeing is a book that lays out a vision of what housing systems might look like if we recentered their priorities around the wellbeing of people and the planet??

21. This essay by Julian Brave NoiseCat gives an indigenous perspective on property ownership. The Western idea of private property is flawed – indigenous peoples have this right in our books?

22. And if you found that perspective interesting: Jessie Thistle’s piece Reframing the Discussion: An Indigenous Definition of Homelessness further explores the indigenous experience of homelessness, and the feeling of losing a sense of home while also experiencing a lack of connection with the land

23. On this episode of The Other Others podcast, sustainable urbanism expert Jason Twill, LEED Fellow and Ecology and Urban Design PhD candidate Ishnie Dahanayake reject the commercialisation of First Nations land as real estate

24. If fleeing violence and persecution wasn’t hard enough, refugees and people seeking asylum are some of Australia’s most vulnerable to housing insecurity. The Refugee Council of Australia has produced a report that explores the issue in detail, and makes a number of practical recommendations??

25. Earlier this year, Architectural Digest published an excellent piece recommending 5 Must-Watch Black Movies that Explore the Meaning of Home. We love this quote from the article "As our definitions of home continue to evolve, we can look to the ways Black Americans—and Black cinema by extension—have believed in home as the site of memory, a place to experience the dynamic range of life, and the foundation of rest, love, and joy.”

26. Dark Matter Labs piece Retrofit & ‘Building Back Better’ explores the opportunity we’ve got to reshape our urban landscapes through the process of retrofitting new technologies into existing structures. The appetite for retrofitting is strong, with governments all over the world implementing schemes to bring old buildings into the modern day, but we’ll miss the opportunity to bring about substantial change if these programs aren’t considered and comprehensive

27. The Invisible City: Houston's Housing Crisis is a 1979 documentary exploring the effect of inequality, affordability challenges, inflation and demographic change on housing security – themes so familiar to us that the film could have been made yesterday (if you’re able to look past the late 70s fashion)?

28. And to make sure this newsletter isn’t all doom and gloom, we’ll leave you with six innovative solutions put forward by Stanford University to address the housing crisis

How is the housing crisis affecting you? Solutions to these challenges will only be found through deep collaboration, consultation and discussion; let's start here????