Unhoused: Recent Episodes
Boulder Weekly and KGNU
Around the country, the lack of affordable commercial space is challenging for small, local, and underserved businesses and business owners who either want to stay open or get a foothold in the first place. As is the case with housing, many people find it difficult to start, maintain or grow a business in their own […]
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Over the last few years technology giants have announced major pledges to affordable housing efforts in the cities where they office. While these pledges are welcome in major tech centers in Washington state and California’s Bay Area, the companies are simultaneously expanding in cities across the country. When a tech company decides to office in any […]
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Seen as the largest reserve of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country, preserving manufactured home communities is a priority for state and local leaders grappling with unaffordability across the region. Increasingly, local park owners are retiring, making way for investors and corporate owners that institute new policies, even restrictions, and often raise lot rents to […]
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As cities and local governments increasingly focus on affordable housing around the state (and country, for that matter), homeownership units are often a part of neighborhoods and developments within Homeowner Associations, or HOAs. These come with monthly dues to cover community costs like building maintenance, landscaping, perhaps upkeep of shared amenities like pools, laundry facilities, […]
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What constitutes great affordable housing design has changed over the decades. Where hulking concrete structures—Cabrini-Green in Chicago, Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis—were once seen as economic answers to the affordability crisis, time has proven such designs do little in the way of elevating the lives of residents. There’s mounting evidence that the buildings we live in […]
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While affordable housing has been a policy priority, at least in theory, across Boulder County for years, need still far outweighs current supply, leaving room for myriad solutions from legislators, nonprofits, city planners, regulators, housing advocates and others. Unsurprisingly, discussions about affordable housing can be confusing, with numerous programs, funding sources and strategies involved. The […]
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Welcome to unaffordable — a podcast about affordability solutions in Boulder County brought to you by Boulder Weekly and KGNU. In each episode, we’ll present an interview with someone involved in affordability solutions from design to homeowner’s association costs to transportation access and more. This is just one person’s opinion on one aspect covered in […]
The post (un)affordable trailer appeared first on Boulder Weekly.
Traditionally, during winter months, additional shelter beds are made available to account for the added dangers that snow and freezing temperatures bring to people experiencing homelessness. Recent changes to the severe weather sheltering program, however, test Boulder County’s homelessness solutions strategy, as there are fewer shelter beds in the system this winter than there have […]
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Tiny home communities across several American cities like Detroit, Los Angeles and Portland have helped alleviate homelessness, but the idea has been slow to catch on in Colorado. The Veterans Community Project (VCP) has successfully housed and served homeless veterans in Kansas City, Missouri, by designing and building tiny home villages which partner with existing […]
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The increased visibility of street homelessness as a result of the coronavirus pandemic has motivated a wave of new conversations about the feasibility of sanctioned encampments in Boulder and elsewhere. The idea of a sanctioned campground for the unhoused is one that’s been loudly and routinely rejected by the larger Boulder community for decades. Concentrated […]
The post Unhoused: Recognizing realities appeared first on Boulder Weekly.
With an eviction crisis still on the horizon, sanctioned overnight parking lots are being used nationwide to provide temporary relief for people living in vehicles — a common occurrence for those experiencing homelessness for the first time. In Boulder County this summer, the nonprofit Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement (HOPE) created SafeLot, a program providing an approved parking lot for car dwellers to spend the night safely. But the idea of safe lots has created tension with the regional agency charged with reducing homelessness. Its Housing First approach, emphasizing more permanent housing solutions, strikes some as contradicting safe lots’ shorter-term fix. Safe lot advocates say it offers stability that acts as a bridge to a more settled lifestyle.
Join host Emma Athena as she analyzes how COVID-19 has changed the conversation around safe lots as a solution for homelessness in episode 3 of Unhoused, a podcast collaboration from Boulder Weekly and KGNU.
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Stemming evictions is the first step to preventing homelessness, but in light of the pandemic, will it be enough? When an eviction moratorium expired in August and the government’s pandemic-aid spigot closed, Colorado nonprofits and public agencies, including those in Boulder County, mounted a coordinated response to address a looming homelessness crisis. A gusher of donations created an eviction legal defense fund, a rental assistance program and other aid to people struggling to pay utility and food bills. In just three months, 800 households received help in forestalling evictions while thousands more received legal and humanitarian services. Despite the community support and a new eviction moratorium set to expire before the new year, housing risks remain without a resumption of emergency government aid.
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