How a renter education course could lower barriers to housing

While Seattle’s City Council has taken steps to protect renters from rising costs and exploitative landlords, many tenants do not understand their rights. In order to address this disconnect, advocacy groups have organized “tenant rights boot camps” to educate renters about their rights and avenues of recourse under the law.

These tiny Scottish communities are taking control of their own The inhabitants of Eigg island in Scotland, raised $1.97 million dollars to buy the island they live on. Prior to that, the island had been privately owned by an absentee landlord and had fallen into demise. A pattern seen across Scotland which has the “highest concentration of private land ownership in the developed world.” However, “more than 560,000 acres of Scotland now rest in community ownership, with the government aiming to increase that figure to 1 million acres by 2020.”

Landed will pay for half a teacher's down payment on a home in exchange for a quarter of profits when the house is sold down the line. The San Francisco-based startup has recently arrived in Bellevue, where the median home price is hovering around $1 million.

North Carolina’s Roanoke Electric Cooperative is helping members bring down energy costs. Because the energy costs in this area is due to a lack of energy efficiency, the cooperative offers tariffed on-billing to help homes offset expenses like insulation and new heat pumps. The tariffed on-billing uses federal loans to pay for said expenses, and then the customer pays the tariff charge in their bill – which ends up being lower because of the energy efficient upgrades.

Old and neglected housing contributes to climate change because it runs on fossil fuels. In New York, outdated heating systems waste two-thirds of energy. The New York City Housing Authority is not only trying to create better, safer, more livable affordable housing, but also cleaner and more sustainable housing. While the city is just beginning to explore how to do that, other cities, like Paris, have already begun the work of updating old buildings that are used for affordable housing and can offer a model for American cities.

A pilot program in Jackson Hole is trying to make home ownership affordable for the local workforce. The program provides help with the down payment by granting $150,000 to families that meet the requirements. The initiative puts a cap on the appreciation value of the homes bought using the grant which ensures that the property values stay affordable over time. A similar program in Vail, Colorado has produced impressive results.

After their landlord refused to make repairs and hiked rent, tenants in Oakland, California, staged the longest rent strike in the city’s history to decommodify their housing and begin transitioning to a tenant-controlled building.

The Community Receiver Program works with real estate professionals of color to rehabilitate vacant and foreclosed properties. These properties are then resold to local homebuyers — to preserve generational wealth — or rented out at affordable rates. The program trains people to be community receivers for free, teaching them how to acquire and rehabilitate the buildings, as well as how to leverage grants and local funding programs. Since 2020, the Program has trained about 520 people, rehabilitated 16 buildings and contributed about $4.5 million in restored property value.

Fortify Life takes a holistic approach to addressing homelessness and also provides emergency and long-term stays in a renovated motel for people experiencing homelessness. Long-term guests participate in a micropayment program that teaches them how to budget and become financially self-sufficient. Since 2021, Fortify Life has helped 179 families with emergency or transitional housing.

A Berlin-based non-profit, Access to Energy Institute (A2EI), is providing traders at Wuse Market in Abuja :solar generators," which has reduced noise and fumes while also saving the community money by no longer having to buy fuel for generations. The installed solar panel system sends real-time data back to Berlin for monitoring and maintenance.