Inside Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program
Living Future is excited to announce a new online course that bridges education and sustainable affordable housing: the Red List Free Affordable Housing Guidebook Companion Course. Developed through a collaboration between Living Future’s Education and Affordable Housing Teams, this course highlights the importance of using healthy building materials in creating Living Affordable Housing. As part of this initiative, Brittney Boudwin, Senior Director of Education, sat down with Susan Puri, Director of Affordable Housing, to explore the history, goals, and evolution of the Living Future Affordable Housing Program and its vision for the future of Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program.
Brittney Boudwin: Susan, it’s so nice to be on the other side of this screen with you!
Susan Puri: Likewise! I’m happy we’re working together on new education for Living Future’s Affordable Housing program. Thanks for setting up this time to chat about the program’s evolution and achievements.
Brittney Boudwin: My pleasure. Before we dive into updates about the program, can you tell me why Living Future has an affordable housing program in the first place?
Susan Puri: The built environment that we have created has worsened inequality through housing that is leaky and built with substandard and even hazardous materials and building systems, leading to disproportionately high utility bills and health issues in lower-wealth communities. These same communities have also often been left to manage poor air quality and environmental hazards from an industry that externalizes its negative impacts on those living in its vicinity. Affordable housing developers today are seeking to create buildings that will provide a better quality of life and improved health, help to empower residents economically, and that will be positive assets in their communities. Many developers also have the explicit goal to create environmentally sustainable buildings and a mission to decarbonize their building stock.
Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program provides the supportive structure and peer sharing that is necessary to move the sector towards these ambitious goals. Our pilot projects and their successes are proof that it can be done. The resources and examples provided by these teams allow for affordable housing projects all over to learn from them and move towards decarbonized, healthy, and beautiful buildings as the norm for affordable housing.
“We provide individual and group-wide technical assistance and education to the project teams through various platforms and set up mechanisms for them to share information and resources with each other.“
BB: For folks unfamiliar with Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program, what exactly is it? How does it work?
SP: Our Affordable Housing Program centers around engagement with our affordable housing pilot project teams that are pursuing Living Future certifications (Living Building Challenge/Core, Zero Energy, and Zero Carbon). We saw that the most convincing case for Living Affordable Housing would be to have teams sign up and try to make it happen—with support and resources from Living Future.
Projects have ranged greatly in size, location, context (urban or suburban or rural), and climate. We have affordable housing projects spanning from Hawaii to Alaska that are attempting the Living Building Challenge. The projects also are very diverse in typology—most often they are multi-family buildings, but the cohort also includes duplexes, single-family prototype houses, and even tiny homes! Every single one of the projects we’ve worked with are true innovators in the sector, and since they are some of the first ones tackling these challenges, need additional support. We provide individual and group-wide technical assistance and education to the project teams through various platforms and set up mechanisms for them to share information and resources with each other. We have had teams get their engineers on the phone with each other to share information about building systems, had teams share cut sheets and information on Red List Free materials that they researched and specified, and had teams develop and then share workflow and process documents with each other. With our newest cohort, we also started a mentorship program so that project teams that are new to the Living Building Challenge can learn from those who have undertaken it in the past year.
In addition to providing upfront support and resources for teams, Living Future also seeks to learn from each project team and distribute their knowledge and learnings to further progress on deep sustainability for the whole affordable housing sector. We create resources sharing their success and strategies or filling a need that teams expressed to us. Our resources include individual case studies and success stories, as well as aggregated lessons and data from collective group learnings. We have resources on our website dedicated to topics such as federal and state financing of sustainable affordable housing, healthy materials, guides for contractors, and many more. All these are intended to provide a template for other teams that want to implement these strategies and give them a head start to try it out on their own. Resources like our Affordable Housing Materials List and Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing were developed based on feedback from our teams regarding the barriers they face.
BB: Living Future registered its first affordable housing project in 2011. Was that the beginning of Living Future’s affordable housing program? How has it evolved since?
SP: The Living Building Challenge launched in 2006, and we registered our first affordable housing project in 2011. Between 2011 and 2014, we worked with a small cohort of just 3 affordable housing projects that we called the Innovators Network. It was a test case to see if the Living Building Challenge could work in the affordable housing sector and to learn what support they would need. Those initial projects used the Living Building Challenge as a framework during design and construction but did not intend to certify.
However, these projects demonstrated that they were able to drastically reduce their EUI, specify Red List Free products, and implement many of the other components of the Living Building Challenge. We understood through working with this group that it is possible to build affordable housing in a new way. We published the first edition of the Living Building Challenge Framework for Affordable Housing in 2014 to share the learnings from the Innovators Network, and then took on a second round of pilot projects (10) in 2015.
In 2016, Lopez Community Land Trust in Lopez Island, WA, became the first certified affordable housing project under the NZEB standard (a predecessor to our Zero Energy Standard), followed by the certification of Lakeline Learning Center, which was certified as a Zero Energy project in 2018. Since then, three more projects have been certified, including two that achieved Petal Certification, one of which achieved 19 of the 20 Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge. We published an updated version of the Living Building Challenge Framework for Affordable Housing in 2019, which included case studies and information from our first three cohorts of pilot projects. We recently welcomed our fifth cohort of teams and continue to expand the location and types of projects pursuing Living Future certifications.
Over the years, we have also strengthened our relationships with partners who share a similar mission to enhance the sustainability and resilience of affordable housing.
BB: What successes has the program had over the years?
SP: In addition to the certified projects mentioned above, each of our pilot projects has had ripple effects through its community and through the people who work on them. Although certification is critical for verification and accountability, it is not the only measure of success we apply, particularly to the affordable housing pilot projects. Even projects that did not ultimately certify very often achieved levels of sustainability that were not thought realistic for affordable housing.
Our work at Living Future is to elevate these stories and aggregate their information into resources that give other project teams a head start. An example of this is our Materials List for Affordable Housing, which is an aggregated list of products vetted jointly by our affordable housing teams and Living Future to eliminate some of the effort and time needed to find healthy building materials for use in affordable housing projects. From this list and conversations with our project teams, we also created the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing, which provides key steps and tools for any project team that wants to begin eliminating unhealthy products from their buildings. We also have written case studies and several workflow resources, based on feedback from past pilot project teams. All of these resources can be downloaded from our website. You can also hear from a few of our participants in a video we created and read about several of the projects on Living Future’s blog, Trim Tab.
We have also seen that many past participants were deeply impacted by using Living Building Challenge principles on their projects and carried much of it through to future work. At least two participants have told me that they found a new purpose in their careers: to construct regenerative buildings in alignment with the Living Building Challenge. Many others have relayed how many Red List Free materials they continue to eliminate from future projects after understanding how feasible it really is. It’s difficult to quantify, but we believe that the Living Building Challenge has the potential to inspire change that extends far beyond a single project.
BB: We know that climate change is impacting all aspects of the built environment. What are some of the specific effects climate change has on affordable housing?
SP: One of the sad ironies of climate change is that those most impacted by it often had the least to do with causing it. A resident of an affordable housing project that we worked with noted that their carbon footprint was extremely low because they simply did not have excess to waste. ‘Energy poverty’ has already been a growing concern and utility bills have continued to rise (13%, on average, between 2021 and 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration), with lower-income households paying a far greater share of their income for utilities. The result of this means that households sometimes have to choose between paying rent or paying for utilities, leaving them in danger of shut-offs.
One of our past project teams had a goal of Net Zero Energy after learning that community members (half of which live below the federal poverty line) paid utility bills of up to $600 in the summer—in a state with very severe heat conditions. Extreme weather events need to be increasingly planned for; all communities will need buildings that can withstand and protect them during a crisis. If we build housing that does not provide this kind of resilience, we are leaving entire communities exposed in dangerous ways.
“The built environment that we have created has worsened inequality through housing that is leaky and built with substandard and even hazardous materials and building systems, leading to disproportionately high utility bills and health issues in lower-wealth communities.”
BB: Why do you think affordable housing projects should pursue the Living Building Challenge?
SP: The Living Building Challenge and other Living Future certifications provide a framework for integrating climate, health, and equity holistically throughout a project. This resonates with the mission of many affordable housing developers. Though there is an urgent need for shelter, there are additional services and sensitivities that need to be considered—for example, the color of the building may be adjusted to reflect culture and community, the materiality may need to not look too institutional, or the team may be employing biophilic design or other elements of trauma-informed design.
One pilot project participant described the Living Building Challenge as focusing on “qualitative,” rather than just “quantitative” factors. Affordable housing developers and project teams are already doing a lot with each project, and this is both an advantage and a challenge. They plan to hold the buildings for a long time and truly want to provide residents with what they need to thrive. They are not just buildings, but places where they will be providing a multitude of services and, in some cases, helping residents to heal from trauma, deal with complicated health issues, and find financial stability and security.
Affordable housing developers are often mission-driven nonprofits who strive first and foremost to serve their community and conduct much more intentional community engagement than many other projects. While they are balancing a lot of competing priorities with scarce resources, there are many ways that the Living Building Challenge supports their goals.
The resident-centered approach of affordable housing developers also means that there is an extra incentive to ensure that each element in their building improves the lives of occupants—incorporating elements like urban agriculture or spaces for community gathering hold important meaning and are not just being checked off for certification. We recognize that in affordable housing there are big challenges due to funding shortages, regulations, and many other barriers. However, we do not see the LBC as an impossible goal. It is not easy, but we have seen amazing innovations and progress by the pilot project teams we’ve worked with, many of whom accomplished levels of sustainability they did not think possible.
BB: You mentioned the resources around healthy materials that Living Future developed as part of this program— the Affordable Housing Materials List and the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing. What should project teams that want to include healthier materials in their affordable housing projects do first? Where’s a good place for those teams to begin?
SP: We are working with several developers and architects right now to address this exactly. There will be more details available in an upcoming blog on our Safer Materials Shift. In the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing, we outlined the easiest CSI divisions to start with—we want everyone to know that it is really easy to find cost-efficient Red List Free materials for products like drywall, insulation, acoustic ceiling, carpet, and even paint. Teams can also use more unfinished natural materials like wood to eliminate the need to even vet the products against the Red List.
Decreasing finishes and the overall number of materials in a project is a good practice that benefits the bottom line but also avoids bringing materials that might introduce Red List chemicals. There are many other products (such as resilient flooring) that also have Red List Free options, but may require a bit more effort or a small cost increase. In the last cohort, all project teams engaged with the Red List and specified products with Declare labels, regardless of their certification pathway. Many were able to specify more Declare-labeled products than required by Core Certification. Several project teams pursuing Zero Energy Certification also passed along a list of Red List Free products that they utilized—which we added to our Affordable Housing Materials List! The newest cohort is also eager to begin researching and integrating healthy materials.
BB: My last question for you—what projects are eligible for the Affordable Housing program and how can they participate?
SP: I’m so glad you asked! At least 50% of the homes in a project need to be income-restricted to 60% AMI (area median income) for rentals or 80% AMI for homeownership and the affordability needs to be maintained for at least 30 years. We are accepting projects into our newest cohort, on a case-by-case basis. The new cohort will run until mid-2026 and includes peer engagement, training opportunities, and, of course, the potential to lead the sector towards Living Affordable Housing.
BB: Thank you so much, Susan! I loved hearing about the growth of this program and the success stories, and what you’ve learned from the cohorts. We’ll have to be certain to include those lessons learned as well as advice from cohort participants in the new courses.
SP: Certainly! This has been a pleasure! I’ll see you at Living Future in May!
BB: Looking forward to it!
Editor’s Note: Interested in joining our Affordable Housing Community at Living Future? Contact us at affordablehousing@living-future.org if you are interested in joining our newest cohort of affordable housing teams.
