Rendering courtesy of David Baker Architects

Why Safe Materials Matter in Affordable Housing

What makes a home truly safe? Is it a sturdy lock, a strong foundation, or a trip-free layout? While these are essential, many unseen health hazards lurk within building materials themselves—from toxic chemicals in flooring and insulation to harmful additives in paints and adhesives.

For years, harmful Red List chemicals have been used in everyday building products, negatively impacting indoor air quality and long-term human health. But, the affordable housing sector is stepping up to lead the shift to safer materials—proving that healthier, cost-effective alternatives are available and scalable.

In 2017, there was one singular car seat on the US market that was available without flame retardants. Many parents were excited for this development, but cautious. CBS News, with the help of Berkeley Lawrence National Laboratory, aired a demonstration where they set it on fire to prove that it was safe. As of 2022, around half of car seats no longer had flame retardants (at least 40 models available from 8 different brands), according to a study by the Ecology Center and many have eliminated the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as well. Similarly, when the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) began working with affordable housing developers in 2013 to eliminate Red List chemicals, there were only 100 Declare labels available. Fast forward to February 2025, and that number has soared to 1,543 active Declare labels, representing over 18,000 individual products. In just the last two years, the number of Declare labels has grown by 60%, reflecting the rapid expansion of healthier, non-toxic building materials in the market.

For over a decade, participants in Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program have been using the Red List and Declare to reduce toxic chemicals in their buildings, creating healthier living environments. Red List Free products disclose 100% of product ingredients plus residuals present at or above 100 ppm (0.01%) in the final product, and do not contain any Red List chemicals. Red List Approved products are considered compliant with the Living Building Challenge and have at least 99% disclosure, but rely on one or more published Exceptions and may contain Red List chemicals. Exceptions have been published for situations where chemicals of concern cannot be avoided at present. For example, Chromium VI is allowed in the plating on flush levers and commercial flush valves due to the lack of alternative plating materials currently available in the market.

As developers and architects continue to advocate for healthier materials, the market of Red List Free and Approved products continues to expand, with every year opening up more products that are feasible to include in the budget. Due to the exponential increase in healthier products, it is now very possible to build affordable housing and avoid Red List chemicals in many areas of the building without additional cost or time output. But, the knowledge of how to do this and which products to focus on is not yet nearly widespread enough. This is why Living Future launched our Safer Materials Shift last year with ten of our affordable housing partners.

Rendering courtesy of David Baker Architects

Through our collaboration with affordable housing partners, Living Future has identified a priority list of Red List Free and Approved product types that can be seamlessly integrated into most affordable housing projects. Thanks to the growing availability of healthier materials from multiple manufacturers, these products can be specified with minimal effort and without added costs.

Our goal? To make healthier, non-toxic building materials the standard, not the exception. We’re excited to share this valuable resource with the industry to help drive safer, more sustainable affordable housing for all!

Safer Materials Shift Participants:

• PRESERVATION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
• MERCY HOUSING
• FOUNDATION COMMUNITIES
• TENDERLOIN NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
• FOUNDATION FOR HOMELESS AND POVERTY MANAGEMENT
• MAGNUSSON ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING
• PYATOK ARCHITECTURE + URBAN DESIGN
• ARCHITECTS FORA
• DAVID BAKER ARCHITECTS
• FORGE CRAFT ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN

What is the Safer Materials Shift?

The Safer Materials Shift is an 18-month project (from the middle of 2024 until the end of 2025) to help accelerate the use of Red List Free and Approved products in the affordable housing sector. We teamed up with our partners at Housing Partnership Network and Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future to work with several of their affordable housing developer members—including Preservation of Affordable Housing, Mercy Housing, and Foundation Communities—on integrating Red List Free and Approved products more regularly in their buildings, new and existing. Other participants include previous contributors to Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program, including Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Magnusson Architecture and Planning, Pyatok Architecture + Urban Design, Architects Fora, and David Baker Architects. All participants are either affordable housing developers or architecture firms that are well-versed in designing affordable housing.

Rendering courtesy of Pyatok Architecture and Urban Design

In preparation for launching the Safer Materials Shift, the Living Future team analyzed materials data from previous project teams (both affordable housing and not) to determine which building materials have most often been found Red List Free or Approved at a cost that is feasible for affordable housing teams. From this research, we came up with a list of target Masterformat CSI (Construction Specification Institute) divisions for project teams.

We divided our list of products typically used in affordable housing into three categories: Type 1, Type 2, and those excluded from the scope of the Safer Materials Shift. Type 1 products represent product types that can be found Red List Free or Approved without any additional cost and with minimal research effort. Typically, this means that there are an abundance of products in this category with Declare labels and/or these product types are close to a natural form and likely, therefore, to not include Red List ingredients. Type 2 products represent product types where a number of products can and have been specified as Red List Free or Approved by affordable housing projects that we have worked with in the past. However, these product types may contain a minimal or moderate cost increase and/or may not be available in all cases. For example, many of our affordable housing project teams have been able to install Red List Free or Approved resilient flooring (most often linoleum), but we also know that this product type represents an added cost over PVC-based resilient flooring products, which contain Red List ingredients. The product types listed under Type 1 and Type 2 (as seen in the graphic below) include only the base product; if additional sealers, adhesives, paints, or coatings are added to the material, then Red List chemicals may be introduced and would need to be vetted separately.

Products that do not fall into Type 1 or Type 2 categories were excluded from the research for this particular undertaking. It does not mean that it is not important to find healthier options for these types of products or that there are no options available in these categories (see our Declare marketplace for the full list of products across CSI sections) . However, these products, in most cases, represent a more difficult challenge either in terms of cost or availability and are not the best starting points for most affordable housing project teams that have limited resources.  

These two categories are a simplified version of what was presented previously in the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing, which was in turn, largely drawn from our Materials List for Affordable Housing. You may download both resources for free for more detailed information on CSI Masterformat Divisions, for additional step-by-step guidance on selecting healthier materials, and for our current list of Red List Free and approved materials for affordable housing.

After determining the list of Type 1 and Type 2 products, Living Future created seven pathways (called ‘steps’) for our affordable housing project teams to choose from. These do not represent a separate certification but are goals to inform the work of each organization. The steps can be seen in the chart below. They start by focusing only on Type 1 products and increasingly integrate more Type 2 products, with full (90%) Red List compliance as the final goal.

Process and Timeline

We asked that each participant commit to attending three training sessions with members of the Living Future Team that provided detailed information on the Red List and how to vet products to determine if they are Red List Free or Approved. We also required that each organization choose the Step to Red List Free (1-7) that is most appropriately ambitious for them, based on their baseline design standards. The participants also provided background information to Living Future, including the projects in scope for this analysis, team member roles, the internal process for selecting materials, and their baseline materials list. Having concluded the training sessions last year, we are now checking in with each organization quarterly. Throughout 2025, the organizations will record all of the materials they vet in a shared tracking spreadsheet that lists critical information about each product and whether they were able to use it on their project or not (and why). Each organization is committed to integrating the Shift to Safer Materials into at least one building that is currently in design; however, many are using it on multiple projects or as the framework for updating their Basis of Design with healthier products. Each organization is receiving a small stipend as a token of appreciation for sharing this information with Living Future.

Rendering courtesy of David Baker Architects

What We Hope to Accomplish

As we conclude the year and move into the next, the Living Future team will meet with each participating organization to assess their progress in adopting healthier materials. Through interviews and data analysis, we will evaluate the impact of these efforts and identify key successes and challenges.

Using insights from tracking spreadsheets and real-world implementation, we will publish a comprehensive report outlining the best first steps for integrating Red List-Free materials into affordable housing. This resource will be publicly available, ensuring that developers, architects, and industry leaders can access practical strategies to create healthier, more sustainable living environments.

The ten participants in our Safer Materials Shift cohort are demonstrating that the affordable housing sector can be a leader in healthier, more sustainable living environments. By prioritizing safer building materials, they are setting a new standard for health-conscious, high-quality housing that benefits residents and communities alike.

Join Living Future as a free member to receive our newsletter and stay updated on the Safer Materials Shift, innovative healthy building solutions, and other impactful Living Future initiatives.

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.

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.

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.

At the International Living Future Institute, we have the privilege of working with affordable housing practitioners who are transforming the industry through groundbreaking innovations on every project. At this year’s Affordable Housing Summit, we are honored to showcase these projects and share them with you all. During the Summit, we will learn about projects such as a 28-story haven for LGBTQ+ seniors in Harlem that is designed for net zero operational energy and embodied carbon (see Innovations in Embodied Carbon Session below), a housing structure setting a new precedent for sustainability and designed with deep engagement with its First Nations residents in British Columbia (see Designing for Culture and Connection Session below), and houses designed to address the shortage of missing middle residential construction in the northwest and be adaptable to grow with families (see Innovative Housing Models and Pathways to Homeownership Session below).

The Summit will kick off with opening remarks by designer, urbanist, and social justice activist, Liz Ogbu, a global expert on engaging and transforming unjust environments. Her work is rooted in collaborating with communities and leveraging design to address systemic harm, catalyze community healing, and foster environments that support people’s capacity to thrive. We will also be joined by other noted experts in regenerative design such as Sonja Bochart and Chris Hellstern (both Living Future Heroes!). 

Our speakers this year have so much inspiration and knowledge to offer, and we are thrilled to host them all. We hope you will join us on October 24th and 25th as we celebrate innovation in the affordable housing field. As we look forward to this event, here’s a peek at more of our sessions and speakers:

Designing for Culture and Connection

These speakers are reshaping how we engage with the built environment by centering our deep connection with nature and with culture. 

Sonja Bochart is a prominent biophilia expert who has led biophilic design workshops that span 10 recent Living Building Challenge projects.

StudioHuB Architects will share how trauma-informed design principles and deep engagement with the local Indigenous community informed everything in the Chilliwack Housing Project in British Columbia, down to the facade pattern.

Innovative Housing Models and Pathways to Homeownership

We will feature the work of visionaries who are paving the way for greater access to homeownership through forward-thinking housing and development models. 

The three speakers in this session are all affordable housing developers utilizing strategies to rapidly increase the availability of housing in their communities and to leverage unique financial structures to provide opportunities for homeownership. These developers are creating new communities taking the form of structures such as community land trusts, co-ops, tiny house villages, grow homes and shared ownership models, all while employing sustainable and regenerative design principles.

Equity and Inclusion

Explore frameworks for incorporating robust equity and inclusion, including Arch Nexus’ recently-launched Comprehensive Equity Toolkit. 

This session will also feature two members of Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector (CESBS), an initiative that brought together leaders in environmental justice, architecture, affordable housing, transportation, economic development, and sustainability to create a multifaced plan to universalize access to sustainable, healthy, regenerative building design for the places where we live, work, learn, and play.

Scaling and Shifting to Safer Materials

Marilyn Specht and Chris Hellstern, recognized leaders in the regenerative design movement and members of Living Future’s Material Health TAG, will lend their extensive knowledge of selecting materials to this group. 

We will also introduce our new Safer Materials Shift initiative with our partners at Housing Partnership Network and Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future.

This session will also include an interactive (but low-pressure!) game with the group to help test out everyone’s knowledge of healthy materials.

Innovations in Embodied Carbon

This session will illuminate strategies for comprehensive decarbonization as pioneers in Zero Carbon affordable housing shed a light on the growing importance of embodied carbon in the sector. 

This panel will include four speakers, all of whom have been visioning and working diligently to decarbonize the affordable housing sector. These case studies will include a presentation on the tallest Living Future Affordable Housing Pilot Project to date, as well as an introduction by Ruwan Jayaweera of PAE, the engineering firm behind some of the largest Living Buildings, with 60+ projects having certified or in pursuit of the Living Building Challenge and Zero Energy Certification.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from these amazing speakers. Sign up here to register.

Cover photo credits:
Chilliwack Housing Project, rendering courtesy of StudioHub Architects
The Kelsey Civic Center, rendering courtesy of WRNS Studio, Mercy Housing, The Kelsey, and SPA
Hazelwood Biophilia Workshop, image courtesy of Rothschild Doyno Collaborative and Sonja Bochart
Carmen Villegas Apartments, rendering courtesy of Magnusson Architecture and Planning

What role can the built environment play in supporting the transgender community?

Last year, to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, ILFI’s Danielle Gonzalez shared her experiences outside ILFI as a transgender consultant and educator and shed light on the impact Just organizations can make towards supporting the transgender community. We now delve deeper to explore the larger role the built environment—and building professionals—can play in enhancing this support.

The Institute’s Affordable Housing + Equity Manager, Lea Celestial, sat down with Danielle to chat about action steps the building sector can take to create safe, healthy, regenerative spaces for transgender people.

You wrote last year about the role of Just organizations in ensuring the safety and support of transgender people. In the broader context of the building industry, how does the way we design, construct, and manage our built environment impact the quality of life of the transgender community?

Well, the built environment isn’t really built with transgender people in mind. It’s important to note that while transgender people have been around for all of human history, the word “transgender” didn’t arise until the early 1970s, and the word “cisgender”’ didn’t show up until the mid to late 1990s. Before then, the term for “opposite of transgender” was “normal.” Even today, trans people are considered an anomaly, rather than a possibility of human existence. Now, I’m not saying we need to completely change what we’re doing with architecture and engineering, but I am saying that there are some experiences and needs faced by transgender people (and other groups like neurodiverse people and people with disabilities, for example) that we could pause to consider.

Can you describe the unique experiences, needs, and issues faced by transgender people that can be better addressed by the building industry?

[Laughs] What a big question! I’m not sure I can capture all the ways trans folks experience the world. After all, every individual has their own way of navigating their environment, but in terms of some generalized considerations for the built environment, there are more than a few. 

Currently, a big one that’s a major part of the national discussion here in the US and in other places like the UK is bathrooms and changing rooms. That is a unique experience, that leads to considerations such as all-gender bathrooms or changing rooms. But that topic is a much larger conversation.

To give another example, we can also consider something as seemingly benign as reflective surfaces. Many trans folks—myself included—avoid our reflections like the plague, each for their own reasons. And that’s not necessarily unique to the transgender community. Reflective surfaces can be a challenge for people prone to visual overload and overstimulation, like those with autism. And rates of neuroatypicality are elevated among transgender individuals (though we’re still not sure of the specific relationship here). Simply put, conditions like autism, ADHD, OCD, things like that, affect trans and gender diverse people at a higher rate. I’m not saying we need to remove reflective surfaces and cater to a particular group. But it’s just something that could be considered. Are we building a shopping center or a healthcare center? If it’s healthcare, is it mental health focused? Will there be a higher than average influx of neurodiverse people here? Are these highly polished marble columns going to be a problem in the waiting room? That kind of thing. 

But, if I’m being completely honest, I think housing—or a lack of it—is one of the more immediate threats to the transgender community.

What role does the affordable housing sector play in supporting the transgender community? Where do you think we should focus our efforts?

Two out of every three transgender people either are experiencing or have experienced homelessness in the US–including myself. One in three LGBTQ youth—people 18 or younger—have reported housing instability, either because they were kicked out or because they fled abuse. One in five transgender and gender non-conforming people in the US have been discriminated against when seeking housing, and more than one in 10 have been evicted simply for being transgender. I’d say homelessness is a huge issue facing the transgender community.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are three distinct types of needs people need to survive: basic needs, psychological needs, and self-fulfillment needs. Basic needs are pretty obvious: food, water, shelter, sleep, safety and security. Psychological needs are things like community, recognition and feeling accomplished. Most affordable housing projects are pretty good at focusing on those types of needs for people, but there are some specific considerations around these needs for the trans community. 

For instance, I mentioned recognition as a psychological need. For the trans community, recognition includes identity affirmation, something most folks probably don’t consider, because for something like nine out of 10 people, the world isn’t constantly communicating doubt about their fundamental identity. Trans folks have to constantly assert that we are who we say we are.

Or we can look at safety and security. Yes, safety and security means not having to worry about being physically and sexually assaulted (one in two have experienced sexual and/or physical assault) and just having a house or room with a locking door can help there, but we should also consider things like financial security and access to safe healthcare so we don’t need to rely on black market medications.

I think the affordable housing sector can play a major role here by trying to think outside the box in terms of new housing projects. Can we develop an affordable housing project that provides safe, affordable housing for LGBTQ youth (25 and under) in a mixed-use zoned building, where some of the commercial space is reserved for services for this community, such as a low-cost medical clinic that specializes in transgender and LGBTQ health care? Can this hypothetical housing project use identity-affirming language in all of its policies, communications, and legal paperwork? Can we rent some of the commercial space to a LGBTQ or minority owned business that can both operate as a community space (like a coffee shop) and help offset building operating costs so we can offer free utilities to tenants, helping their financial security in the process? These are the kinds of questions I’d love to see the sector begin asking. I think this is how the affordable housing sector can really begin to address this problem and make a huge difference.

Can you give examples of best practices or case studies of successful strategies that can be replicated in building projects?

No, not really. Be the case study you want to see in the world! But in all seriousness, that’s a hard question to answer. Right now, unfortunately, trans people have been—and still are—an afterthought in most spaces, if we’re even considered at all, so this is kind of new territory. There aren’t a lot of examples to point to because this is just the beginning, I think. 

There are a few examples of new projects that are moving in the right direction. Here in Seattle—just two blocks away from my front door, in fact—is Pride Place, an affordable housing project for LGBTQ seniors in Seattle’s historic “gayborhood.” And another, is the upcoming Capitol Hill YouthCare HUB project. It’s a project that plans to renovate a currently vacant landmark building here in Seattle and offer a variety of education, employment, and leadership programs for LGBTQ youth, and is partnering with Pride Place’s parent company, to build affordable housing next door. So those are two great examples here in Seattle. 

I was also recently introduced to the story of San Diego’s Truax House, which is a historic landmark for the local LGBTQ community there, and it’s being restored and converted into apartments. 

In closing, what is the value of the Institute’s certifications and labels to catalyzing change and achieving better outcomes for transgender people?

I think the Institute has always been great about encouraging people to think outside the box. I mean, that was why the Living Building Challenge was created, right? To challenge how we think about the way we build our environment and ask the question, “What does good look like?” 

We can encourage people in these different sectors of our industry to pause and ask ourselves questions we’ve never asked before. You know, we live and work in this industry that’s millenia old, right? Buildings have been around for as long as human civilization invented agriculture and began settling in ancient river valleys. As a species, humans excel at adapting the environment to suit our needs. But have we paused recently to ask ourselves who the “our” is in that?

We’ve been doing things a certain way for so long, and I think we don’t pause to ask ourselves why. Why do we do things that way? Is it because there’s no other way to do it? Or is it just because we haven’t tried anything different lately? Is the current way we build alienating certain communities, and does it need to? Or is that just a product of our momentum over the ages? Can we do something about it? 

I think we can.

Inspired to learn more about what you can do to create better spaces for our transgender community? 

At Living Future this year, in my hometown of Atlanta, I kicked off the conference by sharing 10 things that are on my mind. Here’s a recap.

While you all are out there designing products, building buildings, doing innovative research, writing policy, I spend a lot of my time on movement strategy work, along with my colleagues and our co-conspirators. I am observing various tactics we’re using to try to transform our industry, thinking about how we can make things work better or faster or more equitably, how we’re advancing regenerative design, and how we’re engaging at the international scale. That work gives me a perspective that I hope will be a helpful spark. 

Global alignment on carbon accounting

This year at the very first UN Global Forum on Buildings and Climate, we celebrated the unveiling of the official Buildings Breakthrough Agenda for our sector: it is the global plan to achieve the decarbonization goals of the Paris Agreement by 2050. The very first item on our collective to-do list is for standards and certification bodies to align on definitions and assessment methods for near-zero emissions and resilient buildings. This may seem technical, but it is critical: In our work to decarbonize our sector, we can’t get very far without having clear rules of the game that are shared around the world. 

US alignment on carbon & buildings

Many of you know that we have been leaders on this effort here in the US, along with our co-conveners, via the ECHO Project that we began a year ago. We have also been at the table with the White House and other government leaders to help them create a Federal Zero Emissions Building definition that is very much a part of this larger global effort. This is incredible momentum at the US level. When we align on the ways we measure, it enables us to push harder, move faster and reduce confusion in the industry. It allows us to work across borders, which is critical in a deeply globalized world. And of course, it’s a great sign that we have super sharp people in the White House who are directly engaged in this particular piece of the decarbonization landscape — there is a building scientist working for our President right now!

Alignment on materials

Decarbonization is not the only place I’m seeing big efforts around alignment. I want to give a shout-out here to our friends and partners at mindfulMATERIALS for their work on aligning on a common ask for building materials manufacturers around the impacts of our products. This is allowing us to send a stronger market signal, clear up confusion, prevent greenwashing and, critically, to avoid the tendency to focus on only one attribute like carbon emissions, instead showing how all impacts — climate, health, social justice, biodiversity, etc. — matter and need to be accounted for. This has been a big year for alignment on the common ask, and I have confidence that these moves are going to rapidly accelerate change for building product manufacturing.

Understanding wood and forests

I’ve also been spending time this past year thinking about our precious forests and the wood industry. This past year, ILFI joined the Climate Smart Wood Group, where a number of forest-focused nonprofits are sitting with buildings-focused nonprofits and other building industry leaders to ensure that the push for mass timber and wood as a construction material is not contributing to negative ecological impacts but instead contributing to regenerative forestry. BuildingGreen has wonderful coverage on this issue. We are building great momentum here by working collectively.  We are stronger together. And that is worth celebrating.

Inequality & access to housing

Not every sign this year has been a positive sign. It has been a hard year for many who work on building peace, liberation and foundational quality of life for all people. In our vision for a living future, we imagine a socially just world, which is one in which housing is a fundamental human right. However, we are seeing trends that are sending us in the wrong direction. First, economic inequality is growing. Second, buying a home is becoming less and less possible as the price of housing continues to rise while incomes don’t rise at anywhere near the same fast rate. These larger economic trends are then impacting what can be built, such that housing (even rental housing) is becoming more and more out of reach for people in the US and in many countries like ours. 

This is a problem for our community to help solve. We need to find ways to build and maintain affordable housing. We need to help contribute to the creation of housing security in the form of ownership models like Community Land Trusts, cooperative models, and policies and regulations that promote affordability. At ILFI we are working on a new initiative to address equity and justice issues in a deeper way across our work, and that our Affordable Housing program is going strong with a new cohort of members. But these problems will require systemic change, more of us working together, and deeply intersectional approaches.

A shifting landscape for DEI work

The next big thing I’m thinking about in the world of justice and liberation is around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We’ve seen a disturbing thing happen this year around DEI work, which can best be described with the word backlash. We can expect more backlash on more of the issues we care about in coming years, and we need to double down on our commitments to increasing diversity, promoting cultures of belonging and inclusion, and real equity work, especially around racial equity here in the US where racial inequalities continue to have tragic and lasting impacts on society and on our lives. As the outrage of racial reckonings of 2020 fades for some, it’s especially important for us to keep up momentum in our DEI work. 

Launching Just 3.0

With that urgency I am very proud to announce the re-launch of our Just program in Just 3.0! For those who don’t know Just, Just is a voluntary disclosure tool and framework for reflection, evaluation, communication, and continuous improvement that helps organizations address social justice and equity throughout all aspects of their policies, practices, and culture. Through Just, organizations publicly commit to an equitable and healthy workplace, examine their existing systems, culture, and practices, and take action.  Many organizations in the building industry are waking up to equity issues or a deepening desire to address them, but need a guiding framework to help them get started and keep moving. That is how we hope to help with Just. Just 3.0 is the result of a rigorous development process that involved extensive research and collaboration.

“A Living Future is one where life wins, where our many global cultures thrive, where we all are treated fairly and where we treat our planet with the same respect and love.“

Working towards a living future amidst destruction

I am also thinking about how much harder our work is to find our Living Future in a world with so much destruction and death. The past six months in particular have felt like heartbreaking times to watch the politics of society play out around the world. There are no words I can find to describe the grief and the disappointment that I feel, that I know many of us feel, watching as people kill each other and destroy each other’s worlds. 

We are not disconnected from this as people working towards a living future. A living future is one where life wins, where our many global cultures thrive, where we all are treated fairly and where we treat our planet with the same respect and love. It’s a future where we don’t bomb each other, we don’t destroy each others’ homes, we don’t cut down our trees as an act of war, we don’t destroy our precious infrastructure. To be a part of this community is to fight for life for everyone, and to find the ways to make that possible. And community finds space to heal together, to grieve together, and to support those in need together. 

Bio-based materials resurgence

One of the most exciting parts of the past year is the building momentum for natural and biobased materials. Obviously, we’ve been seeing a rise in interest in Mass Timber for a few years now, and we’ve been seeing a lot of new biobased products grow in the market like Hempcrete and panelized straw technologies, but this year was a particularly great year for biobased materials and I really hope that trend continues. 

One big boost this year was the UN Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction Report released in collaboration with the Yale Center for Ecosystems & Architecture on Building Materials and Climate. I love how it places this shift in its rightful place in a set of three cascading priorities for our industry. The first priority is to avoid the use of new materials in the first place through building and materials reuse. The second priority is to shift to biobased materials wherever possible. The third priority is to improve the carbon footprint of conventional extracted materials. I love this framing. It shows the growing momentum and importance of bio-based materials especially in the Global South where so much of the new construction is occurring in the world today. 

Decarbonization and decolonization 

The last thing on my mind stems from a moving experience I had — visiting the 2023 Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy. For the first time in history, the exhibition focused on the work of the African diaspora with the themes of decarbonization and decolonization. Many in the exhibition highlighted connections between global extractive and polluting industry and the history of colonization and war. At the same time, there were many depictions of a better world that is possible (such as contributions from Francis Kéré and MASS Design Group). A core characteristic of many visions for that better future is indigeneity — indigenous labor, craft, and materials that are biobased and regenerative. 

Many might think that this vision for the future sounds impractical. We are not those people. We know that it is deeply possible to build buildings that celebrate place, that create good jobs, that are built out of the materials of the ecosystem in which they are constructed. It is time to link arms and support these visions, to find inspiration from them ourselves. I certainly did.

Cover Photo: Carmen Villegas Apartments. Image courtesy of Magnusson Architecture and Planning

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is thrilled to announce the launch of our newest affordable housing cohort, with seven affordable housing projects pursuing the Living Building Challenge, Core Green Building, and Zero Carbon certifications! These projects will join a supportive peer engagement network of other ILFI Affordable Housing cohort members receiving dedicated access to additional information, resources, technical assistance, and opportunities for peer-to-peer exchange of knowledge around achieving the world’s most ambitious green building standards.

ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program is premised on the belief that everyone deserves to live in healthy, resilient, and regenerative buildings. Over the last decade, ILFI has demonstrated this commitment by providing dedicated support to affordable housing projects and creating a hub where project teams can support each other, celebrate successes, build on lessons learned, and inform the development of valuable resources such as the Living Building Challenge Framework for Affordable Housing, the Materials List for Affordable Housing, and the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing. 

The central goal of the Program is to demonstrate that Living Affordable Housing is possible. With the launch of this newest cohort, there are now 62 affordable housing projects in 28 states pursuing certification under ILFI’s programs. ILFI strives to build on the innovative work of these projects to scale impact and cultivate success for future project teams. Through the Affordable Housing Program, ILFI creates resources and empowers advocates so that each project moves the entire affordable housing sector further towards a future that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative. 

Through June 2026, the new cohort will meet quarterly to dive into specific topics such as healthy materials, carbon, and water, and participate in office hours with our team of project coaches to check in on their progress, discuss barriers, and collaborate on solutions. In addition to this, project teams will have access to mentorship opportunities with members of previous affordable housing cohorts who have generously agreed to share their knowledge and experience in pursuing ILFI programs. 

These seven new projects represent a diverse range of locations, scales, and building types. With the launch of this cohort, ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program includes projects in four new states and provinces – Hawaii, Iowa, Connecticut, and British Columbia. It also includes the Program’s first project in New York City,  its tallest one to date at 28 stories. In contrast, the smallest project in the cohort is a 1,000 square foot prototype home designed to be a replicable model for sustainably rebuilding a displaced island community.

The projects are being created by five developers, a government housing agency, and a religious organization, all of whom are committed to creating place-based, regenerative solutions for addressing the needs of their communities. In addition to providing housing for cost-burdened residents, several of the projects will also provide spaces dedicated to community services such as wrap-around support and healthcare facilities, community gathering spaces, and even an innovative food hall aimed at promoting local culture and expanding economic opportunities in its neighborhood.

Most of the projects in the cohort are pursuing Living Building or Core Green Building certification, citing the alignment of these holistic standards with the broad vision of sustainability embodied in their project goals. Notably, two projects have registered for Zero Carbon certification, signaling the growing importance of embodied carbon for affordable housing developers. Project teams are exploring a number of different carbon reduction strategies, such as using low-carbon structural materials like mass timber, prefabrication, and adaptive reuse.

Project Highlights

Rebuilding Lahaina with Living Buildings 

Regen Maui has set out to develop the first Living Building Challenge certified affordable home in Hawaii, to be replicated in rebuilding efforts for Lahaina, a town recovering from a devastating fire that destroyed over 2,000 homes in 2023. The project team envisions Living Buildings as a symbol of healing: through a participatory design process, the team intends to establish a shared sense of ownership as stakeholders come together to create a vision for rebuilding their community. In a state with some of the highest housing and utility costs in the nation, rebuilding with resilient, sustainable homes that harness the renewable power of the sun and the healing power of nature through biophilic design will lead the way to a regenerative future for Maui.

The design team is led by Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, who has participated in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program previously through their work with Hazelwood Community Land Trust, an affordable housing project in Pittsburgh, PA that is currently in construction and on track to achieve Core certification. As in the Hazelwood project, the team is also exploring prefabrication in Lahaina and hopes to lay the groundwork for a future manufacturing facility to build capacity for local builders and designers rooted in Hawaii.

Chilliwack Housing Project

The Chilliwack Housing Project in British Columbia, Canada will include 40 units of supportive housing for vulnerable populations and 20 units of second-stage (or transitional) housing for women at risk of domestic violence. Developed by BC Housing, working with StudioHuB Architects and the Ann Davis Transition Society, the project will provide spaces for in-house support services and incorporate culturally sensitive, trauma-informed design with a strong emphasis on Ecology of Place. Located in a community with a large indigenous population, the design team has engaged with local indigenous groups and elders to collaboratively develop a facade design inspired by Stό:lō weavings that reflect the ‘wrap-around’ support offered to the building’s residents.

The project is currently targeting Core Green Building certification. 

“The form of the proposal is based around the symbol of a woman and child being wrapped in a protective, loving blanket. At the center of the building is an open-air courtyard, symbolizing a sheltering womb, where residents are able to connect to nature and are given a chance to grow and rebuild in a place of love, understanding, and wisdom.”

-Sarah Bjornson, studioHuB Architects

Carmen Villegas Apartments 

Named after a prominent local activist, the Carmen Villegas Apartments (CVA) is a 28-story, 211-unit senior housing development that will offer affordable studio and 1-bedroom units in East Harlem, New York City. With the goal of creating a “high-profile testament to the vibrancy of the neighborhood, and an enduring space of support for those who have spurred the area’s vitality for so long,” the building will also contain ground-floor retail spaces and community facilities for LGBTQ+ seniors in East Harlem. Led by Magnusson Architecture and Planning and developed as a joint venture between the Ascendant Neighborhood Development Association, Urban Builders Collaborative, and Xylem Projects, CVA is targeting Zero Carbon certification while also integrating other LBC-inspired strategies. This high-density project is an excellent opportunity to apply Living Building Challenge principles at scale, with healthy materials and a healthy indoor environment of particular importance given the building’s senior population.

Saint Mark’s Affordable Housing 

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral is collaborating with Atelier Jones to develop a 115,000 square foot multi-generational affordable housing community on its centrally-located campus in Seattle, Washington. The project is a testament to the religious organization’s commitment to both social equity and environmental stewardship, aligning well with its current initiatives to support the unhoused and its goal to have a carbon-neutral campus by 2030. While the Core Green Building certification best reflects the project team’s holistic approach to sustainability, they are also particularly interested in reducing embodied carbon. In addition to leveraging Atelier Jones’ many years of experience in advancing the adoption of mass timber in the US, the team is also investigating the feasibility of adaptive reuse for the historic St. Nicholas School building on the project site as a potentially significant carbon reduction strategy.

Star Lofts 

Star Lofts is a 20-unit mixed-use development offering affordable rental apartments for households making between 30% and 80% of the area median income in Des Moines, Iowa. Led by Cutler Development, it will include commercial spaces on the ground floor and set aside a number of units for vulnerable populations who will have access to supportive services provided by operations partner Anawin Housing. The project is halfway through construction as of March 2024 and is anticipated to be the first Zero Carbon certified building in Iowa, with a 28% reduction in embodied carbon. 

Townhall Apartments and Food Hall

Also located in Des Moines, the Townhall Apartments and Food Hall is being developed by Ntontan Real Estate and Newbury Living to help activate and showcase the vibrancy of the River Bend Neighborhood, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Iowa. The 33-unit, 30,000 square foot building will feature an innovative food hall and community gathering space that will foster neighborhood cohesion, celebrate local culinary heritage, and empower small businesses by connecting them with local consumers. The project team recently won the Iowa Finance Authority’s inaugural Housing Innovation Competition, and they are committed to scaling their impact by pursuing Core certification.

Church Street Commons 

The Church Street Commons is a 52-unit mixed-income development that aims to address the lack of affordable, multi-family housing in the rural community of Hebron, Connecticut. The project is being developed by the Commons Community Development Corporation, with Dorgan Architecture and Planning leading the design team. Through a long-term lease of a portion of a 33-acre church campus in downtown Hebron, the project will include a combination of new construction and the adaptive reuse of an existing historic building on the property. The Church Street Commons project team is currently pursuing Zero Energy certification.

You can read more about ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program and the other projects we support on our website. 

Inspired by these stories and want to join them? ILFI still has space for a few projects in the 2023-2026 Affordable Housing Cohort! For more information, please reach out to AffordableHousing@Living-Future.org.  

A Holistic Approach

In the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the City of Bridges Community Land Trust is tackling the affordable housing challenge in a holistic way. They are addressing the urgent demand for affordable and resilient housing and ensuring that the housing supports the health and well-being of residents, keeps operating costs affordable, and manages construction impact on the community. We talked to the Julie Nigro, who is Senior Real Estate Project Manager at City of Bridges Land Trust to learn how ILFI programs have supported these goals; the organization is participating in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Pilot Program and pursuing Living Building Certification for four units in Hazelwood. 

City of Bridges is a nonprofit developer of permanent affordable housing that has been operating for five years. “Ours is a pay-it-forward model,” Nigro says. “We retain the land and sell the homes to an income-qualified person, who buys it at a lower than market rate. The community retains land ownership and we are able to hold those below-market rates.” At present, the City of Bridges has 22 homeowners in a number of neighborhoods across the city. In Hazelwood, there was a lot of vacancy after years of disinvestment, and recently tech company interest had spurred some speculation. “We are trying to get ahead of that,” Nigro says, “to help increase the capacity of people to stay.” The developer was working with architect Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, who introduced them to ILFI programs and it was decided that they would pursue the Living Building Challenge (Core Certification). The four units have recently broken ground: These are modular, factory-built units.

“The pilot project has been great,” Nigro reports. “Monthly Zoom meetings with the whole affordable housing team have enabled our project team to connect with others around the country. This provides immense value to the project. It is tremendously helpful to have peer support while we seek to achieve affordable housing and reach really high energy and material standards.” Nigro says that they always strive for better than code energy and comfort standards, but “we want to be sure that our homes are affordable to purchase and affordable to live in, too. That’s crucial for our model and a very important part of the story. We, perhaps more than most developers, know that the building is not ‘done’ when it is occupied. That is just the beginning.” She adds that the Hazelwood neighborhood has historically had poor air quality. For this reason, the team was very focused on ensuring very high indoor air quality standards for these units. 

Everything we are doing here is replicable.

“The Living Building model is ideal for our goals and aligns with our values,” Nigro says. “We are focused on the impacts on residents. Another critical aspect is that this is not a one-off: everything we are doing here is replicable, and the more times we do it, the lower the cost can be. Part of our story is about tracking the bills and talking to the residents. We are excited to look at this long term, to show how these are so much more affordable to live in.” 

Cover image courtesy of Rothschild Doyno Collaborative.

Your donation supports community impact

Do you want to be part of making lasting change? Around the world, there is a community of people working towards a living future every day. In ways great and small, they are changing minds, overcoming obstacles, and bringing ambitious projects to life. Individually, they cause ripples that show what’s possible. Collectively, they envision the regenerative future that we all want. Will you join us in this transformative work? Your donation to the International Living Future Institute equips us to assist this community with programs, technical support, events,  education, and more.  Your donation will help us realize the possible together.

Could this be the Future of High-Quality Regenerative Housing?

Imagine a housing solution that is not only affordable and prefabricated but also Core Green Building Certified. When you hear these terms, what thoughts and images come to mind? For one of the teams participating in the Affordable Housing Pilot Project by the International Living Future Institute, it signifies an incredible opportunity. Their goal is to offer housing that not only promotes the health and well-being of its occupants but also reduces long-term operating costs for owners and minimizes the impact of construction on local communities. Furthermore, they aim to address the pressing need for resilient and affordable housing in today’s challenging market conditions.

The Hazelwood Community Land Trust Homes project (Hazelwood) is a 25,000 square foot affordable housing project of multiple buildings in Pittsburgh. The team behind this project have set the Institute’s Core Green Building Standard as their target. 

The Institute’s Director of the Buildings Team, Lisa Carey Moore, spent time with Julie Nigro, Senior Real Estate Project Manager at City of Bridges Community Land Trust, and Project Architect Michael Gwin, Principal, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, to learn more about the Hazelwood project and why affordable + prefabrication + Core could be one path forward for providing high quality regenerative housing.  

At present, you are constructing the first four units, built as two duplexes, that will be situated in an in-fill lot in the Hazelwood neighborhood. While certification is one goal when approaching this particular project, what has been a key objective for both of you?

Julie: As an affordable housing developer, these units must be not only affordable to purchase, but also affordable to live in. City of Bridges works to get parcels transferred from urban redevelopment authorities and oversees all the construction, but ultimately, we help connect buyers to these homes. So the Core Certification Imperatives of energy efficiency and water efficiency help reduce the operating costs for the lower income occupants who will own these units. 

Mike: We saw an opportunity to bring together two organizations with shared goals of creating affordable and sustainable housing. The Community Land Trust in Hazelwood represents a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate high quality and healthy living environments while creating a permanently affordable home ownership program. Through participation in the Institute’s Affordable Housing Program, we came to understand that the goals of Core Certification were within reach.

What’s the future of prefabrication and sustainability in affordable housing?

Mike: Prefabrication is a delivery system with the potential to impact things on a greater scale. By building in a factory, you are ensuring high-quality work due to the controlled environment conditions without rain and weather variations. It also helps timing: you can move more quickly in building the homes, and this can reduce construction costs and time. You can also impact industry standards and methods to drive efficiency in material use and reduce waste. 

Julie: We also tried to think of surrounding community impacts. Modular construction is less disruptive to the community. There’s some site prep work, but then there’s a hole in the ground and within days, a whole house is there. There’s less noise, fewer vehicles, and emissions. We get housing to people who need it, faster. 

How does it impact the design/construction timeline? 

Mike: The early upfront integration is key. It requires a strong relationship between the architect, prefab builder, and owner. In a factory setting they have established standards and materials, and we had to work with them to apply the Core Materials requirements, focusing on the Red List Free Declare products, and we used the Affordable Housing Materials list to guide our work to ensure healthier materials. 

Most materials selections have to be made early and baked into the construction documents–paint, carpet, finishes—because all the work is done in the facility rather than on site. We also had to work with the manufacturer on waste reduction, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood procurement, and targeting as many materials from the local economy as possible. It involves a lot more early planning to ensure the goals can be met at the price needed. 

It sounds like there were many pre-existing relationships going into this project, including the manufacturer of the units. How much did that impact the process?

Julie: Rothschild Doyno Collaborative and Ecocraft were both involved in other Living Building Challenge (LBC) certified projects including projects at the Phipps Conservatory. Phipps has been a leader in this region providing many professionals the opportunity to learn and practice regenerative building principles and then go on to apply them in other projects. These experiences laid the foundation for our work.

Mike: If we hadn’t had steps as a team to build on, it might have been too far out of reach; we would have had to accomplish too many things at once. 

As you begin construction shortly, with an anticipated delivery to site early in the fall, what are some aspects of the project’s design you’re most proud of?

Mike: We are proudest of the ways that through these affordable home designs we were able to address regional and larger scale issues. For example, our region’s air quality is often impaired due to nearby industry. By creating airtight, highly-efficient homes combined with ERVs and filters, we are managing indoor air quality for people exposed to poor air quality outside. 

By using Declare and Living Product Challenge Products, and materials from the Institute’s Affordable Housing Materials list, we’re also ensuring that we’re not introducing harmful chemicals into these homes. I can’t say enough good things about the Institute’s Affordable Housing Program. They provided essential tools and knowledge support in areas that often are barriers to design due to the amount of research and time necessary to accomplish the goals.

Julie: The City of Bridges has long term maintenance and replacement goals. We have a 99-year ground lease on these properties which renews automatically, so there are essentially 200 years of affordability that we are building in these homes. The mechanical equipment and the roof are big ticket items that will need to be replaced by the homeowners. While a metal roof has a higher upfront cost, the long term affordability is worth it because it will last three times as long as asphalt shingles. We’re saving the owners money. We became convinced of the value of this product through Mike’s life cycle work.

Mike: We applied Tally to help evaluate ways to achieve the 20% reduction in primary material embodied carbon over a typical project of this type. We were surprised to find significant savings—both in cost and greenhouse gas potential—over the entire life span of the project between asphalt shingles and the selected metal roof. 

We also saw huge improvements when switching from conventional concrete and CMU foundations to an open air solution that sits the prefab homes on concrete piers and a steel frame. This also provided space below the homes to integrate the on-site storm water infiltration system.  We were also able to evaluate many other material choices to think about long term life cycles and emissions over the life of a project. All in all, the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) work allowed us to make good choices economically and for the environment. 

Julie: Another exciting aspect is that our project served as a catalyst for local makers. Our goal was to integrate as many local products in all of their buildings. For Hazelwood in particular, Monmade worked with some newer artists and really pushed sustainability and recycled materials. These products are funded to get a Declare label. The Green Leap program within Monmade provides mentorship and technical assistance, acting as an incubator. So in addition to healthy materials, the project will feature some cool lighting, tiles, and bath accessories. 

What are you both looking forward to as you think about projects beyond Hazelwood?

Julie: Now we have a template for City of Bridges, and we can modify it as required to reflect the unique aspects of each neighborhood by engaging with each community and assessing their needs. 

Mike: Hopefully this work goes beyond City of Bridges, resulting in transformative change for others to build sustainable communities. It will be an even greater success if this work provides examples on how to create high-quality healthy living environments within reach for everyone. From materials that last longer, to lower long-term maintenance and lower utility bills, every part adds up to create more sustainable communities. 

In closing, what is the value of the Institute’s certifications and labels to your work?

Julie: I like to think that the aspirational goals helped a lot. There’s an affordable housing crisis in Pittsburgh. The City has awful air quality. After the last few years and with all the extreme weather, people are now recognizing the intersection of improving healthy living and creating affordable housing in neighborhoods that have been systemically underinvested in. Having the certification goals that addressed so many issues likely attracted a lot of funders to the project. 

While there’s a premium on FSC wood and healthy materials (primarily in soft costs), it’s up to City of Bridges to make the case that this is a quality of life issue that these homes are going to help address. In the future, we need to do better at reporting back about how homeowners are doing so we can clearly demonstrate how the investment results in healthier outcomes and provides affordability to people over time.

Mike: We have the template. While every site and community brings new challenges, we believe we can build more of these, and we can stretch to achieve more parameters of the LBC program in the pursuit of even more affordable living environments.

Hazelwood Material Highlights

The Core requirements require the project team to use a minimum of 2 Declare labeled products.  The team included 11 products that are either Red List Free or Red List approved. You can find products listed below using the Institute’s Declare database. 

• Forbo marmoleum
• Owens Corning – Pro-Pink Next Generation insulation
• Silestone countertops
• Daltile
• Solitex – weather barrier
• USG sheet rock – Ecosmart

The project also has sourced a large number of the building materials regionally between PA and OH.

• Lumber – FSC Lumber, UFP Industries, Gordon, PA facility
• Insulation – Owens Corning fiberglass insulation, manufactured in Ohio 
• Drywall – USG Drywall, manufactured in Aliquippa, PA
• Exterior Foam – Halo Exterra, manufactured in Beach City, OH
• Windows – Ventana, manufactured in the Westmoreland Industrial Park near Greensburg, PA
• Exterior doors – Therma Tru doors assembled at Ben-Bilt/Woodgrain in Greensburg, PA.  The actual door slabs from Therma Tru are manufactured in Butler, IN, which is within 330 miles of the site.
• Kitchen cabinets – Wolf Designer cabinets are manufactured in York, PA.
• Vanity tops  – North Coast Cultured vanity tops are manufactured in Bridgeville, PA.

The project has been an excellent catalyst for the local maker and sustainable product design community in Pittsburgh. As Julie mentioned, four of these local products now have Declare labels:

• Bike racks / railings / planters – Industrial Arts Workshop – local maker and youth job training program in the same community of Hazelwood
• Reilluminate Pendant Glass Shade by Spacapan
• Light fixtures – Studio Glass Company
• Acrylic Light Lines Shade by Jessica Alpern Brown
• House numbers / mailboxes – Bones+All
• Backsplash tiles – Modesto
• Hardware Collection by Tenderwerks
• Steel Plant Holder by Safran Everyday
• Custom Screens – Standard and Custom

Inspired to explore how your affordable housing project can incorporate healthier materials and reduced long-term operating costs for tenants? 

Advocating for change in policy and practice

The International Living Future Institute’s 2023 Affordable Housing Summit is almost here! Join us for the 2-day event on June 20th and 21st to discuss decarbonization and health in affordable housing. A key theme of this year’s Summit is the effect of policies on the building sector and how architects, developers, and other practitioners can work to become advocates for healthy and sustainable affordable housing.

Below is just a sample of the panels that we will be featuring at this year’s summit! Review the agenda for a full list of sessions. There will also be time reserved in the schedule for small breakout sessions to meet fellow attendees, Q+A, and discussion.

We are honored to welcome keynote speaker Drayton Jackson, Executive Director of the Foundation for Homeless and Poverty Management, which emphasizes helping families move from homelessness to housing. A developer of affordable housing, Mr. Jackson also works with policymakers. As co-chair of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s Poverty Reduction Work Group, he helped shape recommendations for a 10-year plan to eradicate poverty in the state. Additionally, he serves on the Central Kitsap School Board.

Also on day one, we will bring together Leaders in Decarbonized Affordable Housing to highlight how affordable housing developers across the country are charting a path to mitigate carbon impacts from new and existing construction. This panel will feature a 4-story Zero Energy multi-family affordable housing project in Boston and a developer pioneering innovative strategies to reduce embodied carbon in the building foundation and sidewalks. 

On day two, we will move our focus to materials and bring together a panel of scientists, researchers, and architects all of whom have been Advocating for Healthier Materials by pushing legislators to develop policies to protect the public from toxicants in our building products, particularly those prevalent in affordable housing.

As we close the Summit, we will hear from the developer and architect of Block Project 009, the first affordable housing project to achieve Petal Certification (and striving for Living Certification), and the developer of a project in the planning stages for Core Certification. These teams are creating new ways of building and working with communities to make living affordable housing a reality. They will discuss how they are engaging deeply with residents and community members; integrating biophilic design, wastewater reuse systems, modular and prefabricated systems; and using natural and bio-based materials. The project teams will also describe how the Living Building Challenge inspired them to become advocates for policy changes.

These are just some of the panelists we are excited to feature at this year’s Summit! Find out more details and register now. Note that we have a sliding-scale for this event to make it accessibly priced for all. We hope to see you all there!

Cover photo: The BLOCK Project. Photo courtesy of Facing Homelessness.

By Natalie Hickerson

ILFI is proudly featuring a series of member impact stories to showcase and celebrate some of the wonderful work our community has been doing. This week we introduce architect Anne Torney, leader of Mithun’s San Francisco office and Board Member of the San Francisco-based Housing Action Coalition.

To Anne Torney, climate change and income inequality are the two biggest challenges of our time. Her work at Mithun, a multi-disciplinary firm committed to sustainable integrated design, allows her to address both of these issues at once by helping to spearhead new and greener approaches to affordable housing. She has worked with numerous low-income housing providers on buildings in urban areas up and down the west coast, keeping health and sustainability at the center of all efforts.

A current project that embodies this important work is Casa Adelante 681 Florida. Located in the historically Latinx Mission District of San Francisco, the project is a collaboration of two neighborhood-based nonprofits, MEDA and TNDC, and is the second in a cohort of six all-electric, fossil fuel-free affordable housing buildings by Mithun. This affordable housing project demonstrates not only the ecological promise of cutting-edge sustainable design but the potential of these buildings to serve as infrastructure for community identity. The roof, for example, is a valuable outdoor resource and social space that can bring residents together. Thanks to close collaboration with one of the developers’ strong urban gardening programs, the roof deck features a garden with designated beds and tool storage areas. People using the adjacent laundry rooms can hang out with people who are gardening, and the rooftop space can be used for birthday parties and other outdoor gatherings—with a beautiful view of the city as a backdrop.

The ground floor of the building will serve as the new Cultural Arts Healing Center for Carnaval San Francisco, a community group that honors Latin American, Caribbean, and African Diasporic cultural history through performances, visual arts, classes, and more. The patterns on the space’s entry gates, designed by local high school kids through the neighborhood arts group Youth Art Exchange, weave together references to past and present Latinx culture. An outdoor pre-function multi-use space allows events and activities to spill out onto the street, amplifying the presence of cultural institutions beyond participants to include the wider community.

Anne asserts that projects like 681 Florida and the others of its cohort have impacts far beyond the spaces themselves: they are demonstrations of what is possible. Mithun used this group of buildings to conduct research comparing the costs of all-electric with conventional systems and was able to demonstrate that going fossil fuel free was not only safer and healthier for residents, but was cost neutral—and even cost-saving. Anne explains that the Mithun team has “shared this research widely at different conferences and with cities considering reach codes, in order to help folks understand how they can move the needle on decarbonization.”  Illustrative success stories like this can be very effective in convincing skeptical developers and municipalities to embrace large-scale sustainability goals.

In terms of the broader ILFI community, Anne values the opportunity to see what people are doing across the country, “at different scales and in different places with different levels of urbanity”. She believes that a key function of sustainability organizations is to inspire and empower and that projects implementing groundbreaking ideas addressing the intersection of climate change and inequity can serve as path-breakers demonstrating proof of concept, encouraging others to take bold steps in their own practices. 

About Anne Torney

Anne is an architect who has made affordable multi-family housing and transit-oriented urban infill the focus of her work for more than 30 years. She brings a deep commitment to community voices and ecological performance to all her projects, which range from supportive studios for formerly homeless seniors, to the revitalization of isolated public housing sites into walkable, mixed-use, and mixed-income communities. Her affordable housing experience includes award-winning projects in San Francisco as well as San Jose, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Notable examples include Casa Adelante at 2060 Folsom, and Sansome and Broadway Family Housing, a CNU Charter Award honoree. Anne serves on Mithun’s Board of Directors and leads the firm’s San Francisco office. She is a longtime Board Member of the Housing Action Coalition. An active member of AIA and the Urban Land Institute, Anne is a frequent contributor to conversations on equity, affordable housing, and diversity in the profession.

Interested in becoming part of our community of practitioners, organizations, and everyday advocates transforming the building industry through the holistic lens of climate, health, and equity?

Affordable housing project teams pursuing certification under Enterprise Green Communities now have a new resource to help them achieve points under the Materials Criteria: teams may select either “Enterprise Green Communities – Meets Mandatory Criteria” or “Enterprise Green Communities – Meets Mandatory & Optional Criteria” from the Alignment Tab in the Declare database. This filter provides a list of Declare products that comply with the requirements listed under Enterprise Green Communities Criterion 6.4: Healthier Material Selection. This criterion includes requirements around chemicals of concern in interior paints, coatings, primers, and wallpaper; interior adhesives and sealants; flooring; insulation; and composite wood. The specific requirements for each category can be found in the Enterprise Green Communities 2020 Criteria. 

The chemicals of concern listed in Criterion 6.4 (such as Alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs), phthalates/orthophthalates, and formaldehyde) largely align with the chemicals restricted by the International Living Future Institute’s (the Institute) Red List. Therefore, the online Declare database is an easy way to find products that comply with this criterion. In addition to materials, Enterprise Green Communities and the Institute’s regenerative building programs (Living Building Challenge, Core, Zero Energy, and Zero Carbon) include overlapping goals to utilize water on site responsibly, reduce energy and carbon impacts, and promote the vitality of residents and communities. The Institute recently published a crosswalk highlighting the intersections between the Core standard and Enterprise Green Communities in order to illuminate these junctions for project teams that may be interested in pursuing both standards.

The International Living Future Institute and Enterprise Community Partners share a vision of transparency and health in building materials for affordable housing. In addition to Criterion 6.4, Enterprise Green Communities also provides the opportunity for teams to achieve additional points by prioritizing products that include disclosure. Criterion 6.1: Ingredient Transparency for Material Health and Criterion 6.3: Chemical Hazard Optimization award points when projects utilize products with the Institute’s Declare labels. A product with a Declare label and a Red List Free status that is also in one of the prioritized categories for Criterion 6.4 would contribute to earning points in all three Criteria. Several of these categories, especially paints, flooring, and insulation, have also been identified by the Institute as top priorities for affordable housing. They are largely interior materials that affect indoor air quality, and are also categories that include dozens of Declare-labeled Red List Free options. Refer to the Institute’s Affordable Housing Materials List to find more Red List Free products that have been researched and used successfully in affordable housing projects. 

The Institute is thrilled to introduce this feature to Declare and to support more affordable housing teams that seek to create healthier buildings. Reach out to Enterprise Community Partners (certification@enterprisecommunity.org) for questions about Enterprise Green Communities, our Declare Team (declare@living-future.org) for inquiries about the Declare database, or to our Affordable Housing Team (affordablehousing@living-future.org) to learn more about the Institute’s affordable housing work and pilot projects.

The Third Edition of ILFI’s Affordable Housing Materials List is now available! Based on feedback from dedicated users, we implemented several updates to make it more expedient to find and source Red List Free products. Manufacturer’s contact information, including contact name, email, and phone number, has been included so that those researching and specifying products know who to reach out to within a manufacturing company. Links to the product page on the manufacturer’s website have also been included, as well as links to Declare labels, where applicable. These updates were specifically requested by users to streamline the product research process. In addition to the above, the list continues to include information on the product’s Red List status, final assembly location, and alignment with other programs including California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Living Product Challenge (LPC), and Enterprise Green Communities. Lastly, notes from project teams, manufacturers, and ILFI are also included to report information such as cost premiums, sourcing of the product, and availability. 

The updated list also includes ten new CSI sections as well as new products in 51 previously included CSI divisions. In all 149 new individual products were added. The ten new CSI sections are:

• Metal Roof Panels
• Metal Wall Panels
• Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Siding Panels
• Wood Siding
• Thermoplastic Membrane Roofing
• Fluid-Applied Roofing
• Exterior Sun Control Devices
• Rolling Exterior Shades
• Horizontal Aluminum Blinds
• Window Roller Shades and Drapes

While researching known Red List Free products within these CSI sections, we found a few manufacturers had extensive product declarations and information on their website for other products as well. After further research, we were able to add all of their other products to the list. For example, Henry Company now includes health product declarations (HPD) on their website for most of their products. We found 13 Red List Free fluid-applied waterproofing products and 10 Red List Free adhesive products that have now been added to the list; both of these CSI sections previously had very few options. Since the last update to this list, Knauf Insulation has 12 new Red List Free insulation products, all of which have Declare labels. Additionally, several manufacturers of storefront windows – Allegion, Arcadia, Kawneer, Omega Windows and Doors, and Tubelite – have published Declare labels since the last update, more than doubling the number of products in that CSI section, which has historically proven challenging for teams to find cost-effective products. Several new products were also added in the acoustical ceiling tile, resilient flooring, carpet, and various paint categories, further increasing the number of options available in these divisions.

The Materials List for Affordable Housing now includes a total of 409 products in 51 CSI sections. The products have been drawn from Declare and from the tremendous research efforts of several affordable housing pilot project teams, as well as additional research by ILFI staff. The list is intended to both serve as a quick resource for those specifying products for affordable housing (and other project types) and to provide insight into the categories of products that are easiest and those that need more collective advocacy. Generally, categories that include a large number of compliant products (i.e., insulation, gypsum wall board, paint, acoustic ceiling tile, etc.) also include many products that are cost-effective. Those with more limited options often are also more difficult to specify due to cost premiums. This gives project teams a hint as to the categories they may want to prioritize, depending on if the goals are to move the market or to more easily include healthier products in their projects.  ILFI plans to continue updating this list and building out new and existing product categories. Please contact affordablehousing@living-future.org if you have any feedback on this materials list or suggestions for products or CSI sections to add to the next update.

Header Image: E+Highland, courtesy of Studio G Architects

Author’s Note: ILFI has just registered our 50th affordable housing project! To learn more about these projects and our Affordable Housing Program, read below.

The latest cohort of ILFI’s Affordable Housing Pilot Projects was selected to join the program in October 2020, after an unprecedented number of applicants responded to the Call for Proposals. This group is the fourth and largest in the history of ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program, with 20 projects spread across 10 states. The teams are attempting a range of ILFI certifications (including Living Building Challenge (both Living and Petal), Core, Zero Carbon, and Zero Energy) and vary in scale from clustered single-family residences to 9-story multi-family buildings. See the Trim Tab article published in February 2021 for more details about these projects. 

ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program includes opportunities to join educational sessions and peer-to-peer discussions, receive additional technical assistance from ILFI technical staff, and a commitment to participate in shared research and learning. Each month, an all-teams meeting (open to all ILFI affordable housing projects in current and past cohorts) is held with a focus on relevant topics including barriers and solutions affordable housing teams are encountering in pursuing ILFI certifications. These meetings often feature guest speakers from ILFI and other organizations. Due to the large number of participants in these meetings, smaller, discussion-based meetings are also held that allow team members to opt in to particular topics of interest. We have held 28 of these discussion group meetings since November 2020, featuring speakers, networking and information sharing, as well as work on shared research projects. Additionally, ILFI has provided detailed technical reports to five of the project teams, providing feedback on their documentation and the requirements of ILFI certifications, and helped one team facilitate their Biophilic Design Charrette.

As we are almost halfway through the formal period of engagement for this latest cohort of 20 projects, we took some time to check in with all of the teams. Below, we share project stats and updates and other key highlights. 

Progress and Impacts:

• Project teams have reported the following successes to ILFI:
  • Raising the team’s awareness, knowledge, and priorities of sustainable, lower carbon design choices in the building  structure and materials, and ways to maximize envelope performance.
  • Specifying more sustainable materials on budget (reported by multiple teams)
    • “Use of Red List [Free materials] has spread deeper into our specs.” 
    • “I think we have managed to reduce a lot of Red List materials by specifying Declare-labeled products such as drywall, paint, roof assemblies, and insulation. Had we not been a part of ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program, we might have used whatever product that was recommended to us.”
    • “We have become more aware of what products to use, and have done more research on healthy, Red List Free products, and are seeking to use products that are Declare-labeled and have other healthy certifications. We have talked to many manufacturers and told them about Declare, so it has been good to expose them to this movement and get them on board with joining.”
    • “Incorporation of Red List Free ceiling fans, elimination of PVC-containing flooring and windows”
    • Ability to mobilize around materials for other affordable projects
  • “Biophillic Design charrette and thinking about the points of equity and inclusion have been helpful for our team”
  • “Being awarded NYSERDA Building of Excellence!” (Read about the Seventy-Six and the other winners here)
  • “Engaging the community has been positive. They have embraced the additional sustainability measures beyond code.”

The cohort participants share their experience and how participation in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program and pursuit of the Living Building Challenge or other ILFI certification has impacted their organization’s approach to building housing:

• “I believe that going through this process has brought the conversation about sustainability to the forefront of concerns. We are also learning how much effort is required when we set a higher bar for our sustainability standards.”

• “It has helped us to scrutinize areas where we can make more sustainable design decisions, and to see where our developers are more enthusiastic to invest.”

• “Very grateful for the detailed references, advice on materials, strategies, available options etc. This has been one of most beneficial experiences with a very well run program of sharing of expertise and lessons learned. Everything has been translated to other projects including those without housing, but with tight budgets. Kudos to ILFI!!!!! Wish that we could do this for all project types. Always impressed by ILFI, but this program has exceeded expectations.”

• “Consider the benefits of participating in [ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program] even if certification is not achievable, and make sure the client will be satisfied even if certification is not achieved. The materials resources have been especially valuable.”

The fourth phase of ILFI’s pilot program will continue until June 2023. This group of project teams is pushing barriers on scale, typology, and geography. The teams have been sharing resources with each other and making a lot of progress through a collaborative approach to materials research. ILFI is thrilled to work with each one of these innovative and mission-driven project teams. We look forward to providing more updates to the ILFI community on the research and progress from this group of projects. If you are working on an affordable housing project and interested in joining this pioneering group, email affordablehousing@living-future.org to get involved.

We also have some exciting updates from previous affordable housing cohorts:

• Hopeworks Station Phase II: Passed their Preliminary Audit in July 2021. The owner’s Green Team is working on resident engagement with energy use and other sustainability measures, while balancing support for transitioning from homelessnss.
• The Apartments at Mill Creek: All four homes are occupied and in their performance period. The project plans to certify next year and is, so far, on track to become the first certified Living affordable housing project ever.
• Harbor Square: The team held their grand opening on August 2nd, 2021. They are planning to certify Zero Energy after the completion of the performance period next year.
• Block Project: Block Home 012 completed and obtained a Certificate of Occupancy on Dec 7, 2021.
• Orchard Gardens: After being on hold for more than three years, the project has been funded and is exploring ILFI certification options.

Nexus Builds 2020: This project has passed their Preliminary Audit and on track to certify as Living.

Header image of 350 China Basin. Image courtesy of Mithun Architects.

The International Living Future Institute’s Affordable Housing Summit will take place on June 14th and 15th from 8 am PT to 12 pm PT. Read below for our top five reasons to attend this year’s summit! Sign up here to register. 

1. FIND OUT HOW TO CREATE  CLIMATE-POSITIVE AFFORDABLE HOUSING from a pioneer in the green affordable housing movement and from an architect committed to Zero Carbon Affordable Housing. Learn from the real life examples about ways to build resiliency and drive down both embodied and operational carbon in a cost-effective way.

2. DISCOVER WAYS TO BALANCE EQUITY WITH ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH PRIORITIES. Be inspired and informed by our opening day Keynote speaker, Nathaniel Smith, who is experienced in advocating for policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all. Additionally, Erick Mikiten and Fatimah Aure will share their experience designing disability-forward affordable housing that is accessible and inclusive for all.

3. UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF HEALTHY HOUSING AND HOW TO SELECT HEALTHIER AND MORE SOCIALLY JUST MATERIALS. The National Center for Healthy Housing has been helping to lead the charge on eliminating hazards, risks, and contaminants in affordable housing and are joining us to share their recommendations for ensuring the health and wellness of residents while prioritizing energy efficiency and operational concerns. We will also be hosting a panel discussion on selecting healthier, more ethical materials that avoid embodied environmental injustices.

4. TAKE A TOUR OF A REAL-LIFE LIVING AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT. Ever wonder what an affordable housing project would look like if it actually pursued every Petal of the Living Building Challenge? We have the answer in the Living Homes at Mill Creek, four straw-built affordable housing homes in Moab, Utah. Join us at the Affordable Housing Summit to take a peek at the recently completed homes and hear from the developer and residents.

5. ENGAGE LEADERS IN THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND SUSTAINABILITY FIELDS IN A CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW TO ADDRESS EQUITY, CLIMATE, AND HEALTH. Learn from the amazing speakers above and many others as well as fellow summit participants. This summit is focused on action, with every section including a list of recommended action items and time to discuss how to implement the ideas in your own work.

Take a look at the full agenda:

June 14th:
8:00 AM Opening Remarks & Welcome

EQUITY IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING
8:30 AM Keynote Address
Nathaniel Smith, Partnership for Southern Equity
9:00 AM Designing Housing for Accessibility and Inclusion
Erick Mikiten, The Art of Access and Mikiten Architecture, and Fatimah Aure, The Kelsey
9:30 AM Equity Action Steps and Discussion
10:00 AM Break

CLIMATE POSITIVE AFFORDABLE HOUSING
10:30 AM Living Homes at Mill Creek Tour
11:00 AM Case Studies in Carbon Positive Housing
Anne Torney, Mithun Architecture
11:30 AM Day 1 Wrap-Up

June 15th:
8:00 AM Day 2 Introduction

CLIMATE POSITIVE AFFORDABLE HOUSING (CONT.) 
8:15 AM Keynote Address
Dana Bourland, The JPB Foundation
8:45 AM Climate Action Steps and Resources for Net-Positive Energy

HEALTHY AFFORDABLE HOUSING
9:00 AM Keynote Address
Jonathan Wilson, National Center for Healthy Housing
9:30 AM Break
10:00 AM Healthy and Ethical Materials
Veena Singla, Natural Resources Defense Council
Nora Rizzo, Grace Farms
Susan Puri, International Living Future Institute
11:00 AM Action Steps for Health and Discussion
11:30 AM Summit Wrap-Up

Sign up here to register. Registration is offered at a sliding scale from $5 to $75. Email affordablehousing@living-future.org with any questions. We look forward to seeing you there!

Projects pursuing Core and Living Building Certification are required to meaningfully integrate universal design into their structures. This project is a fantastic case study of prioritizing universal design and integrating it with broader environmental and health goals.

The Kelsey is a Bay Area non-profit organization dedicated to advancing ‘disability-forward’ housing options. The Kelsey has found that while 26% of Americans have a disability, only 6% of housing is accessible to people with disabilities, a statistic they hope to improve. The Kelsey’s organizational ethos is ‘more’ – ‘more housing, more inclusion, more community’ – ultimately leading to more opportunities for all. This drive for more was inspired by their co-founder and namesake, Kelsey O’Connor, who often signed “more” to push them to remember to do more. The Kelsey believes that by centering the needs of the most marginalized and, in particular, those with disabilities, everyone benefits. In the spirit of ‘more,’ the Kelsey has registered their latest project, the Kelsey Civic Center, for ILFI’s Core Certification and is a participant in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program. Architect Pauline Souza of WRNS Studio says that the project will help dispel the notion that “good enough is enough.” 

The building will create over 100 new affordable housing units two blocks from Market Street, the economic center of the city. The neighborhood is particularly meaningful because it has a rich history in disability rights and other social justice movements. The Kelsey Civic Center, co-developed with Mercy Housing California, is intended to create a place where those with disabilities and those without disabilities live together in a shared community. Its location across from City Hall also makes it easy for residents to advocate for their needs and community. The programming of the building is cohousing ‘in spirit’ with community spaces crafted to foster informal support networks and interdependence. The building will include a Disability Community Culture Center, which is the first center of its kind to allow connection and a physical place to share experiences.

This project, as with all projects developed by the Kelsey, will be a model of Universal Design and help promote cross-disability solutions that are affordable to integrate. The project team engaged Universal Design Consultant and Architect, Erick Mikiten of Mikiten Architecture, on this project and others. His goal for universal design is to move it away from an “annoying accommodation and medical adaptation” and towards a result of more “graceful and thoughtful architecture for everyone.” As an example, he explains that the Kelsey Civic Center project discussed adding a curve to the building where the project has an 8-story, relatively narrow atrium. This improves the experience of the building for multiple users: it alleviates the disorientation from the atrium that those with certain cognitive or perception issues can encounter, the curve is more natural for the path of a wheelchair, and it helps blind residents immediately recognize which area of the building they are walking through by the tactile experience.

Ideas like this helped inform the Kelsey’s recently published Housing Design Standards for Accessibility and Inclusion, on which Mikiten also consulted. The Housing Design Standards were intended to give developers and architects a better understanding of how to employ universal design strategies in their buildings in an effective and implementable way. The guide emphasizes that codes and compliance with the American with Disabilities Act often focuses  solely on physical accessibility and does not address the range of diverse needs, such as sensory or cognitive impacts. The Kelsey staff also hope that the design standards can help move away from a ‘check box’ mentality and towards integrating universal design in an intentional, mission-driven way, not as a baseline requirement that is never surpassed.

To learn more about the Kelsey Civic Center project and the Kelsey’sHousing Design Standards for Accessibility and Inclusion, we interviewed Fatimah Aure, Director of Field Building and Capacity at the Kelsey.

1.    What is the guiding mission of your organization, The Kelsey?

The Kelsey pioneers disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to more affordable homes and opportunities for everyone. We develop affordable, accessible, inclusive housing communities designed to scale and lead organizing and advocacy to create market conditions so inclusive housing becomes the norm. What started with Kelsey, an advocate for access and community, has become a movement towards an inclusive housing future led together by people with and without disabilities.

2.    Can you describe your current ILFI pilot project, the Kelsey Civic Center? How do the goals of your organization relate to your current project the Kelsey Civic Center (which is pursuing Core certification and participating in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program)?

The Kelsey Civic Center will be a vibrant urban community offering 112 homes for people of all abilities, incomes, and backgrounds. Located across from San Francisco City Hall, construction is targeted to start in late 2022. The Kelsey Civic Center will serve as a beacon of sustainability, disability inclusion, and equity in the heart of the city.

Twenty-five percent of the units will be dedicated to people with disabilities who use home and community-based services. This fully accessible and universally-designed building will provide programming for all residents and neighbors with the goal of fostering a mutually supportive environment rooted in the ethos of interdependence and informal support networks. Two full-time Inclusion Concierges will help residents navigate their neighborhood, engage with their city, connect to programs and activities, and build community among residents of all abilities.

The Kelsey and its partners were awarded the site through Reinventing Cities, an unprecedented global competition organized by the C40 to drive carbon neutral and resilient urban regeneration. The Kelsey Civic Center will model that an all-electric, low carbon building can be affordable to people of all incomes. To support biodiversity and resident wellness the project will offer a sensory garden within the building’s courtyard and on the rooftop. Efficient individual units with shared spaces will minimize resource waste, support low carbon design, and foster a resilient community. 

3.    Can you describe the Housing Design Standards? Are they intended to be used as a reference for ideas, framework document, certification, or other?

The Housing Design Standards for Accessibility and Inclusion aim to equip designers, builders, and developers with guidelines and frameworks for disability-forward housing creation. The Design Standards define multifamily housing elements throughout the development process and address everything from the design approach to physical spaces, to mobility and reach to healthy materials selection, to even amenities, outdoor spaces, on-site staffing, and resident supports. A cross-disability approach provides elements that are specific to individualized access needs and others that benefit a diversity of disabilities. The elements were assessed on intersectional benefits alongside sustainability, affordability, racial equity, and a better resident experience. 

4.    What was the motivation for creating the Housing Design Standards for Accessibility and Inclusion? How were they developed?

26% of people have a disability, yet it’s estimated that less than 6% of the national housing supply is designed to be accessible. As housing communities are created, they don’t often meet the diverse accessibility and inclusion needs of people with disabilities. While code sets the baseline for what’s required, no holistic guidelines define an implementable, progressive approach to creating truly accessible and inclusive housing. 

The Kelsey created the Design Standards in partnership with Erick Mikiten of Mikiten Architecture. They were shaped with the support and feedback from our Inclusive Design Council, a select group of disability advocates evaluating what works well for different access needs in their own lived experience, as well as workshops with designers, developers, and architects.

5.    What does universal design mean to The Kelsey? Which kinds of access and needs are addressed by the Housing Design Standards?

Universal Design is the design of an environment that is usable by all people, and to the greatest extent possible. It doesn’t rely on special accommodations that separate users from each other, but creates a home that is usable by everyone in the same way. 

All elements within the design standards are grouped by different access needs (rather than by a disability diagnosis). These are the access needs our standards address: 

• Mobility and Height: Individuals who have limited use of their limbs, limited range of motion or dexterity, who use mobility supports (i.e., wheelchairs – manual and motorized; scooters; walkers; canes; grab bars), who have short stature, and/or who use assistive tools (i.e., reachers, step ladders, stools, etc.) to access spaces.
• Hearing and Acoustics: Individuals who are hard of hearing (HOH), use hearing supports and devices to engage in surrounding environments (i.e., voice amplification devices, hearing aids, video relay services, cochlear implants, ASL, etc.), and/or who have auditory sensory sensitivities.
• Vision: Individuals who are blind, who have low vision, and/or who use visual supports and devices to engage in surrounding environments (i.e., Braille, screen readers, magnifiers, lightboxes, etc.). This can also include people with high sensitivity to glare, or rapid changes in light levels.
• Health and Wellness: Individuals who have chronic health conditions, who have allergies and chemical sensitivities, are immunocompromised, and/or regularly utilize medical and/or therapeutic services. Aspects of the building that promote wellness for all, such as connection to nature and natural light, are also included.
• Cognitive Access: Individuals who process information differently, who have alternative language reception and/or communication preferences and needs, who need items or materials presented in different ways or speeds of information, and/or who use supports in understanding and content retention, information processing, and decision making or choice selection. Includes wayfinding support for memory or orientation.
• Support Needs: Individuals who use support services in their home and/or the community including but not limited to: direct support professionals, health aides, nursing support, behavioral supports, and individualized therapies. Can also include individuals using in-house family support for mobility or other assistance.

6.    Why is accessibility a particularly important need for affordable housing?

People with disabilities experience poverty and discrimination at disproportionately high rates. The thoughtful physical as well as cognitive accessibility of housing designed to be affordable is desperately needed.

7.    Can you explain what cross-disability means and how it is used in the standard?

Cross-disability means that a variety of disabilities with differing access needs were considered when creating the Housing Design Standards. At one time, accessibility was mistakenly isolated to people who use wheelchairs. The Housing Design Standards were developed with the purpose of addressing more than one type of accessibility and a variety of access needs, notably disabilities with cognitive and sensory needs.

8.    What is the most important consideration or first step for project teams that want to incorporate more accessibility into projects?

Include people with disabilities early in your design process. By working with a universal design consultant or forming a community advisory board that includes people with disabilities, a project team has someone with lived experience to consult with on design choices. Like in any type of design, asking the ultimate end user of a product helps to create better outcomes and avoid unintended consequences. 

9.    Can architects and other project team members design accessibly without increasing overhead costs of the project? 

Yes, if they start early. Projects that consider accessibility from the outset are more successful at integrating into the end project cost effectively versus spending costs and redesign dollars to integrate right before occupancy or as a reasonable accommodation. Designing for people with disabilities is simply better design. If you think up-front explicitly about maneuvering, lighting, way-finding, etc. you can integrate a lot of accessible elements without a lot of cost. 

10.  Anything else you would like us to know about the project?

The Kelsey Civic Center and The Design Standards for Access and Inclusion helped us identify elements that are good for both sustainability and disability access which could be helpful for many ILFI projects to consider. Some of these elements include: 

• HEPA Filtration Systems 
• Low and No VOC materials and chemical free spaces 
• Mechanical systems that are easily used
• Managed daylighting 
• Automatic shut-off features on appliances 
• Access to alternatives to car ownership including car-sharing and on-demand rentals 

You can take a virtual site tour of the Kelsey Civic Center Project and download the Housing Design Standards for Accessibility and Inclusion and other resources from their website.

“For far too long, environmental policy decisions have failed to adequately account for environmental injustice, including the disproportionate, disparate and cumulative impacts pollution and climate change have on low-income communities and communities of color. President Biden has made clear that his Administration will chart a new and better course, one that puts environmental and economic justice at the center of all we do.”

Shalanda Young, Acting Director of Office of Management and Budget; Brenda Mallory, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality; and Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor

On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14008, which reaffirmed the country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement, developed a net zero emissions target for the United States, and established the Justice40 Initiative. The Justice40 Initiative is a whole-of-government effort to direct at least 40% of climate-focused federal investments towards disadvantaged communities. This means that all federal departments are required to come up with an individual plan for disseminating climate-related technical assistance, grants, or other forms of aid to frontline communities. The Initiative established focus areas of clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, the remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water infrastructure. 

The Justice40 Accelerator is a collaboration among several non-profit funders, including Elevate, Groundswell, the Hummingbird Firm, Partnership for Southern Equity, and the Solutions Project, partnering together to optimize the federal funding opportunities that will be spurred from this mandate. The Justice40 Accelerator was born out of an understanding that grassroots community groups are going to need assistance navigating the federal bureaucracy in order to apply for these new opportunities. Tracking the opportunities and procedures to apply for them from the various federal departments can be daunting for nonprofits that may only have a handful of staff and potentially limited grant-writing expertise. One-third of the successful applicants to the Justice40 Accelerator have never before applied for federal funding. The funders behind the Accelerator provide grants for a variety of climate and environmental justice-related projects, as well as grant-writing, capacity-building, information briefings, and other forms of assistance in order to prepare groups to successfully apply for and implement federal funding. The Accelerator also provides intentional feedback loops to federal agencies, most of whom are not well-connected to local organizations that have critical knowledge of where funds are most needed and the barriers small organizations are likely to encounter when interfacing with federal processes. 

The federal Justice40 Initiative is a monumental and revolutionary funding opportunity that has the potential to greatly expedite on-the-ground work in the environmental justice movement. Sherry Taylor, Asset Manager at Durham Community Land Trustees (DCLT), expressed that there is much excitement around this Initiative, because nothing like this has been seen before. Nathaniel Smith, Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity says in an op-ed for the Hill, that while frontline leaders in the climate crisis are usually rooted in Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, and other communities of color, these communities are often left out of federal funding due to embedded structural inequities. Smith explains that the Justice40 Accelerator was created to bridge the gap between on-the-ground organizations and federal agencies and ensure that the Justice40 Initiative funds are directed where they will be most impactful – “infrastructure of, by, and for communities affected worst and first by climate change.” 

The inaugural Justice40 Accelerator cohort was chosen in August 2021 based on several criteria, including a prioritization of human health, environmental, and economic impacts of climate change in under-resourced and overburdened communities; accountability to frontline communities and leadership reflective of those communities; and a commitment to improving quality of life in impacted areas through community-driven planning. The cohort includes 52 community-rooted organizations with a variety of missions including environmental justice, urban agriculture, and public health. The Durham Community Land Trustees, developer of Alma Street Commons, an ILFI Affordable Housing Pilot Project, was among the impactful organizations selected for this cohort. They will be using the funds provided to them to kickstart the process of a design that incorporates ILFI’s Core Certification requirements. This will  be the first affordable housing project designed to meet an ILFI certification in North Carolina. Read the interview with Sherry below to learn more about the Durham Community Land Trust and their participation in the Justice40 Accelerator and in ILFI’s Affordable Housing Program.

Susan Puri (SP): Can you give a little background on the Durham Community Land Trust (DCLT) and why you were chosen for the Justice40 Accelerator?

Sherry Taylor (ST): DCLT is an affordable housing provider that has been around for 34 years. We are a land trust, which means we ensure that homes are permanently affordable, both rental and homeownership. Our Justice40 grant was for the Alma Street Commons Project. I think we were chosen because of the way this project is being put together. It’s an affordable housing project, and we have been having a hard time identifying funders that see the intersections of housing, environmental justice, and health disparities. The project is located in a low-income, majority black and Latino neighborhood with significant environmental justice issues. There is a polluted creek and watershed, which feeds into the drinking water source for over 1.5 million people. It is a heavily industrial area with a lot of air pollution. In the 1950s, the government plowed a freeway through the neighborhood for urban renewal, as happened to historically black neighborhoods everywhere. There are a multitude of issues going on. The project was chosen by the Justice40 Accelerator because it will help us address environmental issues and climate change. The project can do a lot to prove that affordable housing can be sustainable and restorative in North Carolina. The project site in East Durham, though not industrial, currently hosts 3 substandard duplexes that have been an eyesore to the neighborhood and ultimately caused the relocation of folks living there because it was deemed unlivable. The new project will be 12 single-family, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units.

SP: Why did your organization want to be a part of the Justice40 Accelerator Cohort?

ST: Primarily because of capacity. We are a very small organization – there are just nine of us, including accounting and maintenance. Having the support of the Accelerator will help us to understand opportunities and sift through overwhelming information that is not well-organized. Right now, you have to go to each department’s website to look for grants and some have not even put their opportunities out yet. The Accelerator is bringing Washington to us – different speakers from different departments have already met with the cohort. 

SP: How will funding from the Justice40 Accelerator help you with the Alma Street Project?

ST: We received a grant for $25,000, which is the first grant we have received, although I have written a lot of applications and hope to receive much more to support this work. We are going to start the formal design process and communications plan and use marketing to garner more support and exposure. Last year it was hard to focus due to the effects of the pandemic, which required us to focus more on our current residents. We are about to bid for design services and create a design brief with our Core requirements.

The Alma Street Commons is the first affordable housing development in North Carolina to attempt an ILFI certification. However, Sherry intends to ensure that the project is not a one-off effort, and instead helps to spur a broader movement towards healthier, more regenerative, and more environmentally just housing in the region. Sherry and DCLT have been exceptional at building a larger coalition around the Living Building Challenge in Durham and in North Carolina. DCLT has partnered with the Duke University Office of Sustainability, Circular Triangle, and the Center for Environmental Health (in addition to ILFI). They are continuing to solicit partners and supporters for the project. Anyone interested in supporting this initiative or joining the coalition can contact Sherry at Sherry@dclt.org.