As part of our commitment to a future that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative–for all–ILFI is proud to support dozens of affordable housing projects across the country. This year we celebrate and recognize this critical work at the Affordable Housing Summit, June 17, 2021. The Summit features topics such as inclusive community engagement, trauma-informed design, biophilic design, healthy materials, and, last but not least, how to finance it all.
The day will kick off with keynote speaker Odetta MacLeish-White. Odetta is the Director of Georgia Initiatives for the Center for Community Progress (CCP). Over her twenty-year career, Odetta has worked in affordable housing development, policy, and financing. Her career has evolved to include empowering residents and community members to influence development and funding processes that impact their neighborhoods.
Susan Puri, Affordable Housing Manager at ILFI, was fortunate to be able to ask Odetta a few questions this week about her work. We hope you enjoy the interview below. You can register for the event here to hear more from her and all our other speakers on June 17.
Susan Puri (SP): What drew you to working in affordable housing?
Odetta MacLeish-White (OMW): I did not know what affordable housing could be until I went to work for a young developer in Gainesville, Florida. Until that point, my understanding of “affordable housing” was shaped by the images we all absorbed from the media of the worst public housing in the country. When I stepped onto the grounds of a newly built, garden-style, LEED-certified affordable apartment complex, I knew I had found a career and a calling. It was a perfect Florida day with blue skies and white clouds, the water in the pool sparkled, the clubhouse was pristine, the units were ready to be homes. I literally fell in love with affordable housing that day; that was when I saw that we could honor the dignity of people earning lower incomes. I am drawn to the potential that affordable housing represents: as a form of housing it should be providing families an opportunity to rest, play, and connect with one another without the stress of worrying about cost. Affordable housing is also the place where human potential can, and should, be nurtured. What if the cure for a deadly cancer waits in the brain of a child whose family needs affordable housing? A safe, restful, and steady home is every person’s birthright.
SP: What are the top challenges and issues you have experienced in working with affordable housing and/or under-resourced communities?
OMW: I would say power imbalances around site control and financing are probably the two top challenges I would name in developing affordable housing, or any other infrastructure, in communities. Too often, the land is owned by entities outside the community that will have to live with the development every day. In this situation, the community will always have to beg for concession from the land owner, and is at the ultimate mercy of the owner’s pace and vision. We do not engage in authentic conversation with community residents creating “empty consent” in which residents accept what is coming grudgingly, rather than being fully respected partners in the process. The structural and institutional racism of current financing favors certain development partners and makes it disproportionately difficult for Black-led development partners to access the equity and investment dollars they need to demonstrate robust community engagement and accomplish projects on time and on budget. High-producing programs, like the low-income housing tax credit, must be understood as incentives to developers, with features like the qualified census tract to drive developers to areas they would refuse to enter otherwise. This incentive doesn’t demand better process and engagement from the developer, and when we do ask them to show community buy-in, they often find the most amenable community member to endorse, rather than put in the time to build a broader base of trust and conversation. If local governments and philanthropy invested more equitably in the nonprofits, community development corporations, and arts & culture partners of a community, the community’s “voice” would be loud and robust and ready to meet the “time is money” pace of most developers.
SP: What most excites you about your work?
OMW: It is exciting to me to see more and more people and professions wake up to the truth that systems are all connected, and that it will take our combined knowledge and study and commitment to find or create what Elizabeth Sawin calls “multisolves” – single investments of time and resources that solve for multiple challenges. I hope that this type of thinking will also help everyone understand that under-resourced communities have been multi-solving, repurposing, and living sustainably for generations. It would excite me to see their knowledge given full respect and engagement and, of course, more resources, including dollars.
SP: How do you think sustainability can improve the lives of residents of affordable housing and their local communities?
OMW: The most obvious answer is that sustainability can lower costs of living to help residents of affordable housing stretch their dollars further. Building sustainably should also create more healthful living conditions, both inside the unit and outside. Sustainability should be about connecting people to the places they want and need to go, as well as creating local solutions for resilience and adaptation as the climate changes and the economy goes through its cycles. I would also like to see the field of sustainability consistently ask how communities can improve sustainability as a field and a process. Where are the lived and local wisdom and stories of a community influencing problem solving and/or identifying strengths to be leveraged? Sustainability should be a great conversation.
SP: What are you most looking forward to talking about and discussing at ILFI’s 2021 Affordable Housing Summit?
I am looking forward to talking about how we can all recognize the power and privilege we bring to conversations of sustainability and affordable housing, and use our privilege to make space for underheard voices, and cede power for the advancement of liberation. I always enjoy hearing other perspectives and experiences as well, so I expect this summit to be lively and thought-provoking.
Header photo courtesy of Foundation Communities: Lakeline Learning Center, Austin, Texas (Zero-Energy Certified Affordable Housing Pilot Project)
