Mark Olshaker Author Archives

It is a widely accepted proposition that one of the key foundations for a healthy and productive life is stable, good-quality affordable housing. Housing and health go hand-in-hand with proper nutrition, adequate employment for those of working age and secure retirement for seniors, as well as a solid, emotional support system for all. Yet for a long time, housing and healthcare have been relegated to separate realms, with little programmatic or financial connection between them.

As the fields of health maintenance and affordable senior housing move ever closer together, a great deal of effort is being expended on both sides to figure out and shape the best and most cost-effective ways to support that trend.

As housing costs increase in communities throughout the country, the need for workforce housing has emerged as a frequent topic of conversation. But a precise definition of what it encompasses seems to vary according to the locality.

The Seattle-Puget Sound region has become one of the most attractive in the nation: a combination of expansive natural beauty, a healthy lifestyle culture, a vibrant, interesting, accessible downtown, a center for high-tech opportunity and entrepreneurship, and a mecca for Millennials. Oh, and there’s all the coffee. But with that popularity spread over so wide a geographical area, the twin challenges of transportation and affordable housing become almost inevitable.

Which of the following is most critical for improving and stabilizing the lives of low-income and homeless individuals and families?

“A whole lot of moving parts,” is the way Holly Bray of Love Funding in Washington, D.C., depicts the three-year process of rehabilitating Arnold Gardens, a three-building affordable housing project in suburban Suitland, Maryland.

The problem is clear, pervasive, and all but overwhelming: According to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates, there is a backlog of more than $26 billion in needed renovations, repairs and upgrades to the nation’s inventory of public housing properties, and 10,000 affordable units are leaving housing programs each year.

The idea for 409 Cumberland in Portland, Maine, one of the “greenest” and most innovative recent concepts in affordable housing, began in an Irish restaurant-bar.

“Conservation only really works when it doesn’t affect or impact the end-user’s way of life.”

The treatment of military veterans has been an emotionally fraught and politically loaded topic since the beginning of the nation. It took until 1818 – 35 years after the British surrender – for Revolutionary War veterans to receive a pension.

“Tax credit is the major program designed for affordable housing. Unfortunately, it’s not designed for this.”

“Our mantra is: We don’t build housing;
we build communities.”
—Geoffrey C. Brown, President and CEO, USA Properties Fund, Inc.