Browsing by Subject "Housing Studies"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Affordable Housing Alternatives: Analysis of Community Land Trusts
    (2012-04-18) Grzywa, Ashley
    Housing affordability continues to be a dramatic problem in the United States. As of June 2010 1.6 million homes nationwide (one of every 78 units) were in foreclosure. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are organizations created to hold land for the benefit of the community and individuals within the community. The Institute for Community Economics (ICE) published The Community Land Trust Handbook in 1982 as a model by which CLTs might operate. This model can be used to evaluate the success of CLTs in providing perpetually affordable housing for their community. In order to better understand the affordability potential of CLTs I conducted an extensive literature review of CLTs, specifically two case study organizations serving urban communities in the Midwest. I interviewed the executive director of each organization to gain a more specific understanding of the business operations and organization of the CLT. I utilized interview responses and findings from literature reviews to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods of organizing and operating CLTs. Using this assessment I compiled a series of recommendations for all CLTs to use as a guide to improving the organization’s ability to provide affordable housing for the community.
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    Household & Community Response to Annual Flooding in Rural Bolivia
    (2009-04-08) Houghton, Laura
    The rainy season in South America results in flooding that devastates communities by destroying homes and spreading illness and disease. The small, rural village of Villa Alba-El Beni, Bolivia experiences annual flooding but has little way of preparing for the damage. The housing of the village is destroyed each year and never quite rebuilt, and with each exposure to the dirty floodwaters, more individuals become ill. After two subsequent years of recordbreaking floods, I traveled to Villa Alba during the summer of 2008 to interview ten households about their experiences with and reactions to the flooding. The parallels between conversations with residents of the village and information found in literature review suggest that a household and community response to the flooding would dramatically decrease the negative effects on both housing and health.