Pete Leyden has a new format mini-conference using Google Hangout: the reinventor series. Last week he invited me to talk about Foundation Housing and had serious housing experts critique it and explain some of their ideas for affordable housing.
(I think the format is fascinating and Pete's group ran it well– there could be a big step forward in keeping people off of planes if we can get this type of solid discussion going using personal computers).
Foundation Housing proposal is to create a new housing class: 'Foundation Housing', which is debt-free housing that creates a stable and low cost housing alternative for those working in non-profits. This is possible by special non-profits buying housing to transition to debt-free and keeping it debt free (by leveraging the open source license idea for long term commitment to keep liens off the property).
Some of the other ideas revolved around how to shape government policy better, build granny flats, rethink architecture to better support communities, and other things.
http://reinventors.net/roundtables/reinvent-affordable-housing/
Progress!
-brewster