[Editor's note: This post is authored by Diedre Schmidt, Executive Director at the Affordable Housing Institute (AHI). AHI is a non-profit consultancy that works around the world, and particularly in the global South, with pro-poor affordable housing finance entities – what they call Mission Entrepreneurial Entities, MEEs – to help them create, develop, and implement affordable housing financial products and business lines, as well as by positively influencing the policy and economic ecosystem to enable them to grow.]
The word innovation, when used in conjunction with housing, usually conjures ideas of new building products or technologies that are successful because they are cheaper, lighter, stronger or easier to use. But our collective challenge isn't simply to create high quality new homes that are affordable – a problem which lends itself to purely technological solutions.
I applaud Ashoka for recognizing that in order to meet global housing need in the future, we will require more than just the best physical components that design and engineering can offer, but also the most creative, nuanced and inclusive financial, social and business systems and practices that human minds and wills can muster.
Combining “hard” and “soft” innovations will be necessary in order to address our era’s toughest housing and urban dilemmas;
- the acute need to improve substandard homes incrementally;
- the lack of recorded/mortgageable title;
- the absence of basic public infrastructure;
- the informality of resident income;
- and perhaps most importantly, the general regard for low-income people as a beneficiaries rather than a robust market or even a potential partner in the solution.
I am excited to see Ashoka shine a light on such examples and help to redefine innovation in housing.
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Be sure to check out the preview of the documentary "Building on Faith: Making Poverty Housing History." Champion the cause! Submit your solutions, or nominate a project before February 11, 2011, in our Sustainable Urban Housing competition to collaborate on sustainable urban housing for liveable and inclusive cities.
Image courtesy of Luisanto
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