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Gray to Green Communities: A Call to Action on the Housing and Climate Crises
US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical and financial health of residents at risk. Our housing system means that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any US county.
In Gray to Green Communities , green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all.
Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits.
The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth.
Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.
In Gray to Green Communities , green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all.
Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits.
The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth.
Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.
200 pages, Paperback
Published January 19, 2021
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May 18, 2022
In Gray to Green Communities, Dana Bourland explores an issue I don’t think about often: the intersection between affordable housing and climate. Bourland argues that we can meet both our housing and climate crises with green affordably housing that reduces carbon emissions, improves human health, and supports thriving communities.
The problem is multifaceted: too many people spend a significant chunk of their income on housing, too many materials are toxic yet fail to disclose it, and we have a growing population and a shortage of housing. Add climate to the mix, and we have housing unable to protect residents from extreme weather events.
Traditionally, we’ve relied on gray housing, which serves only the immediate and necessary funding of providing shelter, Bourland writes. Instead, we need green housing that improves health, conserves energy and water and therefore requires fewer carbon emissions, and uses materials that benefit both the residents and the planet.
Put another way, green housing “prioritizes the health and well-being of the person living or working in that space, as well as their connection to the surrounding community.” It’s about integrating proven methods and materials and ensuring hosing costs are affordable.
To achieve this, we must change our way of thinking and lean into a circular economic mindset where we “create both a healthy building material supply chain and a healthy product and home.” It is understanding that housing is more than real estate, but rather a “platform from which to increase community cohesion, improve health outcomes, advance educational attainment, reduce carbon emissions, and enable community resilience.”
We are connected, to one another and the planet, Bourland writes, and we must understand that injustices rooted in the housing system are connected to colonialism, white supremacy, and the worsening climate crisis: “We must realize that without access to land and housing ownership, Indigenous people, Blacks, people of color, and immigrants have been denied the ability to accumulate wealth and pass that wealth on from one generation to the next.”
The same applies to the toxic materials in lower-income houses: it’s difficult to progress through society if one is constantly sick. Other examples of undesirable locations affecting residents include those areas that are entrenched in pollution, near landfills, isolated, in harm’s way, or far from nature. Alternatively, “Zip codes of the privileges have better housing conditions, less pollution, more green space, and greater opportunity.”
To change our mindset about gray building, and to reverse these troubling trends, Bourland offers us a tangible solution, called the Green Communities Criteria, designed by Bourland herself. The Criteria serves as a standard for bringing green building to the affordable housing sector, aiming to transform the way communities think about design, build, and rehabilitate affordable home.
The Criteria focuses on costs, health, integrative design, site, location, neighborhoods fabric, water conservation, energy efficiency, environmentally friendly materials, healthy living environment, operations, maintenance, resident engagement.
That integrative design bit is critical. It places the accountability of building on the designer, rather than the user; and it also integrates community input into the design phase, allowing designers to be more attuned to the unique problems of individual communities.
And because low-income communities are often on the frontlines of climate change, with less resources to recover after a disaster strikes, Bourland argues that integrative design must be evolving and living, with the design and development of housing considering floods, fires, and other extreme weather events, so that housing can better withstand, prepare for, and address these impacts.
The last part of the book takes us through several case studies and learnings from the Green Communities Criteria, including that it delivers significant health, environmental, and economic benefits: housing is more affordable to operate because of lower water and energy bills, people are healthier because of better ventilation systems and toxic-free materials, and the planet is better off because of smart locations and less energy use.
But beyond the challenges of transforming our “disposable, short-sighted reality of the individual to one that values the long-term cycle of our collective humanity,” other barriers include an inexperience’s and unavailable workforce, lack of transparency about materials ingredients, uncertain and scattered financing, and weak national commitments.
Bourland clearly has a passion for this topic and it shows in her writing. It’s about tackling a problem that should not exist, one that is rooted in short-sightedness, rather than the collective good and health of the actual people living in these buildings. She also has the credibility to write such a book, citing her own extensive research and case studies on the topic, including the creation of the Criteria.
Bourland truly believes we can “deliver on the recognized human right to housing and avert catastrophic global warming while advancing racial, economic, and environmental justice,” and she offers tangible steps to do so.
She ends with a list of ways to get things starts, including making a national commitment to affordable green housing, installing a national green housing conductor, curbing pollution, preserving and improving existing hosing, training and funding a green hosing workforce, and holding people in power accountable. And now is the time to do it.
“The climate crisis is a stark reminder that people and the planet have limits,” Bourland writes. “We are ready for a just transition to a clean energy future, one where everyone has housing they can afford, regardless of race or income. It is time to think differently about what is possible and to take action to do so.”
The problem is multifaceted: too many people spend a significant chunk of their income on housing, too many materials are toxic yet fail to disclose it, and we have a growing population and a shortage of housing. Add climate to the mix, and we have housing unable to protect residents from extreme weather events.
Traditionally, we’ve relied on gray housing, which serves only the immediate and necessary funding of providing shelter, Bourland writes. Instead, we need green housing that improves health, conserves energy and water and therefore requires fewer carbon emissions, and uses materials that benefit both the residents and the planet.
Put another way, green housing “prioritizes the health and well-being of the person living or working in that space, as well as their connection to the surrounding community.” It’s about integrating proven methods and materials and ensuring hosing costs are affordable.
To achieve this, we must change our way of thinking and lean into a circular economic mindset where we “create both a healthy building material supply chain and a healthy product and home.” It is understanding that housing is more than real estate, but rather a “platform from which to increase community cohesion, improve health outcomes, advance educational attainment, reduce carbon emissions, and enable community resilience.”
We are connected, to one another and the planet, Bourland writes, and we must understand that injustices rooted in the housing system are connected to colonialism, white supremacy, and the worsening climate crisis: “We must realize that without access to land and housing ownership, Indigenous people, Blacks, people of color, and immigrants have been denied the ability to accumulate wealth and pass that wealth on from one generation to the next.”
The same applies to the toxic materials in lower-income houses: it’s difficult to progress through society if one is constantly sick. Other examples of undesirable locations affecting residents include those areas that are entrenched in pollution, near landfills, isolated, in harm’s way, or far from nature. Alternatively, “Zip codes of the privileges have better housing conditions, less pollution, more green space, and greater opportunity.”
To change our mindset about gray building, and to reverse these troubling trends, Bourland offers us a tangible solution, called the Green Communities Criteria, designed by Bourland herself. The Criteria serves as a standard for bringing green building to the affordable housing sector, aiming to transform the way communities think about design, build, and rehabilitate affordable home.
The Criteria focuses on costs, health, integrative design, site, location, neighborhoods fabric, water conservation, energy efficiency, environmentally friendly materials, healthy living environment, operations, maintenance, resident engagement.
That integrative design bit is critical. It places the accountability of building on the designer, rather than the user; and it also integrates community input into the design phase, allowing designers to be more attuned to the unique problems of individual communities.
And because low-income communities are often on the frontlines of climate change, with less resources to recover after a disaster strikes, Bourland argues that integrative design must be evolving and living, with the design and development of housing considering floods, fires, and other extreme weather events, so that housing can better withstand, prepare for, and address these impacts.
The last part of the book takes us through several case studies and learnings from the Green Communities Criteria, including that it delivers significant health, environmental, and economic benefits: housing is more affordable to operate because of lower water and energy bills, people are healthier because of better ventilation systems and toxic-free materials, and the planet is better off because of smart locations and less energy use.
But beyond the challenges of transforming our “disposable, short-sighted reality of the individual to one that values the long-term cycle of our collective humanity,” other barriers include an inexperience’s and unavailable workforce, lack of transparency about materials ingredients, uncertain and scattered financing, and weak national commitments.
Bourland clearly has a passion for this topic and it shows in her writing. It’s about tackling a problem that should not exist, one that is rooted in short-sightedness, rather than the collective good and health of the actual people living in these buildings. She also has the credibility to write such a book, citing her own extensive research and case studies on the topic, including the creation of the Criteria.
Bourland truly believes we can “deliver on the recognized human right to housing and avert catastrophic global warming while advancing racial, economic, and environmental justice,” and she offers tangible steps to do so.
She ends with a list of ways to get things starts, including making a national commitment to affordable green housing, installing a national green housing conductor, curbing pollution, preserving and improving existing hosing, training and funding a green hosing workforce, and holding people in power accountable. And now is the time to do it.
“The climate crisis is a stark reminder that people and the planet have limits,” Bourland writes. “We are ready for a just transition to a clean energy future, one where everyone has housing they can afford, regardless of race or income. It is time to think differently about what is possible and to take action to do so.”
March 21, 2021
Dana's leadership and experience in green communities / housing work in the US is tremendous, and I'm thrilled to see that distilled into a book that neatly knits the housing climate crises together. Many within these movements see those connections, but they are far too poorly understood more generally, and Dana's clear prose helps define the problems and some ways we can tackle them. This is very accessible book that I think could be instructive to many.
December 16, 2024
Interesting mix of housing and climate. Definitely made me think about how we could set up something in Long Beach to help renters improve the health impact and efficiency of their housing.
December 24, 2024
This book will give you hope that we can house people and protect the environment in a sustainable way, if we choose to. Recommended for those with an interest in housing or climate policy.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews