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01 Mar 2024
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March Artist of the Month: Romy Limenes

About the Artist:

Romy’s affinity for photography began early, inspired by the dramatic coastline of her hometown of Mendocino. Enrolling in a basic black and white photography class during high school unveiled her passion further as she experienced, both behind the lens as well as in the confines of the dimly lit darkroom, a profound sense of joy unlike anything she had ever experienced. Nonetheless photography took a sideline to her first chosen profession of nursing and healthcare for the last two decades, all the while remaining a persistent yet unanswered call.

In 2022, a significant event altered Romy’s trajectory when she became a victim of drug assault in her hometown. This experience illuminated the urgent need for education and systemic reform surrounding this pervasive yet often overlooked crime. Romy is dedicated to transforming her own journey as a survivor into a catalyst for positive change, leveraging her voice to advocate for awareness and reform. She is currently in the nascent stages of establishing Expose This Crime, an organization aimed at shedding light on drug assault and advocating for transformative change.

Concurrently, Romy’s photography project, Soulscape Images, emerged during this tumultuous period, serving as a source of strength, expression, and healing. Her robust portfolio, aptly titled “Soulscapes,” is a testament to her personal journey of turning pain into creativity.

For the first time, Romy is making her Soulscapes available to the public, envisioning them as large-scale canvas prints for wall hangings, with. 33% of the profits going to support her sister project and passion, Expose This Crime. This initiative will fund the launch of a podcast platform, providing a space for survivors to share their stories and voices, amplifying awareness and fostering healing and much needed change.

Romy Limenes; www.soulscapeimage.com

Instagram: soulscapeimages

romylimenes@gmail.com

27 Feb 2024
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How to Keep Your Creativity Alive When You Have a Chronic Illness

Whether you’re creative as part of a little hobby, a way of life, or somewhere in between, you probably consider creativity to be a force for good in your life. But when you also live with chronic illness, it’s not always easy to draw, write, cook, knit, build, or participate in whatever expressive outlet you love.

That’s not to say creativity and chronic illness are totally incompatible. Plenty of people see their passions and hobbies as essential to their self-care routine, and others use their condition to inspire their work. At the same time, a lot of the symptoms and practicalities associated with managing an illness don’t exactly vibe with making things. Brain fog, pain flare-ups, mobility issues, fatigue, medication side effects—whatever you deal with, you’re not alone if you find that navigating a mix of mental and physical obstacles can get in the way of your creative efforts.

To help you bring more creativity to your life, I asked people for their best advice for others in similar boats and even tossed in a few tips from my own experience. Since both chronic illnesses and creative practices vary far and wide, not everything will apply to everyone, so take what you like and leave the rest. Whatever’s blocking your flow, here are a few ways to stay inspired.

Follow artists and other sources of inspiration on social media.

“I follow a lot of poets, artists, and crafters via social media, blogs, and newsletters,” Siobhan Moore, 39, tells SELF. “At times it can be hard not to make comparisons about how much they’re doing when I feel useless, but most of the time I’m able to keep a mindset of learning and inspiration when I look at their processes and results.”

Moore also recommends following museums, art centers, and accounts related to architecture, nature, music, and dance. “All art, I believe, is interconnected, and everything can and should be inspiration for your creative mind regardless of the medium,” she says.

Journal through all the feelings.

“I do a lot of journaling that overflows into my work, especially when I have bad flare-ups,” Jana, 27, tells SELF. “When I start working on things, a lot of the inspiration is taken from that.” If the idea of starting a whole ~journaling practice~ just stresses you out more, consider options you may find less physically and mentally taxing. These guided journals are full of prompts to get you going, and plenty of journaling apps and other alternatives let you log voice memos and photos instead of written entries.

And scribble down all the ideas.

Moore recommends lists. Lots and lots of lists. “Even when I can’t make art, I can jot down ideas, I can bookmark websites, poetry, articles to go back to for research later,” she says. “I can try and take a pile of disjointed thoughts jotted down and organize it slowly.”

Get creative (lol) about finding a new creative outlet.

After developing lasting symptoms following a COVID infection two years ago, Emma, 34, realized that concentrating on the intricate work of cross-stitching triggered her fatigue. Around the same time, she got into watching paint-pouring videos and decided to try it for herself—only to find it was a much better match for her needs.

“Trying something new creatively was helpful for me mentally as I dealt with my new normal,” she tells SELF. “I found that I hadn’t lost all avenues to being creative, and I found comfort in that.”

Break activities down into steps you can spread out.

Even after you find the right fit, there will still be instances when you need to scale back. At that point, Emma recommends spreading it out over a few days, like mixing paints one day and pouring the next. “If I was absolutely too tired to even mix paint, I could plan the next painting and think about what colors I wanted to use to keep my creative juices flowing,” she says. “It’s really empowering to make my artwork with my energy levels instead of against them.”

Organize your supplies so they’re easy to access or store.

For me, the activity itself often isn’t the hurdle I need to overcome—it’s the setup and cleanup! I can’t tell you how many times I got out all of my supplies, had a grand ol’ time making things, and then had to suffer the mess for days as I waited for another burst of energy to put it away. On the other hand, I’ve probably had the passing urge to create something, like, a million times, only for it to float away in the wind because I’m too tired to go digging in my closet for what I need.

My solution? Little caddies. I have a few stocked with everything I need for a particular activity, like my writing caddy filled with pens, my go-to journals, notecards, sticky notes, and other goodies, making them easy to grab from my desk or closet when the mood strikes.

Try literal art therapy.

Whether your chronic illness is a mental condition itself or requires managing your mental health in some other way, art therapy can be an awesome method of doubling up on self-care and creative play. “I actually started seeing an art therapist when I was dealing with a lot of frustration around my illness and how it was impacting my writing,” Valeria, 28, tells SELF. “It wound up being good on both fronts. It loosened my creative muscles via a new medium that wasn’t words, and it also gave me an outlet for exploring how I felt about my condition and how it had changed my life.” No need to run out and get an art therapist either (unless you want to)—you can start by trying out some at-home art therapy exercises.

When you don’t have the mental space to be creative, work on mindless tasks that will pay off later.

When Moore is struggling with motivation, she focuses on undemanding jobs on her to-do list. “Sometimes simple things like untangling embroidery thread and organizing it can set me up for my next project, even when I’m struggling with motivation.”

Lean into small acts of everyday creativity.

“Doing something creative every day, like regular joyful movement and getting out to see friends, helps me manage my emotional response to chronic pain and flare-ups, which in turn makes the pain lessen or at least feel more manageable,” Kelsey, 30, tells SELF. “Knowing that I’ll probably feel better if I spend time being creative—because it is a reminder that I am a person with hobbies and interests and talents, not just a body stuck in pain—is a real motivator for me.”

And scale things down when needed.

“Flexibility in how I am creative on a day with a larger pain flare-up is important,” Kelsey says. “Maybe I feel up to drawing and painting for 15 to 30 minutes at home instead of trekking out to paint for a longer session on-site. Or I might feel up to a quick sketch instead of the repetitive movements of cross-stitching.”

Try to worry less about finishing everything or hitting milestones.

I know, easier said than done. But if you find yourself feeling guilty for abandoning work-in-progress projects or beating yourself up about where you think you “should” be in your artistic endeavors, see if reframing your thoughts brings some of the magic back.

“Recently, I have changed my perspective about myself as an artist,” Reni, 33, tells SELF. “I no longer believe that I need to achieve certain milestones or receive professional training to become a ‘true artist.’ I am learning and growing by creating and experimenting on my own—and in doing so I become a better artist.”

Look for something totally immersive so you can tune the world—and your symptoms—out.

A big reason Emma fell in love with paint-pouring? It doubled as a mindfulness activity. “I could forget the frustration of not having the same kind of energy as my friends, or ignore the sadness I have about the energy I once had and not knowing if I’ll ever get it back,” she says. “I wouldn’t say painting helped my symptoms, but it allowed me to have a space where I didn’t have to necessarily think about them.”

Embrace the delightfully shitty craft.

Raise your hand if the annoying voice in your head that’s like “Uhh, you suck at this” has ever interrupted some perfectly lovely creative time. (It’s me. I’m raising my hand.) It’s not always related to chronic illness—sometimes I am too hard on myself and sometimes I really do suck—but it’s hard not to groan when certain symptoms interfere with my usual abilities. At times like that, I reach for things I don’t mind doing badly.

To see if it takes some of the pressure off, you might want to start with some inner-child crafts, courtesy of the author of Shitty Craft Club Sam Reece.

Swap from tech to analog (or vice versa).

At the height of its moment as the newest self-care craze, I was stockpiling adult coloring books like there was no tomorrow. I loved it as a “low-key” way to be artistic—and to this day, each of them probably has a handful of half-finished pages. Luckily, somewhere along the line, I discovered digital coloring book apps, which scratched the same itch with even less work.

On the other hand, maybe moving away from tech is the way to go. “I’m a digital artist, and eye strain from staring at my screen all day was a trigger,” Talia, 24, tells SELF. “It got to the point where I couldn’t work on the computer at all on flare-up days. Eventually it got me back into sketching the old-fashioned way as a way to stay ‘tapped in,’ just so I wouldn’t have to go without my art entirely.”

Track your symptoms to find what supports and hurts your creativity.

Symptom tracking overall—whether via journal or an app like Bearable—is a solid way to identify patterns, triggers, and other clues associated with your chronic illness. But it can also give you lots of useful info for making adjustments and decisions in your creative life. For example, recognizing signs that a flare-up is coming means I can adjust my expectations for the week—or at least remind me to put my collaging caddy near the couch where I know I’ll be parked out for a few days.

All that said, don’t force it.

I know, it sucks when you want to let your artsy fartsy flag fly but you don’t have the physical or mental capacity for it. The good news is, that’s kind of how creativity is in general: ebbing and flowing.

“My advice for people in the same boat is to not pressure yourself or set expectations around your creativity,” says Kelsey. “Some days you will feel up to it and other days you won’t, and learning to live with that is challenging enough without beating yourself up about your ability to be creative on any given day.”

Finally, remember that rest is important.

Not just for reasons related to your illness, but for your creativity too. “There are days when I truly don’t want to be creative and sometimes I give in to that and just let myself rest and recover,” Afsheen Shah, 50, tells SELF. “Whether it’s a sauna, massage, or a little extra sleep, I give my body what it needs. On a subconscious level, it sends my body a signal that I love it and care enough about it to listen. On a conscious level, I know I’m doing what’s best for my body at that time and that always motivates me to come back stronger and even better once I’ve given myself the rest I need.”

Kelsey echoes the sentiment. “I remind myself that I deserve rest, that this pain is a moment in time, and soon I’ll feel up to being creative again.”

Original article here

20 Feb 2024
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Millions of women are ‘under-muscled.’ These foods help build strength

If you’ve seen a loved one take a bad fall – like my mother did a few months ago – you know the importance of muscle strength.

Muscle mass peaks in our 30s and then starts a long, slow decline. Muscle-loss, also called sarcopenia, affects more than 45% of older Americans, especially women.

“As a country, we are under-muscled,” says Richard Joseph, a wellness-focused physician. It’s a key culprit of physical decline.

Loss of strength increases the risk of falling, the top cause of death from injury in older adults. The Office on Women’s Health recently launched a sarcopenia awareness campaign to elevate the issue.

The good news: No matter your age, you can take steps to maximize your strength. Resistance training is key, but equally important, is eating adequate amounts of protein.

If you don’t consume enough protein, “you’re missing half of the equation,” says nutrition and exercise scientist Rachele Pojednic, a researcher at Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. But millions of older women in the U.S. don’t consume enough protein, research shows.

Protein is critically important because it’s in all our cells — including muscle cells — and our bodies constantly recycle it. There’s a steady demand for new supplies, and protein-rich foods provide the amino acids that become the building blocks of the new proteins our bodies need.

As we age, the goal is to consume protein from food at a faster rate than our body is breaking it down. When you add in resistance training, this will help maintain muscle mass, Pojednic says.

So how much is enough? The recommended intake is a minimum of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. That’s about 0.36 grams of protein multiplied by your weight in pounds. That means a person who weighs 150 pounds should consume at least 54 grams of protein a day.

But many experts say more is optimal. As we age, protein needs to increase. And if you are exercising a lot – which is the way to build new muscle — you may benefit from even more.

Sports medicine experts recommend up to 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight each day for people who are actively training, which is about 115 grams for a 150 pound person.

Most young adults tend to consume the recommended amounts of protein. But, later in life, a study from 2019 found about 30% of men in their 50s and 60s fall short, and nearly half of women aged 50 and older do.So, as part of my project on healthy aging, I decided to up my protein intake. I was advised to aim for 90 grams of protein a day, which, at first I found challenging. So, I asked experts to share some key foods and strategies to help pack more protein into my meals. Here are some ideas:

Amp up your morning bowl of Greek yogurt

At about 17 grams per ¾ cup serving, Greek yogurt is a great source of protein. You can eat it plain, add sweet or savory toppings, or throw it into a smoothie. “It’s super versatile and high in casein protein, which is slow to digest, which keeps you full while also promoting muscle protein synthesis,” which is the process of building muscle mass, Pojednic says.

Eggs are an easy way to get protein on the go

At 6 grams of protein for a large egg, hard-boiled eggs are a go-to option. If you hard boil a dozen eggs and keep them in the refrigerator, they’re ready to grab and go. And, whether you like scrambled or poached, eating an egg in the morning – or as a mid-morning snack, can hold you to lunch. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines say an egg a day won’t raise heart disease risk in healthy people, but some adults may need to limit eggs due to cholesterol concerns.

Power up your smoothies with powdered protein

If you’ve got a blender and some fruits and veg on hand, you’re ready to go. “We have a big smoothie game in our house,” Joseph says. “I love smoothies, my kids love smoothies,” he says and it’s easy to add extra protein by blending in a scoop of protein powder. Whey protein powder, which is derived from the cheesemaking process when whey and curds are separated, has all of the essential amino acids our bodies need, and it’s another great option for high protein on the go. I like to buy big bags of frozen berries for my smoothies and toss in spirulina, an algae that’s high in protein. Also, if my bananas or greens are getting too ripe, I add them, so they don’t go to waste.

Add some tuna to your salad

Fish is chockablock full of protein. Cod has approximately 40 grams per serving and salmon and tuna both have approximately 30 grams. And Rachele Pojednic says fish is an excellent source of unsaturated, rather than saturated fat, so that’s a plus for heart health. One super simple option is to toss a can of strained tuna over a bed of greens, then add fruit and nuts for crunch. And, voilà, you’ve hit your protein target!

Sprinkle in protein with nuts and seeds

Nuts and seeds tend to be about the same – or even better – in the protein category than legumes, so try sprinkling them on salads and rice bowls, Pojednic says. Hemp and pumpkin seeds both have around 8 grams for a ¼ cup serving, and you can add them as healthy “crunchies” on top of yogurt, oatmeal, salads or bowls, she says. Pumpkin seeds also contain plenty of magnesium, beneficial for heart health.

Meat in small doses adds a protein punch

Meat is a top source of protein, serving up about 7 grams of protein per ounce, and many dietitians say to aim for lean cuts, such as chicken breast or lean ground turkey. But as many people aim to cut back, there are plenty of plant-based alternatives. A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition this month finds adequate protein intake in midlife – especially plant protein – is linked to significantly higher odds of healthy aging.

Tasty ways to eat tofu and beans

Lentils and chickpeas are two of my favorite plant protein sources, which are delicious on their own or in curries and soups. You can also cook up a potful and keep them in the fridge ready to add to salads. There’s also tofu and edamame, which are affordable and available at most supermarkets. Lesser known options include Tempeh (soy based) which comes in at approximately 18-20 grams of protein per serving. Here’s a hack to prevent tofu mush: I sprinkle a little cornstarch on diced tofu and pan-fry it, which makes it crispy on the outside. Then I toss in sauces, such as peanut sauce or pesto.

Don’t miss out higher-protein grains

I love the nutty taste and chewy texture of farro, an ancient grain that’s won over a lot of fans. It’s easy to cook – just toss the grain into boiling water and let it simmer. A few cups makes enough for several meals. At twice the protein, it’s an “awesome swap for rice,” Pojednic says. And farro also has a lot more fiber. Quinoa is another good option, it has approximately 8 grams of protein per cup.

Don’t forget veggies

Vegetables are not the main players when it comes to protein, but they can add a few grams. For instance, a cup of broccoli contains about 2.6 grams. And greens and colorful vegetables contain many beneficial vitamins, micronutrients and antioxidant compounds which are good for health. Eating a salad a day is linked to a sharper memory, too. So keep a bowl of chopped vegetables to snack on and blend into salads, stews and soups.

Original article here

17 Feb 2024
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What if public housing were for everyone?

Quietly and with little fanfare, the idea of building new publicly owned housing for people across the income spectrum has advanced in the United States.

Governments have successfully addressed housing shortages through publicly developed housing in places like Vienna, Finland, and Singapore in the past, but these examples have typically inspired little attention in the US — which has more restrictive welfare policies and a bias toward private homeownership.

Then one US community started exploring social housing with a markedly more American twist: Leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland — a suburban region just outside Washington, DC, with more than 1 million residents — said they could increase their local housing supply not by ramping up European-style welfare subsidies but through essentially intervening in the traditional capitalist bidding process. Government, when it wants to, can make attractive bids.

Now, with an acute nationwide housing shortage, and declining home construction due to high interest rates, the idea is spreading, and more local officials have been moving forward with plans to create publicly owned housing. They are very clear about not calling it “public housing”: To help differentiate these projects from the typical stigmatized, income-restricted, and underfunded model, leaders have coalesced around calling the mixed-income idea “social housing” produced by “public developers.”

“What I like about what we’re doing is all we have effectively done is commandeered the private American real estate model,” Zachary Marks, the chief real estate officer for Montgomery County’s housing authority, told me in 2022. “We’re replacing the investor dudes from Wall Street, the big money from Dallas.”

By offering private companies more favorable financing terms, Montgomery County hoped to move forward with new construction that they’d own for as long as they liked. They had plans to build thousands of publicly owned mixed-income apartments by leveraging relatively small amounts of public money to create a revolving fund that could finance short-term construction costs. Eighteen months ago, this “revolving fund” plan was still mostly just on paper; no one lived in any of these units, and whether people would even want to live in publicly owned housing was still an open question.

Answers have since emerged: The first Montgomery County project opened in April 2023, a 268-unit apartment building called The Laureate, and tenants quickly came to rent. It’s not the kind of public housing most Americans are familiar with: It has a sleek fitness center, multiple gathering spaces, and a courtyard pool. “We’re 97 percent leased today, and it’s just been incredibly successful and happened so fast,” Marks said.

Encouraged by the positive response, Montgomery County has been barreling forward with other social housing projects, like a 463-unit complex that will house both seniors and families, and another 415-unit building across from The Laureate set to break ground in October. While construction has lagged nationwide as the Federal Reserve worked to rein in inflation, private developers in Montgomery County have been able to partner with the local government, enticed by their more affordable financing options.

As word started to get around, city leaders elsewhere began reaching out, curious to learn about this model and whether it could help their own housing woes. Montgomery County was getting so many inquiries, they decided to host a convening in early November, inviting other officials — from places like New York City, Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago —to tour The Laureate and talk collectively about the public developer idea. Roughly 60 people were in attendance.

“I am very bought into the Zachary Marks’s line that there is every reason for cities to be building up a balance sheet of real estate equity and we should be capturing that and using it to reinvest in public goods,” said one municipal housing leader who attended the Montgomery County conference and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. “That’s the vision — and you can just describe it in so many ways. You can say we’re socializing real estate value for public use, or you can describe it as we’re doing public-private partnerships to invest in our communities.”

Paul Williams, who leads the Center for Public Enterprise, a think tank supportive of social housing, said growing interest in the public developer model has even led to new conversations with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Public agencies are clearly hungry for tools that allow them to produce a lot more housing, and in the past year and a half we’ve gone from working with Montgomery County and Rhode Island to establishing a working group with a few dozen state and municipal housing agencies who come to our regular meetings,” he told Vox. “That’s gotten HUD’s attention, and we’re now talking with them about ways the federal government can support this kind of innovation.”

Atlanta’s leaders are on track to implement the Montgomery County model

Perhaps no city has run as fast with the Montgomery County idea than Atlanta, Georgia. The city’s mayor, Andre Dickens, took office in early 2022 and set an ambitious goal to build or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units within his eight-year term. The Dickens administration wanted to find ways to do this that didn’t depend on the whims of Republicans in the state legislature or federal government.

One of the key strategies Dickens’s team has embraced is making use of property the city already owns, such as vacant land. “We did not have a good sense of what we had, what we did not have, and what was the best use for any of it,” said Josh Humphries, a senior housing adviser to the mayor.

The Dickens administration convened an “affordable housing strike force” to get a better understanding of the city’s inventory and started studying affordable housing models around the world, including social housing in Vienna and Copenhagen. Atlanta leaders also participated in a national program called Putting Assets to Work and learned about the efforts in Montgomery County.

Humphries said what “really sealed the deal” on social housing for them was simply the scarcity of alternative tools to build affordable housing, since they were already exhausting all the available funding they had from the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).

By the summer of 2023, armed with money from a city housing bond, the Atlanta Housing Authority’s board of commissioners voted to create a new nonprofit that would help build mixed-income public housing for the city. Leaders estimate it could lead to 800 new units by 2029.

Atlanta’s first bid for private-market developers to construct social housing went out last month, and Humphries says they’re excited about how their new financing could spark new partnerships. “The combination of tools that we plan to use that are similar to what they’re doing in Montgomery County, like being able to decrease property taxes and have better interest rates in your financing, is very enviable,” Humphries said. “It has allowed us to have conversations with market-rate developers who maybe otherwise wouldn’t be interested because they haven’t been able to figure out how to make their other [private-sector] projects work.”

Boston wants to move forward with social housing, and Massachusetts might help

Since 2017, Boston has been working to redevelop some of its existing public housing projects by converting them into denser, mixed-income housing. Kenzie Bok, who was tapped by the city’s progressive mayor last spring to lead the Boston Housing Authority, said that existing work helped pave the way for leaders to more quickly embrace the Montgomery County model. As in Atlanta, Bok and her colleagues have been trying to figure out how to build more affordable housing when they have no more federal tax credits available.

“I think everyone in the affordable housing community is looking around and saying, ‘Gee, we have this [low-income housing tax credit] engine for development but it doesn’t have capacity to meet the level we need,’” Bok told me. And while the federal government could increase the tax credit volume, that requires action in Washington, DC, that for years has failed to materialize.

Bok grew interested in the Montgomery County model since it seemed to offer a way for her city to augment its affordable housing production without Congress. Bok was also intrigued by the potential of the revolving fund to spur more market-rate construction in Boston, which has slowed not only because of rising interest rates but also because institutional investors typically demand such high rates of return.

“The default assumption is that affordable units are hard to build and market-rate ones will build themselves from a profit-motive perspective,” Bok said. “In fact, we have a situation now where ironically it’s often affordable LIHTC units that can get built right now and other projects stall out.”

Bok and her colleagues realized it’s not that mixed-income projects don’t generate profits — those profits just aren’t 20 percent or higher. Mixed-income affordable housing wouldn’t need to be produced at a loss, Boston leaders concluded, they just might not be tantalizing to certain aggressive real estate investors. By creating a revolving fund and leveraging public land to offer more affordable financing terms, Boston officials realized they could help generate more housing — both affordable and market-rate.

In January, in her State of the City address, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu pledged to grow the city’s supply of public housing units by about 30 percent in the next 10 years, with publicly owned mixed-income housing being one way to get there.

To help move things forward, state lawmakers are also exploring the idea. This past fall, Massachusetts’s governor put placeholder language in a draft housing bond bill to support social housing and a revolving fund. The specifics are likely going to be hashed out later this spring, but the governor’s bond bill is widely expected to pass.

In Rhode Island, too, state-level interest in supporting the notion of publicly developed affordable housing has grown. Stefan Pryor, the state’s secretary of housing, attended the Montgomery County, Maryland conference in November, and Rhode Island recently announced it would be contracting with the Furman Center, a prominent housing think tank at New York University, to study models of social housing. “We look forward to the study’s observations and findings,” Pryor told Vox.

Can mixed-income housing help those most in need?

Lawmakers intrigued by what Montgomery County is doing praise the fact that publicly owned mixed-income housing units theoretically offer affordable units to their communities forever, unlike affordable housing financed by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit that can convert into market-rate rentals after 15 years. Leaders also like that after some initial upfront investment, the publicly owned projects start to pay for themselves, even delivering economic returns to the city down the line.

But while housing complexes like The Laureate can offer real relief to struggling middle-class tenants — a quarter of The Laureate’s units are restricted to those earning 50 percent or less of the area median income — an outstanding question is whether the social housing model could also help those who are lower-income, who might require even more deeply subsidized housing.

In Washington, DC, some lawmakers have been exploring the social housing idea, and one progressive council member introduced a bill calling to support mixed-income housing accessible to those making 30 percent or less of the area’s median income. But critics of the bill say that the rents of those living in nonsubsidized units would have to be so high to make that rental math work.

A housing official speaking on the condition of anonymity told me they think it’s okay if the social housing model can only really work to support more middle-class tenants in neighborhoods that charge higher rents because leaders still have financing tools to build more deeply affordable housing in lower-cost areas. In other words, social housing can grow the overall pie of affordable units throughout a city.

Other leaders, like in Boston and Atlanta, told me they’re exploring how they could “layer” the mixed-income social housing model with additional subsidies to make them more accessible to lower-income renters.

Marks, from Montgomery County, knows there’s still a lot of stigma and reservations about American public housing, which many perceive as being ugly, dirty, or unsafe. Few understand that many of the woes of existing public housing in the US have had to do with rules Congress passed nearly 100 years ago, such as restricting the housing to only the very poor. Besides getting his message out, Marks said he likes to just have people come see for themselves what’s being done.

“The temperature immediately comes down when people can walk around, see how attractive it is, how it’s clearly a high-quality community with nice apartments,” he said. “It’s why getting proof of concept is so important.”

Original article here

March Artist of the Month: Romy Limenes

How to Keep Your Creativity Alive When You Have a Chronic Illness

Millions of women are ‘under-muscled.’ These foods help build strength

What if public housing were for everyone?

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