On January 18, a Housing Summit was held at Charles Black Center to discuss the right to safe, sustainable, and affordable housing. The Summit was an opportunity to dialogue across sector and issue area, identifying strengths and weaknesses in the housing market and current policy approaches as well as build concrete action plans for moving towards the goal of universal access to safe, sustainable and affordable housing in St. Joseph County.
Participants identified challenges to assuring safe, affordable and sustainable housing to all in our community and suggested action plans to address those challenges. A consensus developed across all three break-out groups regarding the challenges facing the community: St. Joseph County has a large number of older homes, most of which have lead paint, and many of which are in disrepair. In addition, we have many in our community who cannot afford the available housing whether due to a lack of adequate income, lack of financial literary or poor credit. At the same time, our community is blessed with many dedicated community partners in both the business community and not-for-profit sector committed to finding solutions to the current housing struggles.
Each breakout group outlined the challenges and noted the importance of continuing the conversation, beyond the summit. The following information below highlights follow up meetings to continue the discussion on housing in the community, and what the next steps are.
March 19, 4:00 – 5:00pm – Affordability
March 25, 9:00 – 10:00am – Safety
March 28, 9:00 – 10:00am – Sustainability
*All follow up meetings will take place at United Way of St. Joseph County
To RSVP click here.
To read more about the Housing Summit click here.
The presentation from the Housing Summit is available here.
