The Greening of the Affordable Housing Industry

Next week will mark the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. And over these past 40 years, environmental and green issues have been progressively getting stronger in the headlines and everyday life.

And these issues are going to be at the forefront for the affordable housing industry as well as the nation in the near future as the federal government turns its attention from health care reform to energy and climate change policy.

Over my more than nine years at Affordable Housing Finance, I’ve seen green invade the industry. It’s now rare to see a new development without some energy-saving or water-saving feature. Huge strides have been made, and more will continue to be made as the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the state housing finance agencies keep the issues at the forefront and provide incentives for green initiatives.

We already feature a green department—Green Scene—in each issue of Affordable Housing Finance. Now, we’re expanding Green Scene to our newsletter with contributed pieces from Casius Pealer, director of the Affordable Housing Initiative at the U.S. Green Building Council. He debuts in this newsletter discussing how transportation costs are undermining housing affordability.

We think green is an important issue, so we’ll also be devoting space to it as the cover story for the June issue of Affordable Housing Finance. If there’s a particular subject matter pertaining to green and sustainable housing that you want to read more about in the magazine or the newsletter, please e-mail me at cserlin@hanleywood.com.

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Also, there are only a couple of days left to submit your nominations for the nation’s best affordable housing developments that were completed in 2009 or that will be completed this year. Don’t delay. Download the nomination form here and return to Deputy Editor Donna Kimura at dkimura@hanleywood.com by Friday, April 16.