Housing for Humans- Where are all the homes?
For many Americans, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to attain affordable housing, despite it being a basic human need. In the States, affordable housing continues to be a prominent talking point with home prices continuing to reach record highs. Millions of Americans every year are impacted because of the shortage of affordable housing.
According to Forbes, nearly half of the 43 million renter households in the U.S. are housing cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. In more severe cases, renters in America are spending over half of their income on housing each month. This housing crisis has had a real negative impact on communities across the country.
Within Housing For Humans, Ileana Schinder explores how America — a country so vast and rich — could have looked away from a housing crisis that reached humanitarian proportions from coast to coast.
Born and raised in Argentina, Ileana Schinder now lives with her family in Washington DC. An experienced architect, she opened her studio in 2014 designing homes and additional dwelling units that create new spaces for clients and their families to thrive.
After navigating a year of loss and isolation in 2020, Ileana started to wonder what ‘home’ had become: for architects, for movies, for immigrants and for families. Throughout the years that Ileana has designed homes, she’s seen a pattern in that most of her commissions were about carving out space for new modes of housing.
“Families looking for housing today are very different from the ones in the Hollywood movies I grew up watching. It seems that the ideal houses we were made to believe in, are in fact fading away. More innovative options that allow for flexibility, sustainability, multigenerational approaches, and financial support are the new norm,” explains Ileana.
Housing For Humans is an exploration of Ileana’s discovery. It’s the result of years of changing basements into family rooms, welcoming in older generations, adding to rental income, and bringing spaces to life. The book delves into Ileana’s experiences as both an architect and an immigrant, her insight into how the American housing crisis came to be and considers how layers and generations of zoning, financial and cultural waves built and demolished concepts of housing and family models.
“This book gives space to everyone else that has questioned where and how to call their place home. It makes room to house those who cannot drive and those who struggle to find a place to call home, as well as those who want something different from the unrealistic models we have built so far. I aim to give the reader permission to rethink their idea of home: where to build it, how to occupy it, and most importantly, why to design the way we do. It’s about houses and the people who live in them,” continues Ileana.
Furthermore, Housing For Humans reveals how today’s affordable housing crisis can be solved through innovative residential and urban design. Family models have evolved, society has reframed the role of cities, and ongoing urban realities demand opportunities to create housing for all, from first-time homeowners to retirees. Ileana guides readers through the design process of new housing, like additional dwelling units, and explores ideas that can be implemented from the suburbs to cities. Through the history of urban design, zoning regulation, and with an emphasis on the human side of housing, Ileana Schinder explains the role that the home plays in society today.
By tracking the history of residential design, how the demands and design considerations of families have evolved and posing a new way of thinking about the home, Ileana has created a comprehensive guide to practically solving the housing crisis in a way that places humans at its core.
