Panic! If you want excitement, drama, high emotion, adventure in your life, pour concrete. There is nothing like the adrenalin rush that happens when – after you have set the forms, compacted the sand base, laid out all the tools, estimated the total number of cubic yards of concrete to...
Previous Housing for All blogs have reported primarily on the difficulties in developing and obtaining affordable housing for homeowners. While this is important what also needs to be addressed are the housing issues confronting those persons who rent, which in cities like Valparaiso can be much...
One could easily get depressed. Ukraine…Deadlocked Congress…Inequality…The environmental crisis…Inflation. Not a lot of good news. But I am fortunate to get a daily exposure to another reality, working with volunteers. Imagine this: able bodied people show up and offer to do hard physical work for...
It is early morning, March 17th. Last night we received three variances from the City of Valparaiso Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA). A victory. Contemporary American cities and towns have laws governing development: what you can build and how you can build it. In Valpo that set of laws is called the...
This may take a while. Before I start, we must define affordable. All housing, regardless of cost, is affordable to someone. The CEO making $1.5 million a year has many choices. We’ll not worry about the CEO. Likewise, the two-income, families with a combined $100,000 to $150,000 income per year...
I was greeted this morning with that information by a tenant at Neighbors Place, the apartment building at 454 College Avenue which houses 18 women in small, efficiency apartments. It was still early, about 7:00 am. My office is located in the building and I like to get in early. Let’s call the...
In a previous post, I described the reality of our shortage of affordable housing. I said there were solutions and advised you, the reader, to “Stay tuned.” The seemingly dead horse is housing size. In contemporary America, there is broad consensus that a house should be a certain size…say 2000 –...
I Suppose We Already Knew This, But.. Jenny Schuetz is a housing researcher for the Brookings Institute. In an article on Feb. 3, 2022, in the Eugene Weekly, she explains what is happening here in Valparaiso. “America’s affordable housing crisis is deepening. Rents are rising faster than income,...
Fifty-three years ago this month, Valparaiso University was holding its popular WEEK OF CHALLENGE. The inspiring speaker on that particular morning was a well known Black clergyman/activist from the West coast. I was briefly among the standing room only audience, packed in the Great Hall of the...
I am about to run out of firewood, and it is only mid-January. Not good. So, you might be asking, what does that have to do with anything? Thanks for asking. Back in ’74, when Jane and I had one child, another on the way, I decided to build a house. I borrowed some money from my mother and Jane’s...