Klara’s Urban Habitat Initiatives Reflections
Green in Action Producer and Marketing and Communications Specialist Klara Kaufman says goodbye and reflects on nearly three years working at Urban Habitat Initiatives.
Green in Action
Visiting 1616 Ocean
The impacts of climate change demand action in every part of life. In the housing industry, there’s a push to build new green, resilient, and healthy homes. But what about the homes that already exist? It would take over 100 years to replace all the old housing with new. Rehabilitating older housing to be more energy and water efficient, healthy, comfortable, and resilient is a key approach as we face this crisis.
Season One Recap
Season one of the Green in Action podcast is a wrap! Wondering what you missed? Tune in for host Kimberly Vermeer’s recap of the first season of the show. Kim reflects on season one’s stories: making net zero work for residents and redefining sustainability in rural New York State, why the integrated design process is crucial to developing sustainable, equitable communities, an Enterprise Green Communities deep dive, Cambridge developers who did it all during a pandemic, a conversation with Dana Bourland about her new book, Gray to Green Communities: A Call to Action on the Climate Crisis, and housers in New Mexico tackling community displacement head-on.
Hear again from some of the voices telling the stories of green achievements on the pod: Bryan Dove, Gerardo Brambila, Guy Kempe, Ray Demers, Walker Wells, Krista Eggers, Michelle Apigian, Jane Carbone, Dana Bourland, and Daniel Slavin. Thank you for listening – we’re excited to share these vital stories with you!
For episode show notes, visit https://urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast/season-one-recap/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast
2021 Year in Review
Somehow, another year has flown by! With a hopeful start offered by vaccines and a change in the presidential administration, we looked forward to some relief from the COVID challenges of 2020 and chances to reconnect and move forward. And while the COVID story is not yet finished, 2021 did have many good moments.
Sustainable Homeownership: Transforming Communities
New Mexico, a national vacation destination, has a serious housing shortage: over half of the workforce in Santa Fe commutes from out of town. Additionally, the desert state’s frequent droughts and high solar power potential create a strong case for climate resilient development. How can green building address housing affordability, community stability, and climate? This episode of Green in Action follows Homewise, a Santa-Fe-based non-profit housing organization, and learns how it grew to meet these challenges in New Mexico. Host Kimberly Vermeer spoke with Daniel Slavin, the Senior Director of Real Estate Development, and Carl Davis, Construction Manager for the Community Development Department, about how this Community Development Financial Institution’s commitment to sustainability guided their approach. Tune in for the story of Homewise’s organizational transformation from focusing on mortgage financing and education to building community wealth through developing housing and commercial space – and all of it informed by Homewise’s commitment to sustainability and climate resilience. This episode includes a close look at Homewise’s project El Camino Crossing in Santa Fe, (a case study from Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, Revised Edition), its Ruppe B. Drugstore commercial development in Albuquerque, and its anti-displacement efforts. For episode show notes, visit https://urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast/sustainable-homeownership-transforming-communities/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast
Not for the Birds: Deep Green at Finch
Join Host Kimberly Vermeer for the story of Finch, the largest new construction affordable housing development in Cambridge, MA in the last 40 years. This episode recounts how Jane Carbone (Director of Development, Homeowners Rehab) and Michelle Apigian (Associate Principal, Icon Architecture) reconciled the ambitious requirements of three leading certifications: Enterprise Green Communities, FitWel and Passive House US as they designed and built Finch. Through collaboration, the team was able to navigate the energy performance and tight building envelope required by Passive House, along with the openness and connectivity associated with FitWel. Not to mention – they built and opened Finch during the Coronavirus pandemic! This episode includes soundscapes from a tour of Finch and a jaunt at Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge’s water reservoir just across the street. For full episode show notes, visit www.urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast-home/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast
Minisode Deep Dive: Integrated Design in Enterprise Green Communities
Enterprise Green Communities staff Ray Demers, Senior Director of Design Leadership Initiatives, and Krista Eggers, Vice President of National Initiatives discuss how the Integrated Design category of the 2020 Criteria help deeply root a project within a community. Learn about how new tools like the Project Priorities Survey brings health, climate, and cultural resilience to the forefront of affordable housing design. For episode show notes, visit www.urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast-home/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast
Green in Action Podcast is Launched!
After over a year of planning, research, interviews, scripting, and editing, Green in Action is launched! Green in Action, or GinA, dives deep into the successes, innovations, and challenges of green leaders developing sustainable and equitable communities. Join host Kimberly Vermeer, President of Urban Habitat Initiatives, for stories about green leadership in affordable housing.
Net Zero Heroes
How do you transform from building your first green project, to becoming a green organization? In the second episode of the Green in Action podcast, host Kimberly Vermeer shares RUPCO’s journey toward becoming a leading sustainable affordable housing developer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Guests Guy Kempe, Vice President of Community Development, and Chuck Snyder, Assistant Vice President for Real Estate and Construction, recount RUPCO’s organizational growth through stories of their increasingly ambitious green developments. This episode explores how RUPCO is building sustainably in a rural context, meeting the challenges of creating green communities, providing housing and cultural spaces for artists, building net zero energy homes, and more. Learn more about RUPCO at https://rupco.org/. For episode show notes, visit www.urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast-home/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast
Net Zero: Making it Real for Residents
How do you make green features work for affordable housing residents? What do you do if they’re not working? Developer Mutual Housing California learned from experience about the importance of resident engagement at their ambitious net zero energy development, Mutual Housing at Spring Lake, in Woodland, California. In the first episode of the Green in Action podcast, host Kimberly Vermeer spoke with Bryan Dove, Director of Asset Management at Mutual Housing California, and Spring Lake residents and youth leaders Gerardo Brambila and Manuel Maravilla about how owner and residents learned together to make net zero real for residents. Learn more about MHC at http://www.mutualhousing.com/. For episode show notes, visit www.urbanhabitatinitiatives.com/podcast-home/. Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UHIPodcast