In exploring the intersection of homelessness and public space, I have sometimes heard comments like, “Why should we build more parks, if they’re just going to be overrun by the homeless?”
This was a challenging sentiment the first time I heard it, but it became only more so the third, fourth and fifth times it was expressed in public forums. What this idea revealed to me was that the forces of civic distrust that we see playing out on the national level are also finding purchase in localities across America, and left me with the question: can we rebuild those bonds of belief in a shared, mutually-beneficial purpose?
Which is why I had to talk to today’s guests: Suzanne Nienaber is the Partnerships Director with the Center for Active Design, which recently published the groundbreaking Assembly Civic Design Guidelines that suggests ten strategies for rebuilding civic trust. Joining Suzanne today to discuss how these ideas are playing out in San Francisco are Lena Miller and Cassie Hoeprich. Lena is the Founder and Executive Director Hunter’s Point Family and Director of the Bay Shore Navigation Center in San Francisco, and Cassie is a Strategist with Mayor London Breed’s Fix-It Team.
On the HomeLandLab website, you can see images of some of the work of each of today’s guests, including the Civic Center Commons that Cassie and Lena discuss, as well as some of the key findings from Assembly that Suzanne shares.
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In exploring the intersection of homelessness and public space, I have sometimes heard comments like, “Why should we build more parks, if they’re just going to be overrun by the homeless?”
This was a challenging sentiment the first time I heard it, but it became only more so the third, fourth and fifth times it was expressed in public forums. What this idea revealed to me was that the forces of civic distrust that we see playing out on the national level are also finding purchase in localities across America, and left me with the question: can we rebuild those bonds of belief in a shared, mutually-beneficial purpose?
Which is why I had to talk to today’s guests: Suzanne Nienaber is the Partnerships Director with the Center for Active Design, which recently published the groundbreaking Assembly Civic Design Guidelines that suggests ten strategies for rebuilding civic trust. Joining Suzanne today to discuss how these ideas are playing out in San Francisco are Lena Miller and Cassie Hoeprich. Lena is the Founder and Executive Director Hunter’s Point Family and Director of the Bay Shore Navigation Center in San Francisco, and Cassie is a Strategist with Mayor London Breed’s Fix-It Team.
On the HomeLandLab website, you can see images of some of the work of each of today’s guests, including the Civic Center Commons that Cassie and Lena discuss, as well as some of the key findings from Assembly that Suzanne shares.
In exploring the intersection of homelessness and public space, I have sometimes heard comments like, “Why should we build more parks, if they’re just going to be overrun by the homeless?”
This was a challenging sentiment the first time I heard it, but it became only more so the third, fourth and fifth times it was expressed in public forums. What this idea revealed to me was that the forces of civic distrust that we see playing out on the national level are also finding purchase in localities across America, and left me with the question: can we rebuild those bonds of belief in a shared, mutually-beneficial purpose?
Which is why I had to talk to today’s guests: Suzanne Nienaber is the Partnerships Director with the Center for Active Design, which recently published the groundbreaking Assembly Civic Design Guidelines that suggests ten strategies for rebuilding civic trust. Joining Suzanne today to discuss how these ideas are playing out in San Francisco are Lena Miller and Cassie Hoeprich. Lena is the Founder and Executive Director Hunter’s Point Family and Director of the Bay Shore Navigation Center in San Francisco, and Cassie is a Strategist with Mayor London Breed’s Fix-It Team.
On the HomeLandLab website, you can see images of some of the work of each of today’s guests, including the Civic Center Commons that Cassie and Lena discuss, as well as some of the key findings from Assembly that Suzanne shares.
Designers Sara Zewde and Sloan Dawson were startled by the differences in how homelessness was manifest in West Coast cities, including their new home in Seattle, compared to cities in the east. Surprised and disquieted by how desensitized so many residents seemed to be and how commonplace visible homelessness had become, they sought to find a creative outlet to respond to the people they saw struggling to survive. In speaking with Sara and Sloan, I started our conversation by asking, as East Coast transplants, the what did you notice about homelessness that was different on the West Coast.
One of the ways that housing insecurity is arriving in cities is through the growth of people who are turning to vehicular living as an affordable housing arrangement in the urban context. Whether sleeping in recreational vehicles or simply in their own cars, people who have been priced out of traditional housing stock are now turning to the public space of the right of way to find a safe space to sleep. Yet with the growth of this type of housing, municipalities are finding the need to develop new policy tools to address the safety, security and concerns about how people are using this public resource. To discuss this phenomenon, I sat down with Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s tenure has seen the issue of vehicular housing or vehicular living grow, and, recognizing the limitations of current policies, Councilmember O’Brien has proposed draft legislation to try a new approach in Seattle.
Sometimes an interview comes together through serendipity. While in Los Angeles for a concert, a friend shared an in-depth article about the history of LA’s housing stock called Forbidden City: How Los Angeles Banned Some of its Most Popular Buildings by Mark Vallianatos, one of the co- founders and planning director for of Abundant Housing LA and a member of the urban change think tank LA Plus. Quickly I reached out to Mark to see if he would be able to get together on short notice, which is how I found myself sitting on a bench in one of Los Angeles’ Union Station’s courtyard, talking with Mark while the business of the station played out in the background. While the story that Mark lays out here is about Los Angeles, its broad strokes have played out in cities across the united states. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
There is a level of opacity surrounding so much related to homelessness, and perhaps no area is more shrouded and misunderstood than the laws that guide where and when unhoused people can eat, sleep, and live in public spaces. To get one perspective about where the law and homelessness intersect, I recently sat down with Breanne Schuster of the ACLU of Washington to speak about what laws guide municipal responses to homelessness and how the ACLU works with cities to ensure those laws are adhered to.
In every community, one of the city agencies most impacted by homelessness are parks departments. For people who don’t have anywhere else to go, parks become refuges of safety within the city, but the impacts of homelessness can also erode the public’s perception of parks as a public place that is safe and welcoming to everyone in the community. To understand how the City of Denver balances these competing perspectives on homelessness, I sat down with Scott Gilmore, Denver’s Deputy Executive Director of Parks and Planning to hear how his agency is addressing the homelessness crisis, and to begin, I started by asking Scott to introduce me to Denver’s park system.
In exploring the intersection of homelessness and public space, I have sometimes heard comments like, “Why should we build more parks, if they’re just going to be overrun by the homeless?”
This was a challenging sentiment the first time I heard it, but it became only more so the third, fourth and fifth times it was expressed in public forums. What this idea revealed to me was that the forces of civic distrust that we see playing out on the national level are also finding purchase in localities across America, and left me with the question: can we rebuild those bonds of belief in a shared, mutually-beneficial purpose?
Which is why I had to talk to today’s guests: Suzanne Nienaber is the Partnerships Director with the Center for Active Design, which recently published the groundbreaking Assembly Civic Design Guidelines that suggests ten strategies for rebuilding civic trust. Joining Suzanne today to discuss how these ideas are playing out in San Francisco are Lena Miller and Cassie Hoeprich. Lena is the Founder and Executive Director Hunter’s Point Family and Director of the Bay Shore Navigation Center in San Francisco, and Cassie is a Strategist with Mayor London Breed’s Fix-It Team.
On the HomeLandLab website, you can see images of some of the work of each of today’s guests, including the Civic Center Commons that Cassie and Lena discuss, as well as some of the key findings from Assembly that Suzanne shares.
