Low(er) income housing shouldn't be the cheapest, up front cost, housing that is possible to erect. It probably can be at a higher density (number of units per acre/hectare) than other housing, but some area needs to be devoted to things like lawns, gardens, etc. Taking a life cycle approach might be the better approach, coupled with things like community needs. A little more money and planning up front could result in much lower operating costs (monetary and otherwise).
Citizens seem to be more aware of things like the need for low(er) income housing now. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the up-front cost of a "better" low income house with volunteer support is less than that for a cheap house built entirely be for-profit entities.
I'm not an expert on any of this. However, I have had more opportunity to think about this than I probably should have. No sense letting all that thinking go to waste.
What is low income housing? Hey, if low income housing is just about putting up the cheapest thing with four walls and a ceiling; just stick a cardboard box on a pallet. With the small size, you'll get lots of them per acre. Easy to clean up when you make being poor, illegal.
Low income families don't have much disposable income. For most people, low income people included, it is recommended that housing costs be below 30% of family income. If the total family income is low, 30% of that is very low. Housing costs include taxes and insurance, and often include utilities (I would suggest they always should). If we spend more in building a house, housing costs can be controlled by building on land that is inexpensive, by using land that will be taxed at low rate, and by being efficient in terms of utilities. You can see right away, that one thing done by almost all low income families is to not get insurance. If there is a disaster, they have no insurance to help. Helping probably falls back on the community at that point.
Utility costs really do need to be included, as they certainly can't be avoided. We want efficient use of all utilities. For lighting, we probably want (almost) all fluorescent (or possibly LED) lighting. Any non-fluorescent lighting, especially incancdescent, should have some kind of timer or monitoring attached to it. No sense running these inefficient lights if they aren't used or needed. Some varieties of LED lighting have expected lifetimes of almost 10 years, and they can be as efficient as fluorescent (depends on the driver circuitry).
If heat is needed inside the house, it should stay inside the house. So, insulation is a must. Ideally, the sort of insulation that leads one to statements like "the building can be heated by a single candle". This kind of building is sealed against unintended air flow to reduce heating costs and water migration into the walls (and insulation). In terms of water usage, aerating water can reduce the water flow rate of faucets. Reducing flow rate doesn't necessarily lead to reduced water usage. Front loading washers do tend to use less water for an equal (or better) job of cleaning. Making use of grey water can reduce water usage. Better soaps and detergents can lead to reduced water usage. They (low income people) are the ones that need high thermal efficiency! They are the ones who need high efficiency appliances, windows and lights. Let them use their meager salary on things like feeding and raising their families.
How does one define low income housing? The object of low income housing is to produce a house that is cheap and easy to maintain, and that is easy to erect/install. Being cheap to install isn't necessarily on that list.
Low income housing is meant to be housing available to people who have an income significantly less than the average. While I think some low income housing should be available for purchase, I suspect most of it will need to be rental property. I also suspect that a larger fraction of the low income residents will have children than are observed in the general population. While I think people of low income will not be surprised if the yard (front, back, sides) surrounding the house on a property is relatively small (and hence, a high density of units per acre/hectare), I do think that facilities like playgrounds and community gardens need to be incorporated into subdivision plans. Many of these low income families require day care, and building a day care facility adjacent to the playground makes sense. If nothing else, maintenance equipment for the playground can be housed at the daycare. Community gardens seem to be a newer idea, which have been tried in some places in the past and failed, but it seems like there are becoming many successful community gardens in recent times. Perhaps tying a community garden into a Farmer's Market is a reasonable thing?
It would not surprise me if other community needs were present/possible. Perhaps low income housing should do away with the idea that each house has its own laundry facilities, and a community laundry put in. If nothing else, it would be easier to plumb the community laundry to make use of laundry grey water for irrigation. Putting in a cogeneration plant to generate local electricity and heating?
It may be that the secret to making low(er) income housing work is to take a more global approach. Each unit needs to be slightly different in outside appearance to its immediate neighbhours, I would say the pattern of buildings along any road or path in the complex should be unique in some way. Some residents may not have jobs, perhaps the "community" has work that can be assigned to that resident instead of being contracted out. A resident working in the neighbourhood is likely more attentive than a contract employee just doing his/her job. This sort of idea may carry over to homeless people, especially during cold spells. Having a little extra room where beds can be set up is a good idea, having something for these people to do while they are waiting out the cold/rain/wind/etc. is probably a good thing.
Insurance is in some ways simple and in some ways complex. We anticipate that a situation may arise that will exceed our ability to pay. And so, we purchase the ability to pay some future financial obligation. Typically we are purchasing this from some commercial entity, who looks to make a profit on managing either a pool of money and/or a number of cash flows.
If we knew when the situation was going to occur and how much it would cost, we might be able to save money beforehand. In this case, insurance would not be needed, although we might need to be able to prove that we had made the plans to have the money available when it would be needed.
In other situations, insurance looks a little like a lottery. We suspect that at some time in the future, financial losses in a region will total some amount, but we aren't sure as to what loss will be attached to each family. So, the families of the area all contribute to a pool of money which will cover this loss in the future. It's entirely possible that when the loss occurs, that some families will have little or no loss, but all people in that area have chosen to help the ones who do suffer losses.
You can see that in both the above scenarios, that cash flows in one direction some of the time and the other direction the rest of the time. In particular, the reverse flow only occurs over a very short period of time.
What really happens with insurance, is that they pool very large numbers of people who may have a substantial financial need spread across a large area. The idea is that if the pooling is large enough, the two cash flows will be about the same at any given time. To guard against "temporary" situations where the outflow is much higher than the inflow, a reserve fund is needed. In a non-profit situation, the average out-flow is equal to average inflow minus some small amount to cover the costs of managing the cash flow (or, costs are another outflow). In a commercial (for profit) situation, the profits are also an outflow, needing an even larger average inflow to balance things. There is another cash flow involved due to the presence of the reserve fund. The reserve fund may be invested and so one would hope that the value of the investments appreciates. If the reserve fund appreciates, we have another inflow not related to the people being insured. This inflow may offset costs and/or profits.
Going to a non-profit situation doesn't necessarily reduce the difference between outflow and inflow. The reason being that it is more likely that a more capable management and investment of the reserve and cash flows in a for-profit situation.
Going to a government situation can have some impact, in that the need for a reserve fund may be reduced or even eliminated.
I guess how much thinking outside the box is applicable to the problem depends on where the low income housing problem is. In a metropolitan population of 1 million people or more, the amount of thinking outside the box should be a lot more than in a community of 50,000.
Energy efficiency is a concern to all of society. One of the better ideas to come out of engineering is the concept of cogeneration (Cogen). Other names are: Combined Heat and Power (CHP), Combined Heat, Power and Cooling (CHPC), and Distributed Energy (DE).
If we set up any kind of thermal plant to generate electricity, we are limited in just how much of the input fuel we can convert into electricity. We always end up with some amount of waste heat that we can't use, and is "wasted" into the environment. We can often do things with this waste heat, but the problem is that it isn't economical to ship "waste" heat any appreciable distance. Oh, through some engineering magic, we can change excess heat into cooling capacity.
The big idea with cogeneration, is that when we are setting something up, or redoing something, we consider all the energy needs: electricity, heat, cooling, etc. If we are lucky, we will find that there is some kind of heat engine which produces a ratio of work (usually electricity, but can includes things like pumping) to heat which is just what we need. So, we often have to make some kind of choice as to what heat engine to use, and then add on the ability to generate excess heat or electricity (usually just drawn from the electrical supplier) as needed.
For the most part, the best fuels seem to be gaseous (like natural gas). In a disaster situation (like an earthquake), supplies of this really good fuel can be limited or unavailable. Some heat engines can be changed from one fuel to another, but a lot of specialised knowledge is needed to do this. In a disaster, this probably isn't available. Other heat engines, notably the external combustion Stirling cycle, can burn just about anything. In a disaster, changing to whatever fuel is available is much simpler.
Consequently, (local) government should have some input as to what kind of heat engine might be considered, as they are often charged with disaster planning. Having a number of places (low(er) income housing communities) which can produce excess electricity in the event of a disaster might be worth having. Being able to burn just about anything (such as in a Stirling) might be extremely interesting.
Another consideration with cogeneration, or rather a possibility, is that we can plan to use any excess heat produced by the chosen heat engine.
In our cold climate, we could circulate excess heat to surrounding buildings to use in heating. In slightly warmer climates, excess heat might be diverted to warming sidewalks and roads. In spring and fall, we might want to divert excess heat to community gardens to help thaw the ground earlier, or prevent frost. In the heat of summer, we might want to cirulate coolant to surrounding buildings.
If we couple excess energy to things like the presence of homeless people, we might have localised manufacturing processes which can make use of heat from cogeneration. An easy "manufacturing" plant might be a local laundry. Not only could laundry for members of the low(er) income housing development be done, but also for surrounding areas. There are other uses of excess heat, continuous uses are harder to find than batch uses.
Any community has needs outside of housing. Children need a place to play. Youths need schooling. Both can use sports. Seniors often need medical care of some kind (possibly minimal). Special needs people have special needs (obviously :-)).
It may turn out that a low(er) income housing development, and its surrounding neighbourhood, has needs which lean in a certain direction. Local government, if they are responsible for the low(er) income housing can adjust things to best fit local needs.
Gardens seem to be something which communities (co-operatives) can do. Raised bed gardens are nice things for a number of reasons, one being that they are productive earlier in the year due to receiving more heat from the sun. Well, in the context of using cogeneration, a little extra heat can come from the cogeneration plant to help in both the spring and fall with cold temperatures.
The wet areas should be constructed under the assumption that water will be present. These wet areas are: the entry areas at exterior doorways, the bathroom(s), the room where the washer is, the utility room and possibly the kitchen. They should be designed with a definite slope from all points of the room towards a drain. The floor should be waterproof, so that any water which gets to the floor flows to the drain. This waterproof condition should extend partway up the walls, possibly only as high as the top of the baseboard (which is only a couple of inches.
High winds can damage houses by causing trees, poles, etc. to fall onto a house. The small branches at the top of a tree aren't likely to cause a problem, but if a strong section of the trunk hits the house, problems can result. Restricting trees to heights that are related to how far they are away from buildings is one way to minimise this.
People in low income housing probably can't afford a problem caused by a tree falling onto the house. This is one way to minimise any potential problem. It also has an effect on how fast fire travels across the low income housing development, should that problem arise.
In erecting a house, there are certain sizes of things which are more common than others. Designing the house to make maximum use of these common sizes will take advantage of economies of scale, reducing construction and renovation costs. Low operational costs will probably best be realised with nearly airtight houses with lots of thermal insulation. Fewer and/or smaller windows on north exposures are probably part of that. South and west windows need solar management to not overheat a house in the summer, but yet still allow maximum light (and its accompanying heating) in the winter.
Quality issues can raise costs. Having rain, snow or high winds enter a house during construction can have long lasting quality issues. Performing outside work on a house during inclement weather can have long lasting quality issues. In regions where insects or rot (fungus) can be a problem, using susceptible materials can lead to long lasting quality issues. All of these quality issues raise the long term cost of a structure.
Probably the best construction method would be to build/assemble as much of the house structure as is possible in a manufacturing (covered) environment in an assembly line, and then haul the semi-finished pieces to the final site for quick assembly (when weather permits). It might be necessary to assemble things inside some kind of tent if weather doesn't permit often enough. This pretty much rules out "stick built" housing, which is the norm around here.
People do like to have houses which are in some sense personalised or unique. Trying to sell one unit in a development where every unit is the same can be daunting. There is a tendency towards building houses that are more cheaply renovated than the usual (probably stick built) house. Things which resemble a "pole barn", where the roof is supported by an outer array of poles that carry essentially all of the load allows all interior walls to not be load bearing. If we add in some of the developments in putting utilities inside the house, we can end up with a house which is easily/cheaply renovated in the future. For initial construction, new owners might even get to help choose interior floor plans, but future renovations can certainly change floor plans. Structural panels filling in the pole structure would be an easy first approximation to the outside "skin" of the house.
Instead of poles, another idea might be to construct substantial walls which can easily carry the load of a roof without the need of interior load bearing walls. The Insulating Concrete Form (ICF) wall is an obvious candidate in our climate.
Disabled people appreciate wider doorways, as do people in the moving business. Make all doorways a standard size, preferably on the larger size of things. For interior use, it doesn't appear that any door is wide enough to fit in well with either 16 or 24 inch centers for studs in walls. But a person should look at appliances and furniture to see what size doorways are the best to use. A 36 inch door would be about 43 inches from outside of king stud to outside of king stud. This size of door in a 48 inch hallway (47 inches wide if finished with 1/2 inch drywall) probably just leaves enough room to trim the door. Having the door edges so close to the corners might need some new thought on door trim, especially if 5/8 inch Type X drywall is used.
Kitchens should be designed to use the most common sizes for the stove/range and refrigerator.
Interior surfaces are probably better off being 5/8 inch, type X drywall. The extra thickness (over 1/2 inch) allows for flatter walls and ceilings, and we get the benefit of much better fire resistance and sound absorbtion. In some places 5/8 inch actually comes in cheaper than 1/2 inch (installed), so local arguments about it being more expensive shouldn't be given as much credence as they might be. Wet areas (bathrooms, utility rooms and the sink area of kitchens) should probably be cement board of some kind. Cement board is available in sizes like 4' x 8', just like drywall. Areas of incidental excess moisture, like entrances and mud rooms, could consider the use of waxed drywall. The object of using highly water resistant cement board or somewhat water resistant waxed drywall instead of ordinary (in this case 5/8" Type X) drywall is to avoid the problems which WILL occur when water eventually does penetrate the surface and reach the underlying panel product. Cement board is the better option in places like showers. A waterproof membrane like Kerdi can be used with ordinary drywall.
Insulation. There are many different kinds of insulation available in many different kinds of materials. Some are of almost no help if fire is present, some are quite resistant, and others are almost not effected by fire. I would suggest the uneffected insulation would probably be the best for low income housing: we buy thermal insulation and get improved fire resistance as a bonus.
Exterior sheathing should probably be fibre cement board (such as from James Hardie) in all applications. It is water, fire and insect resistant. It is possible that higher firehazard places in a house, like the utility room or next to the oven or stove, should be finished in this product as well.
If rentals are owned by for-profit organisations, there is a distinct tendency to charge what the market will bear. Some potential owners may be willing to work with society, and only increase rents in cases where real costs increase, and then only enough to allow for the increased cost. Essentially a fixed rate of return. I suspect not-for-profit and non-profit would be more likely to follow that sort of scheme as well. One place I lived in, just off a city core, seen two price increases totalling almost 40%, within a year. With some residents scrounging the neighbourhood looking for bottles in order to afford rent, this kind of policy just creates more homeless people.
It is possible that some people who have higher incomes, may "want" to live in these neighbourhoods. Having "excessive" income shouldn't be grounds to dismiss their application to live in an available unit. Perhaps they would be willing to pay more in rent (forced donation)?
A person might want to take a chapter from Habitat for Humanity. If you move into a low income housing unit, you must provide N hours of sweat equity in return. Possibly on a per year basis. Certainly if an assembly line is set up somewhere to build parts for the low income housing effort; having extra labour in a dry, well lit, environment with good supervision is something which can work.
Low income housing is not cheap housing designed to hide low income people from being viewed by others in the community. It is good housing, which is cheap to live in. It doesn't waste heat, electricity or water. If an accident like a fire, tornado, hurricane, hail or lightning strike happens, the consequences should be minimal. In part, this is due to the increased likelihood that people living in low income housing will not have (adequate) insurance.
Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) houses can withstand the largest hurricanes (Category 5). While the outside insulation can burn off, the interior of the house should be reasonably safe in many fire instances. Probably safer than the average stick built house (I have no data on this). Insulating with a fire-resistant thermal insulation just increases this fire resistance. Fibre cement siding increases the fire resistance of a structure, and is resistant to mold, water damage and insects.
Producing a neighbourhood which is cheap to run, well built, and probably cheap to repair in any likely disaster makes good economic sense. Placing infrastructure there like multi-fuel cogeneration only adds to how this low income housing fits into the community.