Forming Affordable Housing Student Group

Hello Wagnerites,

I hope the semester is treating everyone well. I am writing today to take a step that I've been considering for quite some time: beginning the process of forming a student group devoted to the practice and policy of affordable housing development. When I arrived at Wagner, I noticed that while there are groups that focus specifically on the environment or transportation policy, there is no such group for affordable housing, which is an area that I, along with many other Wagner students, feel is a fundamental aspect of addressing urban problems.

The central motivating idea behind the group is that access safe, decent, and affordable housing for all people is essential for growth and improvement on many levels. I want the group to focus on the relationship between housing and other areas of study, and to highlight the interconnectedness of housing and, well, just about everything else. Most of all, the group should create an interdisciplinary forum for students to investigate and discuss innovations in affordable housing policy and practice, in order to be better prepared upon graduation to address the issue of access to affordable housing for all people.

I imagine the group's activities to include a mix of panel discussions and trips to affordable housing development sites where innovative techniques are being used to create and preserve affordable housing. Some preliminary ideas include:
- environmentally sustainable affordable housing (with WEPA)
- making housing affordable with TOD (with WTA)
- affordable housing finance in today's economy (with WFS)
- housing the creative class - affordable housing for artists (with SNEAC)
- trips to, or maybe volunteer day at, Habitat for Humanity apartment buildings in NYC (with WVC)
- meet with resident leaders at UHAB low-income cooperative
- and of course, career panel in affordable housing

We even have a potential catchy acronym - WAHA (Wagner Affordable Housing Alliance).

This might seem like an odd time to be proposing such a group, so close to the end of the school year. But I think this provides an opportunity to get input from graduating students, make new student group board members aware while they begin to think about activities for next year, and have enough time to plan some activities in order to hit the ground running and promote the organization to new students in the fall.

What I'm looking for now are expressions of interest from other Wagner students. I want to get a core group of interested students together to:
- define the scope of the group and main area of focus (should it include elements of community development and economic development, which also appear to lack student groups?)
- draft the group charter and go through the process of official group formation
- begin to plan activities for the fall semester

So if you are interested, please email me at alb254@nyu.edu to let me know. I'll be making an email list for those who are interested in working to get the group started for next year, and I also welcome any input from graduating students and collaboration ideas from other student group leaders.

Thanks,

Alan Biller
MUP Candidate, 2011
NYU Wagner School of Public Service