FAQs

What is affordable housing?
Affordable Housing: Housing that does not cost more than 30% of an individual or family’s total income to rent or own.
What is Area Median Income (AMI)?
Area Median Income (AMI): The median income for a family of four.
What does cost-burdened mean?
Cost-burdened: Spending more than 30% of your household income on housing (mortgage or rent).
What is Workforce Housing?
Workforce Housing: Housing for essential service employees (young professionals, teachers, police officers, fire fighters, emergency medical technicians, government employees, etc.) that allows for higher income.
What is Mixed-Income Housing?
Mixed-Income Housing: Pretty much what it sounds like – housing that has a mix of income levels living in the same building.
What is Inclusionary Zoning?
Inclusionary Zoning: An ordinance that a certain percentage of units in any new construction MUST be affordable housing units
What is Transit-Oriented Development?
Transit-Oriented Development: Residential or commercial area designed to make public transportation easily accessible
What is Mixed-Use Development?
Pedestrian-friendly development that blends two or more residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, community and/or industrial uses.
What is meant by Social Determinants of Health?
Conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Learn More
What is meant by Built Environment?
The man-made structures, features, and facilities viewed collectively as an environment in which people live and work. The built environment influences a person’s level of physical activity. For example, inaccessible or nonexistent sidewalks and bicycle or walking paths contribute to sedentary habits. These habits lead to poor health outcomes such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer.
What is Holistic Housing?
Housing that focuses not just on the physical structures but on environmental sustainability, inclusivity, accessibility, affordability and existing cultural qualities.

What is meant by Human Centered Design?
An approach to problem solving, that develops solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. It aims to make housing usable and useful by focusing on the resident, their needs and requirements, and by applying human factors/ergonomics, usability knowledge, and techniques. This approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.