Making Affordable Housing Happen: Joel presents at GrowSmart RI’s ‘Power of Place Summit’
Pushing through regulatory barriers to create missing middle housing options New England communities need
At GrowSmart RI’s June summit, Joel walked an engaged crowd of housing agencies, local developers, and municipal representatives from across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut through a few of Union Studio’s missing middle housing projects that encountered real obstacles. Ivy Place in East Providence: 16 years from demolition to completion, 227 people applying for 13 units. Portsmouth: approved, waiting on financing. Cape Cod: nearly a decade of public education and policy work. Along the way, lessons on navigating zoning, building community trust, and pushing through regulatory barriers emerged.
At the heart of his presentation was a story about a resident in one of Union Studio’s projects—someone who was aging out of foster care and moved into one of the designated units for young adults in that transition. He had designed the housing but had never met her. When The Residences at Riverside Square opened, the Providence Journal published her story.
There’s a disconnect at the heart of affordable housing work: the people who show up to public meetings are rarely the people whose lives actually change because of it. The future residents—those most impacted by a project—rarely get a seat at the table to advocate for what they need.
Watch the full presentation to hear insights on housing that actually gets built—and the people it serves.
Union Senior Associate Joel VanderWeele shared a story about a resident in one of our projects, someone he worked to house for three years but had never actually met. The opening line of her story: “she was unpacking for the first time in her life.” That’s who this work is for.
Joel spoke about a disconnect at the heart of affordable housing work: the people who show up to public meetings are rarely the people whose lives actually change because of it. The people most impacted by a project, its future residents, rarely get a seat at the table to advocate for what they need.