Giving Compass' Take:

• Fast Company highlights a new startup called PadSplit, that instead of trying to build new affordable housing, they are converting existing homes into multiple single-room units to help with this crisis. 

• How can donors help support and fund programs like this along with similar "single room occupancy" housing?

• Here's an article on building affordable housing for a stronger community. 

Affordable housing is expensive to build–and that means construction is happening far too slowly to meet demand. In Atlanta, a startup called PadSplit is adding new affordable units more quickly by reusing rooms in single-family homes instead.

“I saw a misalignment of incentives throughout the industry,” says Atticus LeBlanc, the founder of PadSplit, who has been an affordable housing investor and developer in Atlanta for more than a decade. To get a subsidy to build affordable housing, for example, developers in the city have to meet a minimum size requirement of 750 square feet for a one bedroom apartment, “whereas we know we can house people comfortably in 250 square feet,” he says. That requirement for developers, among others, makes the cost go up. Like other construction projects, new affordable housing also has to go through a lengthy planning process and takes time to get financing.

Read the full article about innovative ways to approach affordable housing by Adele Peters at Fast Company.