Phius and Housing Equity: We Can Do This

What do we mean when we say equity in housing? Is it providing a place for all unhoused populations to live? Is it creating enough resources so that everyone has housing security, no matter their class, race, or age? What about high quality housing?

Finch Cambridge, an affordable housing project that won Best Overall Project in Phius’ 2020 Design Competion.

Homes and apartments built to the Phius standard are airtight, energy efficient, super insulated, and low maintenance. They are comfortable, quiet, and provide a quality of life. These dwellings provide hard-to-find clean, high quality air, because the ventilation brings in fresh, filtered air and exhausts the stale air, something the coronavirus pandemic has shown is essential to mitigate spread of the virus. Better indoor air quality produces better health outcomes for people with chronic conditions like asthma.

Does your definition of housing equity include the quality of housing? It does for Phius.

Comfortable, well-built, and sustainable homes do not have to be for only the upper class. This is a policy issue. The cities and states of our country owe it to low-income citizens to provide them with a home that keeps them safe, does not strain their finances, and improves their quality of life. Affordable multifamily passive housing has proven time and again that it can be achieved at the same cost as a less sustainable or less reliable home. Single-family homes are being delivered at costs that range from 5 to 10 percent more than conventional buildings. Everyone should live in housing that is reliable and resilient.

Affordable housing, how do we define that? Usually it means housing built for lower-income individuals and families, those on a tight budget. It should also mean housing that is affordable to maintain and to heat or cool. It is not affordable if the occupants have to make a choice between paying for food and paying their utility bills. Multifamily buildings built to the Phius standard use 40-60% less energy than a comparable building built to code, resulting in similar reductions to utility bills.

Homes built to the Phius standard are resilient and reliable. In 2021, the state of Texas froze when its power grid failed. The information from the passive houses we have from Texas show that the temperatures in the building never came close to freezing. Families would have been able to stay in their home and no pipes would have burst, saving hundreds if not thousands of dollars in repairs and replacement.

Imagine living in a home that maintains its temperature no matter the season outside; that weathers severe temperature swings, and costs you less money to live in. Did you feel your stress levels lower just a bit? Don’t your children deserve to live like that? Doesn’t everyone’s child deserve that? How about your parents too?

The infrastructure can be created. This country can do it for its people.

How do we do this? Reach out to your city council, to the people who represent you on the most local level, to educate them about the benefits of passive building to the community.

Many states, like Massachusetts and New York, already have incentives for energy efficient homes. In Pennsylvania, 7 Phius certified projects, representing over 350 units of affordable housing, have been built and shown to be cost-effective. Incentives in Massachusetts have led to the construction of 8 Phius low-income projects with almost 550 units. These projects have come in at between 1.5% and 2.8% above building code. Massachusetts, building on this success, just passed a progressive energy bill that will push it’s already progressive buildings sector forward.

The change is possible and we all deserve it, including those who never even seem to get a piece of the pie.