Dear Darin and other Changemakers,
Thank you very much for presenting your inspiring initiative that provides affordable housing through a ýwin-winý mechanism benefiting both land owners and slum dwellers. It seems that one of the core insights of your model is to provide choice and adapted housing to low-income communities, which addresses some issues faced by other land sharing/ swapping mechanisms. I would be interested to learn more about this and find out how you identify and organize slum dwellers to participate in the exchange.
A revolution should be something that we all have in mind given that the opportunity is as big as the issue of millions of individuals living in dilapidated and unsecured dwellings or being deprived from critical goods and services. How could an organization interested in housing replicate your model in other parts of the world? Are there specific requirements such as the land price/ house price ratio (i.e. being adequate in cities where land is very expensive) or local policies?
With regards to the economics, does your initiative include innovations in design or construction materials to bring the cost of the new buildings down, or does it rely on other type of contribution from the communities such as ýsweat equityý? There may be interesting synergies with other initiativesý.
What are some other questions or reflections that are prompted by this idea - or any of the others? Would other project leaders who have entered the competition like to share experiences vis-ý-vis the challenges of developing solutions for low-income communities that are appropriate, cost-effective and scalable?
Best wishes,
Stephanie
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