Affordable Housing Institute

Affordable housing requires ongoing intervention and collaboration between:

1. Governments, that often want to provide affordable housing for their citizens, but either does not have the resources or do not know how to provide quality housing efficiently;
2. Real estate developers, that may know how to build affordable housing, but don't know how to yield good returns by doing it;
3. Banks, that know how to finance market-rate homes, but not affordable ones;
4. NGOs, that provide housing to underserved populations, but don't know how to do it in a way that is sustainable both in implementation (we can't give everyone a house) and in practice (gifting a house doesn't mean that the people who receive it will be able to maintain or keep it).

However, in many housing systems around the world, these processes are often disjointed and broken. The field urgently needs more research, funding, and innovation.

At AHI, we believe in fixing these systems. We believe in turning slums into assets, and we are committed to transforming the lives of the global urban poor.

AHI tackles housing challenges with the following approach:

We understand housing through an ecosystem lens...

• We approach housing as a complex ecosystem in which there are two value chains: one each on the supply and demand side. People are housed when the output of the supply side (a physical home) meets the output of the demand side (a loan).

• Analyzing these value chains at a country or city level allows us to pinpoint where there are weaknesses and opportunities, and develop targeted solutions that address the total disabling environment.

We harness global best practices to design locally tailored products...

• We have worked in over 25 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. We speak Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Kreyol, Spanish, Hindi, and Korean, among others. We tap into a wide network of on-the-ground associates and retain connections to housing organizations around the world.

• With every project, we look to our international housing experiences for guidance and insight, but expertly tailor our products to the country, municipality, or neighborhood context.

We combine a diversity of technical perspectives and skills...

• Housing, unlike other basic needs, is a highly technical product. Understanding housing means understanding how a house is designed, built, financed, regulated, and subsidized.

• That is why the AHI team is composed of designers, architects, urban planners, real estate developers, development economists, public servants, and investment bankers. We understand housing from start to finish, and we speak the lingo of each discipline with ease. We possess the best of global public and private sector experience in policy, finance, and design. Overall, we work together to provide comprehensive solutions to our clients' needs and the field's most pressing issues.

Over the past decade, AHI has consulted for a diverse set of clients in the housing space: governments, lenders, developers, development finance institutions, philanthropies, and community organizations.

We work with each client to fully understand their needs, develop a scope of work, and continually refine outputs throughout the project. A team of senior technical experts, project managers, and analysts tackle each project with a high level of attention and care, and in the process, seeks to make highly technical concepts clear and understandable.

Though we are constantly exploring new business areas, we are particularly adept at delivering the following services:

• Providing policy analyses and recommendations to national and municipal government entities;
• Engineering new financial products, particularly housing improvement loans;
• Creating and implementing business and capitalization plans;
• Researching housing markets and opportunities;
• Guiding emerging cities in tapping capital markets funding for long-term infrastructure projects (AHI Capital Markets).

A global reputation starts with internally defining clear brand identity, value, and message. One of the struggles of many small organizations—like AHI—is the desire to want to be everything: research institute, consulting firm, and impact investor. As a small organization, we accept nearly all prospective clients, even when projects may not align so well with our mission, our staffing resources, or our core specialty: solving complex housing problems in developing countries. This “existential angst” makes it difficult for both prospective clients as well as staff to understand who AHI is and what we excel at. Going forward, AHI will focus on developing a clear and coherent brand identity that support the message that “AHI is a boutique consulting firm that solves challenging housing-related problems in developing countries.”

Hence, AHI has begun to successfully build a clear identity as a boutique impact consulting firm that solves challenging housing-relating problems in developing country contexts by consistently selecting middle-market and institutional clients who focus on impact delivery. We have updated our website, brochure, and marketing material to deliver this message consistently and clearly across mediums.

Between speaking engagements, high-profile client work (e.g. World Bank, IFC), and other materials, we are sought out for conferences, workshops, interviews, articles, and the like. With this, our challenges are twofold:

• Converting visibility into impact. Visibility should either enable obtainment of impact-generating work, facilitate spreading of thought leadership to inspire trickle-effect impact, or create synergies with other impact-oriented entities which lead to future partnerships.
• Limiting visibility to situations that further revenue-related resources. Parallel to the above idea, visibility should also double as a marketing and business development tool – otherwise, the lost time would fail to bring both impact and revenue.

Additional AHI activities include...

Course Development and Teaching:

• Harvard Business School, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Graduate School of Design (2008-Present)
• American University of Cairo School of Business - Real Estate Executive Development Program (2011, 2012)
• MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning - Independent Activities Period, Cambridge (2005, 2009)
• University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, Office of Executive Programs - Adjunct Faculty (2000-2008)
• Boulder Institute of Microfinance, Torino, Italy (2008)
• Fannie Mae International Housing Finance Services (IHFS) Group, Washington D.C. (2001-2003)

Books:

• And Freeman, Gus. Proceedings of the Gulf Research Meeting Housing Workshop. Gerlach Press. Working draft.
• And Erdik, Mustafa. Urban Disaster Risk and Urban Renewal Strategies: Proceedings of the AHI-Bogazici Symposium. Affordable Housing Institute 2011.