Brick by Brick

Over time, property is almost guaranteed to go up in value. That’s a problem if you have a limited income and want to buy a house. Unless the house is in a community land trust (CLT) which retains ownership of the land and restricts the resale price of the home. CLTs are slowly gaining steam across the US and there is evidence this model is working.  

Interview guests: Civil rights activist who helped start the first US CLT Shirley Sherrod, Executive Director Atlanta Land Trust Amanda Rhein, Executive Director Yellow Springs Home, Inc. Emily Seibel and Renting Partnerships founder Margery Spinney. 

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Ask ten people what a thriving community looks like to them and you will likely get ten different answers. But usually at the top of the list is access to affordable housing and healthcare. With 2025 approaching, Brick by Brick went searching for answers, talking to adults and teens. Interact for Health reports on roadblocks and successes for Southwest Ohio. In Dayton plans are underway for a wellbeing index, and a Middletown neighborhood is already seeing improvements after the installation of a community garden.

Interview guests:
Interact for Health Vice President Ashlee Young, Founder of Dayton’s Collaboratory Peter Benkendorf and Middletown Connect Program Manager DeAnna Shores.

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Thousands of people in Cincinnati and Dayton either can’t find a home they can afford or can’t afford the one they live in. Both cities are taking steps to address the housing crisis. What are they doing and is it enough? Brick by Brick hosts two city leaders, from Dayton and Cincinnati, to talk through possible solutions. 

Interview Guests: Cincinnati Councilmember Jeff Cramerding and Dayton City Commissioner Shenise Turner-Sloss. 

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Modular construction, built inside a climate-controlled factory and then trucked to a site for assembly, has been slow to catch on in the U.S. It makes up less than 4-percent of the housing stock, compared to 15-percent in Japan and 45-percent in Scandinavia. Is it the answer to increase the housing supply? And what about other ideas like container homes? 

Interview guests: McKinsey & Company Senior Partner Jose Luis Blanco, Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein, Unibilt President Greg Barney and InnovaLab Ohio Chief Operating Officer Tamara Sullivan

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Old buildings make up an increasing share of the U.S. rental stock. Experts say a healthy supply of these aging apartments help cities and neighborhoods thrive. But fixing them up takes money and political will. Atlanta Developer Marjy Stagmeier, who wrote the book Blighted, renovates rundown apartments and has an education model she says others can replicate. 

Interview guest: Atlanta developer, landlord, author and affordable housing “solutionist,” Marjy Stagmeier. 

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Look around and you’ll see plenty of vacant buildings. Can they be turned into housing? Adaptive Reuse is on the rebound and estimates say ninety-percent of real estate development in the next decade will involve adaptive reuse, or repurposing buildings for something other than their intended use. Most cases involve offices or hotels but factories, warehouses, malls and schools are also undergoing transformations. We even found a bowling alley transformed into housing. 

Interview guests: CBRE Senior Associate Marianne Taylor, Executive Director UC Real Estate Center Carl Goertemoeller, and CEO G.F. Bailey Co., Tim Forbess

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Cities that want to add hundreds of housing units at a time are embracing the addition of large-scale apartments alongside other types of housing. These big multifamily housing projects are on track to break national records this year and add an estimated 2-million units by 2028. But will the current economic climate allow the building boom to continue and do communities want large-scale apartments in their neighborhoods?  

Interview guests: Yardi Matrix Manager of Business Intelligence Doug Ressler, Vice President of the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association Justin Seger, and Assistant Anderson Township Administrator Steve Sievers 

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Housing Choice Vouchers are portable subsidies that low-income families can use to lower their rents in the private market. But is this 50-year old solution to the housing crisis working as well as it should? The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and local entities like the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority and Greater Dayton Premier Management, which receive the federal funds from HUD to issue the vouchers, are trying to make changes but budgetary constraints are hampering their efforts. 

Interview guests: 

HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing Rich Monocchio, Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority CEO Greg Johnson and Greater Dayton Premier Management CEO Jennifer Heapy.

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Shane Phillips says we’re not building as much housing as we did in the 1960s when we had 120 million fewer people. He says the scarcity has caught up with us and offers up 54 ideas to tackle the housing crisis. In The Affordable City Phillips suggests everything from letting renters decide what they value to prioritizing the three S’s: Supply, Stability and Subsidy. 

Interview guest: Shane Phillips, urban planner, policy expert, podcast host and author of The Affordable City. 

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey

Cincinnati’s South Cumminsville is a largely low-income African American neighborhood along the once polluted Mill Creek. Seventy-percent of people live within a block of property with possible contamination and asthma rates among children are high. A nonprofit organization is helping  green it up through retrofits and near net-zero homes. Residents are hopeful and city leaders hope it can be replicated in other communities.

Interview guests: Executive Director of WIN Sister Barbara Busch, President of the South Cumminsville Community Council Derrik Feagin, VP Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio Ken Wilson and Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jan Michele Lemon-Kearney.

Brick by Brick Website

• Feedback Survey