Housing After Dark

Alex Schafran

5.0from 3 ratings

Books guestsus

44Podcast AuthorityScore out of 100 · How it is scored

22
Episodes: 4
Transcribed: 3
Ratings: 2023
First episode

About Housing After Dark

Housing is too expensive. Our communities are too unequal and too segregated. We’re not even remotely prepared for climate change, which is already here. Passionate people and organizations come up with smart, workable answers to these problems. But a diverse set of entrenched political divides keep us from realizing those solutions. Join practitioner, researcher and writer Alex Schafran once a month for the latest on the past, present and future of housing, planning and urban development. Guests include housing practitioners, researchers, elected officials and more. Let’s all work together towards a better housed California. https://alexschafran.substack.com/ alexschafran.substack.com (https://alexschafran.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher: Alex Schafran
Category: government · news
Language: en
Explicit: No
First episode: 7 Mar 2023
Latest episode: 30 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS feed

Latest episodes

4 of 22 episodes have a transcript.

30 Sept 2025TRANSCRIPT
Housing After Dark Episode 24: CalAIM in Action - When Health Meets Housing
Today’s episode is one that goes back to a core motivation for starting this podcast in the first place. One of the reasons I love housing is because it is so complex. Never in a million years could someone be a true expert on the full housing system, in part because there will always be new wrinkles. This doesn’t mean it can’t be a goal to learn as much as possible about all the corners of housing, and this podcast has always been about giving me as the host and you as the listener a chance to dig deeper into a part of housing you may be aware of but don’t fully grasp. Our focus here is on the growing connection between the health system and housing, in particular, creative ways in which housing and social services agencies are using healthcare dollars and programs to provide housing services and improve housing outcomes. This isn’t just housing as healthcare. It’s a recognition by the healthcare system of how our systems can and must become better linked. My guests today are two leaders from the North Bay whose organizations have helped pushed this work forward. Chris Cabral is the CEO of COTS, an organization that has worked with people facing homelessness in Sonoma County for more than 35 years. Erin Hawkins is the VP of Programs for Community Action Marin, an organization who has been working to support often invisible low income people in one of the wealthiest communities in America since the Johnson Administration. It’s an honor to have them both here on the show, and to reflect on their work in a part of the Bay Area that means so much to me personally. I hope you enjoy today’s show, which also marks the end of the brilliant tenure of Tina Lee as our editor and my partner in crime on this podcast. After 24 fantastic episodes, we’re going to take a pause for a bit to figure out a pathway to a more sustainable podcast future and focus in the meantime on getting words on paper the old fashioned way. Thanks for tuning in, and thanks to all of you who’ve subscribed, paid money, given likes or otherwise supported the show. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe (https://alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
23 Aug 2025
Housing After Dark Episode 23: A Report Out From the International Social Housing Festival
Of course all of our episodes are special, but this one is extra meaningful because our amazing editor and producer Tina Lee is stepping out from behind the mic for the first time, joining us in a new role as special correspondent. Tina was an attendee earlier this summer at the big social housing festival in Dublin, Ireland, hobnobbing with an international array of interesting people with generally interesting ideas about housing, including a few Housing After Dark alumni. Today, we are digging into what she saw and heard at the festival, including the differences between Americans and everyone else when it comes to social housing talk. If you're new to the social housing world, check out some of our archives on this site (https://alexschafran.substack.com/archive), including recordings done (https://alexschafran.substack.com/p/podcast-social-housing) at the Institute for Metropolitan Studies at San Jose State University, where I'm a visiting scholar. If you're a long time social housing nerd, or have recently been to Vienna or Singapore or France or Denmark, or so many other places that do housing better than we do, and you're ready to do things differently. I hope this episode helps nudge the process along. Social Housing, for me, is two things, full stop. It is shorthand for a better housing system. It’s ideal for folks who know only a systemic approach will work and are committed to actually doing change across the full housing system, and it's a call to Americans to recognize that other countries do housing better and that we can learn from elsewhere, especially if we're willing to adapt things to our crazy, sprawling, hyper diverse and historically messed up land where we have no choice but to adapt to the facts on the ground. Thanks, as always, to our listeners and subscribers. This podcast also marks the beginning of the end of Tina's tenure as editor, and I just want to thank her, from the bottom of my heart, for making this podcast possible. There would be no Housing After Dark without her. As Tina moves on, it's also transition time here at the podcast. In order to continue, Schafran Strategies needs a partner. If you or your org or company can see a future in which you have a great housing podcast as part of your offering to the housing world, hit me up, and let's see if we can't do something valuable and amazing for the housing community together. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe (https://alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
10 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
Housing After Dark Episode 21: Magda Maaoui on Lessons for American Housers: Why France and the US are More Similar Than We Think
Magda Maaoui, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, explores the surprising similarities between French and American housing systems and shares valuable lessons for American housers in this interview with host Alex Schafran.

Inside a recent episode