Affordable Housing Institute

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Affordable Housing Institute AHI is a global impact consultancy specializing in affordable housing policy and finance.

At AHI, we design, research, invest, and teach in service of the mission to increase global access to affordable housing. We partner with like-minded organizations that want to unlock the potential of emerging cities through housing. Overall, our activities fall under three primary realms: Consulting, Research and Innovation, and Impact Investing

AHI’s Hannah Leung will be at the Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting next week in Miami, Florida!This year’s meeting will...
10/19/2026

AHI’s Hannah Leung will be at the Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting next week in Miami, Florida!

This year’s meeting will explore capital markets and investment, emerging trends and global perspectives, resilience and innovation, and urban transformation and the future of cities.

Reach out if you’ll be there - we’d love to connect.

Last week was one for the books 🎉As an international team distributed across four countries, we're used to Zoom calls an...
10/15/2026

Last week was one for the books 🎉

As an international team distributed across four countries, we're used to Zoom calls and time zone math. But there's nothing quite like seeing each other in person!

Our entire team gathered in Boston for our annual retreat to put our heads together on strategic planning and forward thinking, reflecting on our impact ahead of our upcoming 25th anniversary, the use of AI in our sector, and of course, a Boston duck boat tour.

Across many emerging markets where AHI has worked over the years – including countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Afr...
10/14/2026

Across many emerging markets where AHI has worked over the years – including countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia – rental housing exists but is often informal, not professionally managed, and not formally adopted by government as a deliberate policy to address diverse housing needs.

Governments from most of these regions have historically prioritized housing policies and programs that promote homeownership rather than supporting a broader range of tenure options. While this may align with prevailing cultural preferences, and can therefore generate political support, it often fails to address the needs of lower-income households and other segments of the population for whom rental housing, and in particular social and/or affordable rental housing, may provide a more appropriate, affordable, and flexible solution to their housing needs.

In social rental housing, the hard part usually isn't construction, it's what comes after.

Read more from AHI’s Sara Veronesi, Margaux Morenas, and Santiago Mendía: https://ow.ly/ZtVK50ZOr5l

Roughly one-third of the global urban population lives in rental housing, as home ownership has become increasingly inac...
10/13/2026

Roughly one-third of the global urban population lives in rental housing, as home ownership has become increasingly inaccessible for many. Yet social and rental housing is often low quality and tenants can face significant housing instability. At AHI, our work developing policy recommendations, financial models, and more in support of social and rental housing spans the globe, from Chile to Cameroon, Ukraine to the Maldives.

At the World Urban Forum workshop on social rental housing earlier this year, we emphasized that because rental housing is just as exposed to market forces as for-sale housing, governments have a critical role to play as facilitators and market enablers, helping to protect affordability while creating the conditions for responsible private-sector participation. We also highlighted that delivering sustainable social rental housing at scale requires both long-term capital and strong operational capacity. While in many emerging economies these are not yet fully in place and will take time to develop, there is ample opportunity to begin pioneering new models that are designed and adapted for particular rental housing ecosystems.

Learn about how we’re improving access to and enabling the conditions for social and rental housing around the world: https://ow.ly/Irg350ZNZw9

Bridging the misalignment between developers and investors requires adjustments on both sides. The gap is not simply fin...
10/07/2026

Bridging the misalignment between developers and investors requires adjustments on both sides. The gap is not simply financial; it is also structural, institutional, and often cultural. Developers and investors operate under different constraints, time horizons, and accountability frameworks. Narrowing this divide requires greater mutual understanding, better sequencing of capital, and more deliberate structuring of risk. If done well, this alignment can unlock more blended finance and enable affordable housing to scale beyond isolated transactions into sustainable market systems.

Read more from AHI’s Davina Wood and Margaux Morenas: https://ow.ly/syFL50ZNZkv

A critical challenge in scaling affordable housing investment in Africa is the structural misalignment between investors...
10/06/2026

A critical challenge in scaling affordable housing investment in Africa is the structural misalignment between investors and developers. Investors (particularly DFIs and institutional lenders) tend to prioritize project-level transactions that minimize collateral risk, favor senior secured debt positions, and deploy relatively large ticket sizes with defined exit pathways, frequently denominated in hard currency.

Developers, by contrast, typically need early-stage equity or quasi-equity to build balance sheets, grow pipelines, and establish track records before they can prudently absorb additional leverage. They also tend to require smaller ticket sizes, flexible capital structures, and local-currency financing aligned with domestic revenue streams.

Blended finance structures combining concessional capital, credit enhancement, and platform-level investment can help bridge the gaps between investors and developers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Learn more about our work advising DFIs on investment scoping and strategy in sub-Saharan Africa: https://ow.ly/2C2150ZNYNP

Affordable housing is increasingly developed or self-built in locations exposed to flooding, extreme heat, landslides, w...
10/01/2026

Affordable housing is increasingly developed or self-built in locations exposed to flooding, extreme heat, landslides, water stress, and seismic risk. These vulnerabilities are not isolated—they are embedded in how land is allocated, how infrastructure is financed, how housing is constructed, and how regulatory systems operate.

Fragmented responses—where environmental safeguards, urban planning, housing finance, and construction practices operate independently—cannot reduce systemic risk. Climate resilience must be integrated across the housing value chain, from land selection and infrastructure planning to finance and long-term asset management.

The urgency is clear: if climate risk alongside increasing urbanization is not addressed within housing systems today, future affordability gaps will widen, infrastructure losses will escalate, and vulnerable households will bear the highest costs.

Read more from AHI’s Shweta Sundar: https://ow.ly/PFk350ZO33E

Housing is both a major driver of and is highly vulnerable to climate change. Negative impacts from housing construction...
09/30/2026

Housing is both a major driver of and is highly vulnerable to climate change. Negative impacts from housing construction, fossil fuel-dependent heating and cooling systems, and urban sprawl increasing reliance on cars all significantly increase carbon emissions, while more frequent and extreme natural disasters are damaging or destroying housing at an alarming rate. Lower income communities face higher risks of exposure to climate hazards, poor housing quality, and energy insecurity.

At AHI, we apply a green construction and climate resilience lens across the housing value chain to ensure that housing is sustainable, resilient, and adaptable to climate change. Integrating climate-smart principles from land selection and infrastructure planning to design, construction, and long-term management reduces lifecycle costs, lowers carbon emissions, and strengthens resilience to climate shocks such as flooding, heat stress, and resource scarcity.

By mapping climate impact against investor influence, we ensure our approach is targeted, pragmatic, and catalytic - turning both policy and capital into drivers of sustainable, climate-resilient affordable housing.

Learn about how we incorporate climate resilience strategies into housing policy, finance, and PPPs around the world: https://ow.ly/8StA50ZNXo1

At AHI, we’ve been leading with innovative ideas and approaches to systems change in affordable housing for nearly 25 ye...
09/29/2026

At AHI, we’ve been leading with innovative ideas and approaches to systems change in affordable housing for nearly 25 years. With our proprietary Housing Value Chain (HVC) framework at the core - now an industry standard adopted worldwide - we design practical interventions that impact the entire ecosystem, transforming housing markets, strengthening resilience, and expanding lasting access to affordable housing worldwide.

Follow along over the next five weeks to learn how we build upon the HVC in all of our work, from climate resilience to Islamic finance to social and rental housing.

AHI's Larry English was invited to participate in the launch of the Botswana Housing Expert Working Group, held recently...
09/25/2026

AHI's Larry English was invited to participate in the launch of the Botswana Housing Expert Working Group, held recently in Gaborone.

The Housing Expert Working Group is a multi-stakeholder platform for policy dialogue, technical cooperation, and knowledge exchange to strengthen housing delivery in Botswana, and is linked to the Africa Affordable Housing Compact (AAHC), a UN-Habitat initiative that mobilizes investment, strengthens housing data and institutional capacity, and supports bankable projects for affordable, inclusive, and climate-resilient housing.

During the launch, Larry delivered a presentation on Kenya's affordable housing program to help facilitate discussions and regional knowledge exchange.

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