Housing Decommodified: A global exploration with New York Times writer Francesca Mari
Monday, October 16, 2023 at 7:00 PM
Bainbridge Public Library
“Vienna invites us to envision a world in which homeownership isn’t the only way to secure a certain future — and what our lives might look like as a result,” writes Francesca Mari. America might have achieved the same had it not made a series of fateful policies in the mid-20th century that privileged homeownership over large-scale federal investments in public housing. Today we find ourselves living in a country where housing is a commodity, power has been ceded to private investors, and Americans are struggling. But earlier experiments in limited-profit and social housing show that it might be otherwise. Join us in imagining housing in America done differently.
Contact Tamar Kupiec at [email protected] for more information or help registering.


Francesca Mari writes about housing, con men, and abuses of power. She is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and an assistant professor of the practice at Brown University teaching narrative nonfiction. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and others. She was a 2022 National Fellow at New America and a 2023 Radcliffe Fellow.
A beautiful neighborhood
2023 fundraiser
Thursday, September 14, 2023
5:00 – 7:00 pm
Wing Point Golf & Country Club
Spend the evening with friends of affordable housing and support the work of HRB at our most important fundraising event of the year.
We’ll hear from Deborah Finck, executive director and founder of Building OHANA, a nonprofit outside Spokane creating a community for people with intellectual disabilities and their families, older adults, and people of all incomes and ages who seek social purpose and connection through intentional neighboring.
Beer, wine, and hearty appetizers will be served.
This is a free event. Register by Thursday, September 7, 2023.
If you are unable to attend, please consider making a gift online.
For more information or help with registration, contact Sophia Blamey at 206.842.1909, ext. 13 or [email protected].

HRB’s Ferncliff Village
Affordable housing on Bainbridge Island: A candidate forum
Thursday, July 13, 2023 at 7:00 PM
Bainbridge Public Library
The community has come out strongly in support of affordable housing. The city of Bainbridge Island has taken on the Housing Action Plan. And the state is issuing directives about planning for population growth. Now what will City Council do?
HRB Policy Specialist Maggie Rich will facilitate a community conversation with the 2023 candidates for City Council on their affordable housing policy ideas and their vision for Bainbridge Island. To submit your question for consideration, email [email protected].
For more information on this event, contact Tamar Kupiec at 206.842.1909, ext. 11 or [email protected].


Dick Haugan
District 1

Leslie Schneider
District 4

Kirsten Hytopoulos
District 1

Ashley Mathews
District 6

Brenda Fantroy-Johnson
District 2
A gathering with friends
Thursday, June 8, 2023
5:30 – 7:30 PM
Eleven Winery
7671 NE Day Road W
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Good wine. Good talk. Good news. Good company. It’s our way of saying thank you.
We’ll be sharing the plans for our latest project—the Ericksen Community. And who better to share them with than our devoted and generous supporters?
For more information, contact Sophia Blamey at 206.842.1909, ext. 13 or [email protected].

The future Ericksen Community
Wenzlau Architects
Homelessness is a housing problem: A community conversation with Gregg Colburn
Thursday, May 4, 2023 at 7:00 PM
Bainbridge Public Library
Introduction by Maria Metzler
Executive Director, Helpline House
In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington, and data scientist Clayton Page Aldern test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, and public assistance—and find that none explain why, for example, rates are so much higher in Seattle than in Chicago. Instead, they discover that housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of housing, offer a more convincing explanation.


Gregg Colburn is an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments and co-author of the book, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem (University of California Press, 2022). Colburn is a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness Research Council and is co-faculty lead of the University of Washington’s Homelessness Research Initiative.