Fairfax County’s Chief Equity Officer, Karla Bruce, recently sat for an interview with the Northern Virginia Health Foundation. During the course of the discussion Bruce addressed several questions related to the ongoing evolution of Fairfax County’s affordable housing work and how the application of an equity lens is changing our perspective and approaches to affordable housing development and preservation.
“The old model was often to put housing where there was cheaper land, but that often meant limited green space or few living wage job opportunities nearby,” she recalled. “Now, we have a better understanding of vulnerability and access to opportunity in every area of the county. So where opportunity isn’t present in an area where we might locate housing, we can work to bring opportunities to the people in that area; and where it is present, but barriers exist, we can work to promote access to that opportunity.”
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