Green Housing Meets Low Income

"Viking Terrace's green upgrades, which were completed last summer, offer its melting pot of low-income and formerly homeless residents access to a world commonly reserved for companies and individuals with the financial means to go green. Affordable housing developments like this one are springing up across the country, showing that green homes can and should be built for everyone, not just because they're good for the environment, but also because they're healthier, more comfortable, and-yes-more affordable."

"Popular conceptions of green building peg the movement as the domain of hippies or hipsters. A "green" house is either an off-the-grid backwoods cabin built by an aging boomer who organically grows his own out back, or else a futuristic, airy rectangle inhabited by a thirtysomething yuppie with the disposable income to spend on a solar-powered iPod. In both cases, living green comes across as a lifestyle whose extra costs are worth paying for the sake of the earth, not to mention one's own conscience."

"But if you ask the people at Viking Terrace what green building has meant to them, you'll get answers that don't seem particularly ecoconscious."