The Trenton Journal recently published an article on April De Simone, founder of Practice of Democracy the People’s Studio Practicum. De Simone and her husband Marcus, are pioneering new approaches to equitable housing. 

This past spring Jacob Geuder, Anthropology Lecturer, taught “Just Housing?” a course which explored racial capitalism and the right to the city from the perspective of the housing crisis in the US. The class was a semester-long collaboration between Practice of Democracy and Princeton’s Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES). Students from various disciplinary backgrounds learned what home belonging and city making means to local communities as well as what obstacles hinder progress toward providing more secure and sustainable homes for everyone in Trenton. 

De Simone says her contribution to the class was crucial for students to get an up close and personal opportunity to learn solutions to the national housing crisis. In the article, The Price of Equity: This Trenton couple may have the solution to the housing crisis, De Simone describes her plan for shared equity housing with hybrid perpetual trust and social impact real estate investment trust (SI/REIT) for their seven-bedroom home. A land trust is a strategic tool used to manage and preserve land for community benefit and equitable development. 

Read the full article here, The Price of Equity: This Trenton couple may have the solution to the housing crisis