As 2025 comes into the rearview and I put more earnest efforts toward the new year, I am met with a quote in my planner from Honoré de Balzac:
“There is no such thing as great talent without great will-power.”
It rings true in many ways – consistency, dedication, and persistence are often the qualities that create and improve great things like physical well-being, fulfilling relationships, and financial health, to name a few.
To me, this also rings true for social efforts and systems like affordable housing. Greatness in these realms is not achieved through simply announcing grand policies or plans as if they’re silver bullet saviors. The achievement of great policy and systems solutions seem, to me at least, to come through a neverending practice of listening, experimenting, and consistently exercising the will and effort to implement, improve, and sustain.
As an example, I’ll direct readers to a recent UpZoned Podcast (from the creators of Strong Towns). In this episode, the host references Utah’s governor proposing a statewide zoning preemption, intending to increase density in order to move the needle on the crisis facing Utah:
“The state is on track to be 50,000 homes short within the next decade, and the median home price is now five times higher than the median income—a threshold economists call “extremely unaffordable.”
This zoning reform approach is not unique to Utah; the topic has become more common across states of various political tendencies to try to address the high costs of housing. California’s Senate Bill 9, even though it was initially heralded as being the end of single family zoning, has been criticized as largely symbolic, falling far short of expectations. In both examples, the devil is in the details. The willpower needed to make either policy work well falls to the implementation: are they making the hard work of developing affordable housing easier or more burdensome?
If Colorado seeks to be an affordable housing leader, our organizations and coalitions of this ecosystem must have a strong will, but we also must have a strong ability to ameliorate the cumbersome processes along the way, both top-down and bottom-up. → [example]
To achieve lofty and necessary goals of building and preserving thousands of quality affordable homes per year, we must be willing to test and improve innovative financial tools, approval processes, and technical assistance that create the conditions for success at the scale of small rural communities, as well as metropolitan ones. The Common Sense Institute said it well months ago, “For affordable housing to succeed… local governments must prioritize faster approvals, embrace infill development, and cut the red tape that stalls progress.” The Housing Hub Colorado is a step in the right direction, aiming to streamline the “process to apply for affordable rental housing tax credits and related public funds, and strengthen Colorado’s commitment to safe, stable, and secure housing for all.” Let’s watch and see!
All this talk about strong will makes me think about the Harvard study on procrastination. The two Harvard professors advise training the mind to think about the positive benefits of the outcome, not just the level of effort required to get there – essentially: make the present state care about what happens to the future state. The premise here is that thoughts about the long-term reward release dopamine, which helps to initiate action or motivation. So while folks are contemplating their New Year’s resolutions, let’s also apply this Harvard tip to affordable housing – because in the case of increasing access to affordable housing, the future benefits come in the form of reducing childhood poverty, increasing economic mobility, and creating greater opportunities to learn inside and outside the classroom.
As I look toward a new year, I choose to be inspired by those long-term outcomes. I choose to show up for the slow work of deepening knowledge, partnership and collaboration across the field to help facilitate right-scale solutions in the local contexts that matter. I’ll be documenting case studies along the way to share my learnings, so stay tuned and reach out if you’d like to learn or share with me!
Wishing positivity and prosperity to you and your community in 2026 and beyond.
Written By: Maggie Kinneberg
Maggie Kinneberg is a multi-faceted collaborator and leader, focused on the intersections of learning, food systems, and community health promotion....
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