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The Extreme Importance of Giving Back to the Community

Are you interested in giving back to the community? Read about unique ways to support your neighbors and how ADUs might be the answer.

Updated Jan 01, 2018

As California tries to adapt to the looming housing crisis, local communities are being abandoned or broken apart by the growing need for affordable housing. Long-time residents are having to leave their old homes behind. In these uncertain times, it’s not uncommon to want to give back by lending a helping hand.

Luckily, there are myriad ways in which residents can help support their communities, keep families together, revitalize community roots, and show solidarity with their neighbors.

What Are Some Acts of Kindness?

As a member of a community, there is a compassionate feeling toward the well-being of your neighbors and home at large, especially when that neighborhood is struggling. There is a natural impulse to help others and nurture the area you call home.

Fortunately, in trying times, local communities band together, with each resident giving back in an important, essential way.

Here are some key ways to give back:

Donate Food and Critical Goods

Donating to a local food bank can be one of the most immediately effective practices. With the price of food soaring, food banks are needed now more than ever to lessen financial burdens.

Sharing resources is essential to keeping families happy, healthy, and able to thrive. Provide relief and support by donating canned or dry food, paper goods, and various other products.

Fundraising and mutual aid projects can help individuals or families who are facing financial crises. Using online platforms to raise funds or having a fundraising event for a local business or nonprofit are powerful ways to bring residents together and increase solidarity.

Take the Initiative To Make a Positive Impact

You can also start your own nonprofit, like a community clean-up group that helps keep nearby streets and parks clean. This can be particularly impactful in coastal towns, where beach clean-up assistance is always needed.

When it comes to nurturing your town or city, it helps to bring people together in a physical, communal way. Hosting a benefit in the form of a comedy show, concert, or open mic to raise funds for a struggling person, business, or family can be fantastic.

Seek Out Volunteer Opportunities

There are many creative ways to assist local organizations and community centers than with monetary donations. A critical need is also time.

Volunteer for community organizations like homeless shelters, senior homes, community activist groups, or animal shelters. These organizations can be foundational to a thriving community and often depend on volunteer work to continue operating.

Similarly, responsible investments can nourish and grow the local economy. Offer internships or mentoring opportunities to students and local schools or offer to coach your town’s youth sports teams.

Conscientious Investing: The Humanity of ADU Construction

With the California housing crisis, individuals and small businesses are struggling to remain in their communities of origin with the rising costs associated with real estate, inflation, and healthcare. Post-COVID-19 pandemic, in California, one out of every three residents has considered leaving the state due to soaring housing costs.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are not only an affordable option for homeowners to get the most out of their property’s value but a necessary step toward revitalizing local neighborhoods. They are part of a multifaceted approach to reducing the strain caused by California’s housing crisis.

By providing affordable spaces to those struggling to find housing in California, homeowners can help to keep families and their communities together. California has a rich artistic and culinary culture because of the local communities that foster it. The attrition of long-established communities threatens the rich tapestry that is the Sunshine State. ADUs can hold communities together.

Building an accessory dwelling unit is as kind to the community as it is to the homeowner. This construction project results in significant economic benefits compared to other home renovation projects.

How Do ADUs Impact People’s Lives?

ADUs can help protect and enrich local communities in more than a few ways:

A tiny home or attached dwelling can serve as a private yet nearby space for relatives needing extra care. Or, it can be a rental home for another family entirely.
When essential workers aren’t pushed out of homes or jobs due to lack of affordability, their families remain together. The culture of the space they inhabit and share flourishes.
The sharing of property can grow the bond among those that live together, providing a mutual system of support.
ADUs can be perfect for office space, allowing small businesses to operate affordably.
Many seniors seek to downsize, and ADUs provide this option without breaking the bank.

Constructing an ADU on your property is not only an investment in your own financial portfolio but in the health and economy of the neighborhood you love.

Environmental Impact of ADUs

By using land more efficiently and effectively, Accessory Dwelling Units can serve to support the health and rehabilitation of the environment.

ADUs provide an opportunity for more concentrated development that uses less natural resources in the form of energy, land, transportation, and water. ADUs slow the need for urban expansion and infrastructural development. This includes the expansion and transportation of natural resources.

ADUs can increase the concentration of people with access to public transportation.

In addition, ADUs give more people ready access—without the need for additional transportation—to local markets, pharmacies, banks, and other resources. And aside from the environmental impact, the economic impact of spending less on gasoline is substantial.

The Practicality of ADUs

The construction of ADUs creates mutual, healthy financial growth for homeowners and communities alike.

Accessory Dwelling Units—sometimes known as guest cottages or secondary units—are generally built within the surplus space of a property. ADUs have all the amenities of a typical house while not typically taking up any more space than 1,000 square feet.

They allow homeowners and their communities to utilize the space they already have in a way that is efficient, cost-effective, environmentally sound, and economically stimulating.

ADUs can be a practical and stimulating investment for many reasons:

An ADU not only increases the value of one’s property overall but also provides an alternative source of income for the homeowner in the form of rent.
An ADU can be a cost-efficient way to utilize excess property space, as the construction cost of an ADU can often be more affordable than a traditional renovation or expansion of a home.

All the while, ADUs pay it forward by providing affordable housing for essential members of the community. They can boost the local economy without putting a strain on the environment—or municipal budget—with infrastructure or urban expansion projects.

Cottage Builds Communities

ADUs can provide a cost-effective way to get the most out of your property and even increase your income. Most importantly, they can help to pay that growth forward and support the larger world around you, protect its culture, and keep the environment safe and healthy.

Professional ADU builder Cottage is here for every step of the construction process, from ideas to permits to finalizing the finishing design details. Reach out to the experts at Cottage for more information on how to revitalize your space.

Sources:

Smart Growth / Smart Energy Toolkit Modules - Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) | Mass.gov

Why is housing so expensive in California? | CBS8

Chapter 14 The Importance of Public Transportation | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION