Everyone wants "affordable" housing. But few people know what that is. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has defined affordable housing as no more than 30 percent of a household's income. That means you shouldn't be paying more than 30 percent of your income for housing — whether mortgage payments or rent — plus utilities each month. "People think affordable housing means just one thing. But it doesn't," said Sandra Hamameh, program director for the Sacramento Housing Alliance. "It means being able to afford a place to live, at whatever stage you're in in your life." Levels of affordability are also based on an area's median incomes. The median incomes for Sacramento

A proposal is in the works to create one of the largest permanent supportive housing projects in the city. The $41 million building at Seventh and H streets also is poised to become the city's newest single-resident occupancy, or SRO, structure. The infill project would feature sustainable design and materials, so the developers and architects will ask the U.S. Green Building Council to certify it as a sustainable building. But perhaps most unique about the public-private project being developed by Mercy Housing and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is that it would offer support services to formerly homeless people in innovative and mixed-population permanent housing. Its

Ending urban sprawl is one of the keys to fighting global warming. That's why Sacramento and its outlying areas must focus on building sustainability through infill development and other measures, developer/architect David Mogavero said Thursday night at the first Sacramento Sustainability Forum. In fact, land use is the most important environmental issue in the state and the country, said Mogavero, who said he's been fighting sprawl in Sacramento for 20 years as head of the sustainable design firm Mogavero Notestine Associates. While the environmentally friendly or green elements of buildings are important, issues involving land use and transportation are even more critical because the