I’ve been sitting with this post all weekend. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I wanted to actually mean it when I said it. That’s really what this whole season has been about slowing down enough to be honest. With myself, with the people around me, and with what I’m doing and why.
So here it is. Where I am, what I’m building, what I’m working through. The good and the messy, both. Being open about all of it not selectively, is part of this.
Being Present and Holding Myself Accountable
Presence is something I’ve had to consciously choose. When you’re carrying a lot, projects, obligations, the noise inside your own head, it’s easy to be somewhere physically but somewhere else entirely mentally. I’ve been working on that, deliberately.
For me, presence starts with the basics: sleep, movement, what I eat, stepping away from screens. My physical and mental health are no longer side projects. They’re the foundation everything else is built on, or falls without. I’ve accepted that, finally.
Accountability isn’t punishment. It’s just the discipline of looking at what’s true and deciding to do something about it.
I have a lot of work to wrap up. Some of it is unglamorous. Some of it is overdue. I’m doing it with care. That’s all there is to it.
The Crisis We’re All Living Inside
Before I talk about what I’m building, I want to name what we’re building into. Because context matters, and the numbers here are not abstract.
More than 771,000 Americans were unhoused in 2024, the highest number ever documented. That’s more than the entire population of Seattle. It went up 18 percent in a single year, the largest single-year jump on record. Chronic homelessness has nearly doubled since 2016. The construction labor shortage alone costs the economy $10.8 billion every year.
But “homelessness” as a category misses most of the story. The crisis runs much wider. Workforce housing — for teachers, nurses, tradespeople, first responders, the people who keep every community functional — is disappearing. When a city can’t house the people who run it, the city stops working. Businesses can’t recruit. Schools can’t staff. Hospitals run short-handed. The commute burden grinds workers down. Productivity falls. Absenteeism rises.
When housing costs price out middle-income workers — those earning 80–120% of area median income — employers lose access to their own labor pool. The National League of Cities calls it an “invisible tax” on every business in an unaffordable market. It shows up in turnover, recruitment costs, and reduced output. Every company in a housing-stressed market is paying this tax whether they know it or not.
And then there are the people who fall through every category: veterans, people exiting the justice system, people with disabilities, seniors on fixed incomes. Their housing isn’t just a personal problem. The VA’s own data shows it costs significantly less to permanently house someone than to cycle them through emergency rooms, jails, and shelter systems. We know this. We just haven’t acted like we know it.
The root cause is structural: we stopped building enough housing after 2008 and never caught up. Restrictive zoning, rising development costs, labor shortages, we need roughly 723,000 new construction workers per year through 2028 just to meet current demand.
This is the water everyone is swimming in. And I think it’s the most important problem my industry can be working on.
What I’m Actually Building
There’s a lot of work in motion right now, and some of it is the kind of cleanup and wrap-up that doesn’t make for exciting reading. But it has to get done, and I’m doing it.
On the forward side, oldivai.com is moving into three new projects in Winooski, Vermont Shelburne, Vermont, and Jacksonville, Florida. None of them are glamorous. All of them solve a real problem. These projects won’t be splashed across architecture magazines. But they address tangible community needs in places that need them. When a project solves a problem actually solves it, that feeling is its own reward.
Mr. Good Container Homes: Shipping Containers, Real Solutions
I’m genuinely excited about a new partnership with Mr. Good Container Homes (mrgoodcontainerhomes.com). They convert shipping containers into quality workforce housing efficiently, thoughtfully, and at a price point that actually works for the people who need it most.
We have a project lined up in El Paso, Texas and are deep in planning for one in Utah. There are also ground-level opportunities emerging in Maine and New Hampshire that feel aligned with the same mission: build something real, fill a need, don’t overcomplicate it.
Will we make less money than luxury development? Yes.
Who I am trying to impress? The families who finally have a stable place to live, that’s pretty impressive to me. Doing good and making money at the same time is possible. It requires being honest about what you’re optimizing for. I’m optimizing for impact with a sustainable business behind it. That feels right.
Writing Again — About All of It
Writing is something I love, and I’ve taken a break from it that I’ve felt acutely. I’m coming back to it with a specific focus: the housing crisis in this country, what’s causing it, what’s being done about it, what more could be done, and what I’m personally doing about it from the ground up.
I’ll write about policy, financing, zoning, and creative construction methods. I’ll write about the projects I’m involved in, what’s working and what isn’t. I’ll write about the people this crisis is actually affecting, because they’re not statistics, they’re neighbors.
And I’ll write about my own journey, because transparency is part of all of this. Being open about what’s hard, what I’ve gotten wrong, and what I’m still figuring out isn’t a liability. It’s just the honest version of being a person in the world.
If you’re working on something in this space affordable housing, workforce housing, programmatic housing, community development, or if anything here resonates, I’d genuinely love to connect. The best work I’ve done has always come out of real conversations with people who give a damn about something beyond the transaction.
More soon.
— Daniel Kaufman
danielkaufmanre.com · oldivai.com · mrgoodcontainerhomes.com