Why should environmentalists support building more housing?

Could something as simple as building more houses in town help abate climate change? We know that healthy communities exist within the context of a healthy environment — and right now, both are threatened. There is a housing shortage across the country, with many hard-working families unable to find a place to live. There is also a climate crisis, with greenhouse gas emissions threatening the stability of all our planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Susan Bean and Eva Snyder of MountainTrue will explain how their program could be part of the solution to both these urgent problems.

This is the monthly program of the Sierra Club group in Asheville; all these programs are free and open to the public, both in person at the OLLI/Reuter Center on UNCA’s Campus Drive and on Zoom.

The Zoom connection can be found at https://www.sierraclub.org/north-carolina/wnc/blog/2024/05/wnc-sierra-club-monthly-program-june-5-preventing-urban-sprawl.

Speaker Susan Bean is the Housing & Transportation Director for MountainTrue. Their former Community Engagement Director now analyzes and informs their policy priorities for housing and transportation projects across their geographic footprint. She is actively involved in the community serving as a member of CoThinkk and volunteering as a facilitator with the Building Bridges program in Asheville. In her free time, she loves hiking with her dogs Mossy and Walnut, road biking, and gardening.

Eva Snyder grew up in Montford and moved back to town with her husband in 2017. The director of operations at East Fork Pottery, she is a housing policy enthusiast as well as an advocate for building dense housing in town to promote housing affordability and mitigate climate change. Chris Joyell, MountainTrue's Healthy Communities Director, will also be on hand to answer questions.