Is living in an empty office the answer to the housing crisis?

Remote work has emptied downtowns across the US - and that space could be used to create desperately needed affordable housing

The lack of affordable housing and the emptying of many downtowns in the US are what doctors might call co-morbidities: different problems that occur simultaneously and can exacerbate each other, making the entire system worse. But some people are able to look at the US housing crisis and the state of the nation's downtowns and feel a shred of hope. After all, here are two problems that can each become a solution to the other.

The 2022 State of the Nation's Housing report from Harvard University revealed that the US housing supply is at a deficit of 3.8m homes. Meanwhile, in a city like San Francisco, where the availability of affordable housing has reached an acute crisis, the downtown business district has all but hollowed out. Now that remote work has become the norm, with knowledge workers logging in from everywhere and anywhere, only 27% of the city's office space is in use, according to one study by the real estate firm CBRE.