It is indeed tricky, Vesta. I've been looking at housing issues for 20+ years, reading, researchng, visiting good examples and so on. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I do have some observations:

1. Traditional solutions, -- 3-bedroom detached single-family houses -- such as the proposed Burbank Housing project proposed for Forestville, work well for a minority of the housing-needy population. Those projects are aimed toward two-parent households. But only about 25-30 percent of all households fit that description.

2. Real communities have mixes of people and of housing. Single people, childless couples, single-parents, retired couples, retired singles all have different housing needs. These groups comprise about 70-75 percent of all households. But there is little housing aimed for them. That's one of the reasons that residential tracts are so sterile: they are monocultures.