116: The Politics of Affordable Housing- Ashley Peverett

The Politics of Everything

Ashley Peverett is the Co-founder & CEO of the Building Communities Initiative (BCI).

A self-proclaimed entrepreneur, he grew up in a family business so had a good start. While working, Ashley studied business part-time and completed an MBA from the University of New England. He climbed the corporate ladder across several organizations to eventually hold an Asia-Pacific-wide management role. Along this journey, he moved from Perth to North Queensland, to NSW then Mumbai. Then the GFC of 2008 hit and his life path and career were suddenly changed forever.

Later, Ashley completed a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Western Australia and reveled in the history of architecture. In a new career cycle, Ashley was known as a talented designer working for the most part from repeat business or referrals from existing clients. He then became focused on the growing housing crisis in emerging nations, and he set about to create an organization dedicated to meeting this need. The Building Communities Initiative was born.

Ashley used global professional networks to bring together a group of multidisciplinary consultants who shared his passion for this cause. After two years of research and development, they had a design and construction model which can construct a community of 5,000 quality affordable homes in less than six months and within a cost that meets the expectations of these governments. BCI is about to commence our first project in India using this technology and is in negotiations with several countries to construct hundreds of communities within the next five years.

The Initiative’s long-term vision is to drive construction costs to the bare minimum and to create a financial instrument that will enable 1 million of the world's poorest people every year to own their own homes.

Ashley discusses in this podcast:

1. How the Building Communities Initiative (BCI) was born, and how Ashley led a dialogue with governments and private developers across Africa and India to understand the key performance indicators we needed to achieve.
2. How these sustainable housing designs are rolled out in a way that may be different from what traditional aid organizations or even other governments offer these nations?
3. How can developed nations address housing inequity and improve affordability? And why apartment living is not necessarily the answer!
4. Takeaway: What is your final takeaway message for us on The Politics of Affordable Housing?

To connect with Ashley Peverett:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-peverett-a24b93122/

Website: https://buildingcommunitiesinitiative.org/