Breaking Barriers: One at a Time

When people talk about fixing housing, it often sounds like a laundry list: zoning reform, lending reform, affordability reform, accessibility reform. The list is so long, so overwhelming, that most people throw their hands up and say, “It’s too big. It can’t be done.”

 

But here’s the truth: if we wait until the whole system changes, nothing will ever change.

 

I’ve lived those barriers myself — shut out by zoning that calls my needs “unrealistic,” by lenders who assume everyone has two incomes, by a market that rewards excess instead of function. And I know we can’t tear the whole thing down in a day. But that’s not the point.

 

The point is this: we may only succeed in impacting one or two barriers in any meaningful way, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Because for the families who walk into their first home — a home that’s affordable, accessible, and truly theirs — that one barrier gone is everything.

 

That’s what Little Haven is here to prove. That breaking even one barrier creates possibility. That change doesn’t always start with sweeping reform — sometimes it starts with a handful of homes, a new kind of covenant, or one neighborhood that refuses to play by the old rules.

 

We’re not pretending we’ll fix every piece of the system. But we’re damn sure not going to stand by while it keeps failing people.

 

Breaking barriers doesn’t have to mean breaking them all at once. What matters is proving it can be done.