There’s nothing like raising your blood pressure first thing in the morning. I was very pleased to read this article in the Tulsa World this morning about the conversion of a 224-room Holiday Inn into 117 apartments in downtown Tulsa.

Great news! Until the developer, Spencer Cullor said, “But it is not going to be like affordable housing… It’s going to be a really, really cool product at the end for people to live and call their home.”

So, I guess affordable housing isn’t cool? But then he states that his company, ApartmentVestors, has a mission of “providing safe, affordable housing for people.”

I don’t mean to beat this guy up, but all of this raises the need for a rebrand of the term “affordable housing.” I have been working in this space for almost a decade now, and I’ve watched people’s faces contort in really ugly ways when I say that my organization develops affordable housing. Images of “the projects” and cinder-block substandard housing seem to be their first thoughts. It’s really not their fault. Unfortunately, this kind of housing exists.

Affordable housing can mean many things, but first and foremost, it just means that folks are able to buy it. Maybe, for the moment, I’ll start explaining that we develop “folks are able to buy it” housing.” Any and all better ideas will certainly be entertained.