Service + Solidarity Spotlight: AFL-CIO HIT Investments Build Human Infrastructure

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

The debate over human infrastructure—the societal and economic fundamentals that allow working people to prosper—is heating up. While many would prefer to focus solely on physical infrastructure such as roads and bridges, workers know that basic needs like child care are just as important so people can work. Building affordable housing and creating good construction jobs are perfect examples of why Congress must invest in human infrastructure, said AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) CEO Chang Suh. “At its most basic level, the infrastructure debate is about the level of importance we as a nation place on how we drive forward—both literally and in the broader sense,” Suh wrote in a column published in HousingWire.

He emphasized the benefits of using union labor to build affordable housing, drawing on the example of HIT’s Old Colony project in Boston. For years, HIT has been working to restore and reimagine the public housing project. Suh said: “The reinvention of Old Colony is the product of union [members] earning wages and benefits on which they can support a family. In partnership with the Boston Housing Authority, local labor organizations have sponsored job training and apprenticeship preparation for young people and displaced workers seeking new career opportunities. It is a success story in human infrastructure, which has reaped benefits for workers, residents and citizens throughout the city’s economy.” Click here to read more.