OUR STORY

The Game of Rent began as a simple conversation starter during Nashville's 2017 PARK(ing) Day, as a way to spark discussion about affordable housing. Designed to be approachable, but based in facts and data, the Game has evolved into a highly effective teaching tool for building empathy and understanding about affordable housing. Whether confronting NIMBY attitudes, educating decision-makers about the importance of affordable housing, or teaching students about budgets and housing costs, The Game of Rent puts real numbers around what it takes to live in different neighborhoods. Roll the dice and be dealt a hand, then make the most of your situation in a race to find an apartment you can afford.

In 2019, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to help scale up this project and make it accessible outside of Nashville. Thanks to our wonderful backers, The Game of Rent is now available in more than 25 cities across the United States. Each Game leverages local data to ground the discussion in reality in order to build awareness and empathy. It’s hard to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes if you have no idea what those shoes look or feel like.

View the available cities on the map below. Don’t see your community there? Contact us about sponsoring a customized Game of Rent for your location.

meet the designer

Kelsey Oesmann, AIA is a licensed architect and the Design Initiatives Manager with Urban Housing Solutions, Nashville’s leading nonprofit provider of affordable housing. Kelsey is passionate about using design to build more accessible and resilient communities by integrating creative resident and neighborhood engagement, public health, and sustainability. After earning her Bachelors of Architecture from Virginia Tech in 2014, she spent three years working in Washington, DC before biking across the country to raise funds and awareness for affordable housing with the nonprofit Bike & Build. In 2017, she relocated to Nashville for the Enterprise Rose Fellowship and was jointly hosted by Urban Housing Solutions and the Nashville Civic Design Center (NCDC), contributing to the construction and preservation of more than 500 affordable apartments through 2020. Kelsey currently serves as the chair of the Government Relations Committee for the Middle Tennessee chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and co-chair of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Nashville Housing Action Council. She is the author of the NCDC Affordable Housing 101 Toolkit and creator of The Game of Rent, and never leaves home without a good pen.

Passionate, engaging, and informative, Kelsey is a frequent speaker at community events, conferences, and trainings related to affordable housing and community development. Her trainings can leverage The Game of Rent to further engage the audience in thoughtful discussions, building relationships and empathy in new and exciting ways. Contact info@thegameofrent.com to inquire about availability and fees. Continuing education credits may be available.