Benjamin Chrisinger

My name is Ben and I'm a 23 year-old graduate student from Warrenton, Virginia.  In 2010, I finished undergrad at the University of Virginia where I studied urban planning and environmental sciences.  I stayed at UVA to get my masters in planning last year and am now at UPenn working on a PhD in city planning.  And now I will try to prove to you that I am not an academic robot.

I've spent a lot of academic time thinking about affordable housing - researching, reading, analyzing (three cheers for Census data) - but hardly enough time doing anything about it.  Now that I live in Philly, where the poverty rate is 25 percent, I'm confronted with these real issues, and it's not just in papers and figures.  It's the people and places I see every day.  Nonetheless, I know affordable housing issues are everywhere, even when they aren't so apparent.

I think most Americans believe housing is something we all deserve, but believing is several vital steps short of making it a reality.  Getting affordable housing issues onto the public radar will help build momentum for change, and I'm hoping a journey with Bike & Build will help me better articulate these real issues to others.  I don't want people to just give me money for a random cause; I want them to consider that affordable housing issues might look, sound, and feel differently than they've previously thought.

I'd read about Bike & Build before, but the experiences of inspiring friends convinced me that this was something very worth doing.  There are a special few times in life when you can do something so individually-fulfilling that’s also so good for society.  This is my constant struggle with academia - I love to learn, but hate to feel like I'm just learning for learning's sake.  Thoreau put it well: "To be awake is to be alive."  I'm looking to be more awake.  I'm concerned about affordable housing, and now I'd like to sweat a little bit for the cause.

What else… I'm a runner.  I think service is important, along with sustainability.  For my retiree-like habits of drinking black coffee and listening to talk radio my friends in undergrad called me "Dad".  I'm trying to go vegetarian this year but will probably cheat every now and then.  I'm studying food access as part of my doctoral research.  Growing up my parents dragged my three siblings and I across the country for several epic month-long camping trips.  I will forever be interested in exploring the US because of these trips (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and I'm excited by the idea of physically moving myself across the country for a cause.

NC to San Diego