When top-down structures cannot, and will not, provide the infrastructure for the social freedom to affect change with their own hands in the built environment, civic estrangement is inevitable. What are the political and spatial structures, or lack thereof, that can be capitalized by the average person to affect meaningful change to their living conditions? Often is the case that the powerless are either given no flexibility or are confined to the options provided to them, the options they are allowed to utilize. Housing is the most personal spatial product an architect could create. However, in many contexts, housing the most vulnerable in our society seems to only include the lowest common denominator. Abstraction of what constitutes meaningful living is used to serve the widest of audiences, and, as a result, the needs of individual families are not fully met. This study examines the large-scale policy and developmental structures that have framed the wayhousing is constructed in North America, along with an accumulation of small-scale, individual actions that subvert city structures. This thesis explores how these mechanisms within the frameworks can form a toolkit for a wider range of stakeholders, including homeowners and renters, in the creation of affordable housing.