Rent And Housing
The bare minimum that should be available to every person is a safe place to lay one’s head at night and a space to call one’s own. Beyond every other measure or indicator of a nation’s success, the question of whether we can comfortably house every person in our country is paramount. In a country this powerful, whose strength and resources are so abundant, it is unconscionable that one of humanity’s most core needs is so willfully ignored. Some will try to tell you that it is a resource issue. It is not. Some will try to tell you that the task is too great, that it will be impossible to house everyone. They are wrong. Others will try to argue that not everyone deserves to have a place to call home. And with every part of my being, I reject the callousness of that mindset. Everyone deserves the freedom and dignity of their own living space, and the minimum cost of that home should never become so great that it forces you to choose between paying rent/mortgage or buying food, gas, or medications.
This question, of whether we want to eliminate homelessness and the threat of it, or if we want to live in a society that intentionally perpetuates it, is an ideological one. There are those that believe that having a certain amount of unhoused people is good. One of those groups are the corporations that control the Republican party. By eliminating safety nets and weakening the power of their employees, corporations are able to maximize profits and continue passing on all their gains to their shareholders. If people are afraid of living on the streets because they can’t afford their homes, they will be far less likely to leave a job they hate, or ask for a raise, or report wrongdoing in the workplace, or try to form a union. If you have someone relying on you such as a child or an ailing parent, the big decisions in your life revolve around protecting them, which makes it even less likely that you will take any of these actions. Restricting the power and freedom of working people is the goal, and removing the guarantee of housing helps that goal enormously.
Another large contributor to the Republican Party are landlord associations and real estate lobbyists. For those who already own residential property, their incentive is to create scarcity in the housing market. If demand for housing keeps increasing, and no more homes are being built, the value of their properties is going to keep going up. These groups use their vast wealth and connections to lobby government officials to make it harder or impossible to create affordable housing. Understanding this dynamic is key to understanding how to solve the problem, and who is preventing the problem from being solved.
Additionally, the reason why affordable housing has been such an acute problem in recent years has its roots in the Great Recession of 2007-2008, undercutting millennials as they came of age. Instead of following tried-and-true Keynesian economics as President Roosevelt and now President Biden have implemented by making big investments in the economy, the response was instead defined by austerity cuts, gutting budgets across the board, which disproportionately hurt those of us toward the bottom of the economic ladder. It stagnated economic growth, especially in the housing sector. Because of that policy decision and a decade and a half of failing to address the shortage of housing, this issue has now not just kneecapped Millennials, but my generation as well. I will not allow it to reach a third generation. The Democrats were able to make housing investments in the major legislative pieces that passed following the 2020 election, but it will take time to build. The next Congress must keep up this effort, prevent Republican efforts to undo the progress and secure more funding for desperately needed housing.
Another huge problem in recent years has been the rise of corporations buying up single-family homes and reducing competition in the market. By having a virtual monopoly in a given area, these companies can set prices to whatever they want, and rig the market so that they can extract as much money from us as possible. That practice should be illegal, and we can make that a reality in 2025 if we win enough seats.
Beyond securing funds and regulation enforcement at the federal level, the next biggest thing we can do is form tenants’ unions and secure local government offices. Much of the implementation for new housing falls upon local governments, but too much of our local government is rife with ineptitude and corruption. It will require grassroots advocacy to hold government accountable and pressure them to build housing that is actually affordable, rather than giving a handout to contractors to construct luxury apartments.
Tenant unions are also a great method by which to hold landlords accountable and make life better for renters. Just like labor unions, tenant unions give you the power to advocate for yourself and your neighbors, helping to make sure building standards are upheld and preventing outrageous rent increases. They are also one of the core groups that can advocate for your interests at the local level and even higher.
I think lived experience on this issue is something that has been sorely lacking in our government. Housing isn’t something that the vast majority of Congress members have even remotely had to worry about and therefore isn’t a priority for them even if their hearts are in the right place. It isn’t a priority to the wealthy donors that they cater to either, so it often becomes forgotten about in the big picture. When Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Congressman Frost first got to Washington, they both said they had trouble finding an apartment or even getting approved for a lease despite having just won an election to the United States Congress! Many of the wealthier representatives were shocked and did not realize just how bad the problem was until they were directly confronted with it.
My hope is that as more and more ordinary Americans are elected to positions of power, we can start to build real momentum toward confronting issues like housing and rapacious levels of rent that too often fly under the radar. We have the means, we have the resources, all that’s needed is the political courage to make it a reality.
Policy List
The biggest solution to the housing crisis is straightforward: we must build more housing. And the new housing should be implemented with the deliberate purpose of correcting the mistakes that previous housing attempts have made. Rather than segregating people by wealth or race, we can desegregate to create a more united America. Health should be front of mind as well, learning from the consequences that issues like lead paint and asbestos have caused. The impact upon our environment and climate change should be mitigated as well.
- Increased funding for housing
- Banning corporations from purchasing single-family homes
- Increased funding for rental and housing assistance through departments like HUD
- Promotion of tenants unions, which is an effective means by which renters can protect themselves
- Increased funding for public mental health services. The modern wave of homelessness was caused by the mass release of patients from psychiatric hospitals in the 80s. Those hospitals were often grossly insufficient when it came to care and abusive, but we can create a better alternative than these 2 solutions
- Higher health and climate standards for housing
- Repealing the Faircloth Amendment, which was part of a 1998 Republican bill designed to restrict public housing
Essential Articles
Housing Monopolies
https://rebeccastrong.substack.com/p/big-corporations-are-playing-monopoly
Price Fixing
Homelessness
https://www.vox.com/2023/7/5/23778810/homelessness-california-unsheltered-research
https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ReportCard2023.pdf
History of homelessness
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519584/
Social Housing
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/why-we-need-social-housing/