A study A study released in January by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that half of all American renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning they have to spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent. A smaller number of renters, about one in seven, pay at least 50 percent of their income on rent, making them “severely cost-burdened.” Shockingly, it found that 83 percent of renters earning less than $30,000 a year were classified as cost-burdened.
Interviews I conducted this summer with progressive youth organizations across the country confirm the gravity of the situation. I was told again and again how important affordable housing policy is for young people. I found that this is universal, regardless of demographics or regions. While the war in Gaza is the central foreign policy concern for young voters, I realized that affordable housing is the most important domestic policy concern, along with reproductive rights. Public Survey results The high.
Those closely associated with Democrat politics are likely to hear the same thing and feel the need to make housing policy a central element of their message, similar to the British Labour Party has this summerIn fact, housing was a key part of the economic policy speech Kamala Harris delivered on Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina, ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention.
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The Harris Housing Plan promises to build three million new housing units by 2029, provides tax incentives for companies that build these units (particularly low-cost entry-level homes and affordable rental housing), and would offer up to $25,000 as a down payment for about 1.4 million new homeowners. The plan would also create a $40 billion fund for local governments seeking to alleviate the housing crisis in their communities, eliminate tax breaks for corporate investors who buy up homes in bulk, and reiterate that algorithmic pricing through software that collects information within a rental market and encourages market-wide price increases is illegal. Much of this would require congressional approval and would be unlikely without Democratic majorities.
It was also reported before the speech in Raleigh that Harris’ housing plan would include proposals for rent control, penalties for bad faith real estate investors and strict enforcement of “fair housing” laws.
Even before Harris explicitly outlined her housing agenda, her partnership with vice presidential candidate Tim Walz of Minnesota postulated in some circles as potentially “the first YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) ticket in history.” Proponents of YIMBY politics, many from dem have expressed excitement to the proposed Harris Housing Plan, believe that housing unaffordability is simply a market supply problem and can be addressed by increasing middle and upper class construction, particularly by removing barriers to local housing planning. Organizations such as Housing is a human rightargue that YIMBY is a neoliberal solution that gives private landlords and developers the ability to charge “outrageous rents,” “tear down rent-controlled housing to build luxury housing at market rates,” and ultimately only serves the wealthier people while harming working-class neighborhoods.
Yet both Harris and Walz have shown a tendency to mix YIMBY policies with government subsidies and rent control. As governor of Minnesota, Walz signed a law that ended single-family housing in Minneapolis, a move supported by YIMBY advocates who wanted to increase supply in the housing market and strengthen the real estate industry. On the other hand, Walz also signed several Pieces of legislation providing over $1 billion for public housing, and supported and signed several Pieces the Tenant Rights Act, which regulates landlords’ right of termination and enables tenants to organize collectively.
Harris, for her part, was a member of a Biden administration that provided Federal grants to American cities to eliminate single-family housing, and recently also proposed Rent price stabilization and tenant rights Guidelines. Friday’s speech and the recent Comments Harris’s campaign statements in the weeks leading up to her speech suggest that she supports a continuation and expansion of this comprehensive approach.
Harris and Walz seem to be saying that the nationwide housing shortage is caused by complex and diverse factors, and that many different approaches must be tried to solve it. However, some aspects of the problem have not received enough attention.
housing generally collapsed after the housing bubble began to burst in late 2006 and reached its lowest point ever in 2009. It took more than a decade to return to anything approaching normal construction levels, during which time numerous construction companies left the industry and others merged to survive. As Matt Stoller pointed outAmerican housing today is characterized by the consolidation of a small handful of developers who are essentially landowners, using cheap credit to speculate and make money. They are in no hurry to build on the land they own unless it is particularly financially lucrative.
“These are big financial institutions that own a lot of land that is going up in value,” Stoller explains, “and then build on it and sell houses. That can be pretty risky because they have to hold land on their books and that land can go down in value. But for the last fifteen years or so, it’s been a bull market.”
Overall, this industry consolidation has resulted in an estimated “150,000 new homes” not being built each year. Although the Harris Plan contains Proposals to “eliminate tax benefits for large investors who buy large numbers of single-family homes for rent”, there are apparently no great options for dealing with the companies that country on which to build housing. In fact, it is safe to say that Harris’ housing plan could further empower the powerful housing corporations Stoller describes to a worrying degree.
Some solutions to this bottleneck include improving access to credit for smaller developers so that they can compete for land. In addition, the government can give smaller developers preferential treatment in public land auctions, which would be consistent with the promotion of competition through Harris-Walz. Or the government could develop more public land itself and build more social housingThis would mitigate boom-and-bust cycles in the housing market and help stabilize the economy.
The extent to which the Harris-Walz housing plan will appeal to the young voters the Democratic Party needs in 2024 and beyond remains to be seen. More details are needed, particularly around rent control and assistance. Nonetheless, Harris’ proposals clearly signal the beginning of an era in American politics where housing policy can no longer be ignored at the national level and is actually taking center stage.
