By Farrah Hassen
“How we gonna pay last year’s rent?” the chorus implores in the song “Rent” from Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical of the same name.
It’s the same refrain for many Americans today. A new Harvard study found that half of U.S. renter households now spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. And rent increases continue to outpace their income gains.
With other studies confirming that homelessness grows alongside housing costs, this means many more people are vulnerable. Last year, homelessness hit an all-time national high of 653,100 people.
In the wealthiest country on the planet, this is unacceptable.
The pandemic revealed the full extent of the U.S. housing crisis, with roughly 580,000 people in 2020 living unhoused during “stay at home” orders. But it also proved that federal intervention could ease the crisis. Eviction moratoria and unemployment relief helped keep more people housed, fed, and secure.
But these initiatives ended too quickly. With homelessness spiking alongside hunger and child poverty, we need to bring those programs back — and more. We need to prioritize making housing affordable, accessible, and habitable for everyone.
Over the past decade, according to the Harvard study, the majority of growth in renter households has come from Millennials and Gen Zers who continue to be priced out of homeownership while also paying more for a declining supply of affordable units.
Meanwhile, construction in the high-end “luxury” rental market, which drives up rents for everyone else, remains in an upward trend. And private equity firms like Blackstone, the largest landlord in the U.S., have been expanding their real estate portfolios. These trends have fueled increased housing costs and evictions across communities.
The Harvard study revealed that our nation’s aging rental stock also needs crucial investment. Nearly half of renters with disabilities live in homes that are minimally or not at all accessible. Further, around 4 million renter households live in units with structural problems and lack basic services like electricity, water, or heat.
The lack of decent, affordable housing is a policy choice that can be overcome if our federal, state, and local governments prioritize taking much-needed action. Increasing the supply of affordable housing and expanding rental subsidies for lower income renters will help address this housing crisis. But they will not fully resolve it.
Ultimately, it is long past time for our country to change its approach to housing. We need to recognize housing as a human right fundamental to every person’s life, health, and security — instead of as a luxury commodity limited to those who can afford it.
International law already recognizes housing as a human right. Countries are legally obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill this right by enacting relevant policies and budgets to progressively realize adequate housing for all.
What might that look like? Possibilities include rent controls, housing assistance programs, reining in corporate landlords, and creating community land trusts and housing cooperatives to build permanently affordable rental units and homes.
These affordability measures must be combined with legal protections against forced evictions and housing discrimination, along with regulations to ensure that housing is physically habitable and connected to essential services.
The housing justice movement keeps growing, thanks to the sustained advocacy of community groups across the country.
In California, Connecticut, and elsewhere, they are pushing for legislation that would recognize the right to housing at the state level. Colorado lawmakers are considering legislation that would offer tenants “just-cause” eviction protections. In Congress, the “Housing is a Human Right Act” introduced last year would provide over $300 billion for housing infrastructure and combating homelessness.
The song “Rent” concludes, “Cause everything is rent.” But it shouldn’t have to be.
Farrah Hassen, J.D., is a writer, policy analyst, and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona.
Deirdre says
Could embryo carriers get affordable housing so that a fetus won’t suffer? That might help right wing politicians and groups consider enacting laws to provide homes for pregnant women, and least until they give birth.
MITCH says
Cannot expect to build at the $$height$$ of inflation and then lower rent.
Dennis C Rathsam says
The genie is out of the bottle, & the cork is gone forever.
Land of no turn signals says says
Food is too high,gas is too high, interest rates are too high,general goods are too high so why shouldn’t housing be too high?Thank the commander and chief.
Ed P says
Can the homeless numbers really be that low? Guess the proverbial couch surfer, or adult children still at home or the flood of illegal migrants don’t count? I would suspect homeless drug addicts/alcoholics exceed the estimates.
I have zero answers, but do not believe government rent controls, reigning in corporate landlords or expanding the welfare system beyond our breaking point is the answer.
If mental health care or job training or education is the issue let’s get on it. Everyone needs to feel productive and social give aways can destroy the moral fiber of entire families.
A good first step could be every extended family member who knows an uncle, aunt, or cousin that needs help, then help. How many sons and daughters or mothers and fathers have we given up on? We have to stop relying on the “government” to solve all our problems. Finger pointing, hope and prayer are not winning strategies.
Deborah Coffey says
$896.7 million
(Reuters) — Blackstone Chief Executive Steve Schwarzman took home $896.7 million in pay and dividends last year, a 29% decline from his record take in 2022, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.
The Republicans will give him another tax cut. But, if your mission is to become a country of oligarchs like Russia, where it’s all for “them” and none for you, then apparently the MAGAs are on the right track. It gives them permission to continually cry victimhood!
Laurel says
Okay, so I got another “error connecting to the database” so it may *print* twice.
I’m not going to disagree with statistics, but I think there are a few things left out. How many of these homeless are so do to mental illness or addiction? That has to be a part of the problem that needs to be addressed. Another part of the problem is the decline of the middle class, which has been an intentional, political goal since the 1970s, and continues to this day. Another severely ignored problem is investors sucking up the stock for vacation rentals. I did not click on any of the links, but I did not see these problems addressed.
Regarding “forced eviction,” seriously? People frequently play the system and squat while saving money for first, last and security on another place. It happens a lot! It happened to us. The police stated there was nothing they could do, so we got a friend, who spent a good amount of time in prison, have a chat with his “potential roommate” who was squatting in our house (with home made drug needles laying around). The squatter decided it was time to move. A good friend of mine, who has been in animal care and control, comes across it often while investigating animal hoarding and cruelty cases. I don’t have the whole story, but I believe there is a squatter in our neighborhood right now. So, I’m not convinced about making the law stricter about evictions.
Also, before we determine that the U.S. is particularly unfair, watch “House Hunters International” and get a wider perspective. A two bedroom, one bath apartment in Copenhagen runs around $3,000 per month. The Netherlands, and Britain is expensive too. Now you can get a bit of a <= apartment in Vietnam for around $800 per month, but I wouldn't want to live there. Some of nice houses and apartments, in places like Australia and Mexico have bars on the windows. I've been a bit shocked at prices around the globe, that is in line, or more expensive, than the U.S..
Again, I think we should be investigating the three problems I mentioned earlier before layering on more problems.
Sherry says
AGAIN. . . We have an economy based on “Capitalism”. . . maximizing profits is the goal! NO President controls retail prices on anything!
Sherry says
Thank you, Deborah, for pointing out what should be obvious. Right On!
Sherry says
However,
This is something the federal government and IRS can do to reduce our national debt. . . go after wealthy tax cheats. . . although the Republican House is doing its very best to CUT funding to the IRS for this very reason. Take a really good read and vote the extreme right winged Republicans OUT:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS plans to go after 125,000 high-income earners who did not file tax returns going back to 2017 — and the agency says hundreds of millions of dollars of unpaid taxes are involved in these cases.
Beginning this week, the IRS will start sending out noncompliance letters to more than 25,000 people who earn more than $1 million per year and 100,000 people with incomes between $400,000 and $1 million who failed to pay their taxes between 2017 and 2021.
The campaign announced Thursday is part of the agency’s ongoing effort to pursue high wealth tax cheats — mandated in part by funding provided through Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act passed into law in 2022 and a directive from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to IRS leadership not to increase audit rates on people making less than $400,000 a year annually.
“When people don’t file a tax return they’re required to, it’s not fair to those hardworking taxpayers who responsibly do their civic duty under the laws of our nation,” IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told reporters Thursday morning.
jeffery cortland seib says
The economist Adam Smith wrote the book “The Wealth of Nations”, where he first coined the phrase ‘supply and demand’ for the economic situation in countries that have a capitalist economic system. Right now, we have many jobs, good paying jobs, and many folks are employed. We have a stable retiree group again with goo pension and investment benefits. This money has created a demand for goods and services in the US and around the world. Demand and the supply of anything like homes, cars, flat screen TV’s, any good is tight so prices rise. This is what we have. This is why housing is so expensive. The demand is high, and the supply is pressed. We can all remember during the pandemic gas prices plummeted because the demand was low with folks out of work and businesses closed. This is the capitalist system. What’s the answer? It’s tough, but this current situation may be with us for some time.