Social housing or government financial aid?
August 20, 2024 1:13 AM Subscribe
I've seen a lot of critique towards deprioritisation of social housing. But why isn't the problem of affordable housing solved with government financial aid for individuals, allowing them more freedom and flexibility? Is it a bad strategy, from a leftist standpoint? Seems like building and maintaining social housing might be harder and more expensive for governments than to just give financial aid to those who can't afford appropriate housing?
I'm from Europe and don't have that good of a knowledge of government housing strategies in the US; I'm more interested in understanding the general principle.
I'm from Europe and don't have that good of a knowledge of government housing strategies in the US; I'm more interested in understanding the general principle.
Response by poster: Thanks for the response!
Not to threadsit, but what about places where the problem isn't lack of housing, but rather affordability? Many cities in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe are like this - depopulation has led to vacant buildings that are hard and expensive to maintain, brain drain means that residents can't afford whatever the market offers, governments can't cope with the demand for affordable housing as building it takes time and resources. Would throwing money at the problem be a feasible solution in such cases?
posted by luminary at 1:36 AM on August 20
Not to threadsit, but what about places where the problem isn't lack of housing, but rather affordability? Many cities in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe are like this - depopulation has led to vacant buildings that are hard and expensive to maintain, brain drain means that residents can't afford whatever the market offers, governments can't cope with the demand for affordable housing as building it takes time and resources. Would throwing money at the problem be a feasible solution in such cases?
posted by luminary at 1:36 AM on August 20
Best answer: There's a public interest in having (some) housing be not only affordable to the inhabitants, but also
- affordable to the state who are subsidising that housing
- affordable to maintain
- affordable to pay the heating bills on
- decent and healthy to live in, not damp and full of mould
- not subject to random evictions by landlords who change their life plans
- not subject to random unpredictable hikes in cost when the landlords decide to hike the rent (of course, capital costs can change unpredictably too, but that's hard to control).
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:43 AM on August 20
- affordable to the state who are subsidising that housing
- affordable to maintain
- affordable to pay the heating bills on
- decent and healthy to live in, not damp and full of mould
- not subject to random evictions by landlords who change their life plans
- not subject to random unpredictable hikes in cost when the landlords decide to hike the rent (of course, capital costs can change unpredictably too, but that's hard to control).
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:43 AM on August 20
Best answer: Nick Bano’s book Against Landlords: How to solve the housing crisis argues that in many places there is no need to build new social housing, that in fact there are already plenty of underused houses. But nor is the solution to give residents more financial support, because that just results in a massive hike in rents, and doesn’t increase people’s access to affordable housing. He argues that at its core the housing crisis is born from a problem to do with laws around landlordism.
posted by Joeruckus at 1:55 AM on August 20 [13 favorites]
posted by Joeruckus at 1:55 AM on August 20 [13 favorites]
Best answer: For example: if you build a bunch of social housing, you can settle on one model of boiler that you decide will be reliable and cheap to service. Then you can get in a stock of common spare parts for that one boiler. When someone's boiler breaks, your boiler person pops round and can usually fix it right away in half an hour. Compared to servicing a zillion different kinds of dodgy heating systems in creaky old places, this is cheaper and more predictable in terms of the boiler person's time, super convenient for the householder, and means their family aren't sitting in the cold for days or weeks waiting for parts.
It's also worth bearing in mind that lots of people in social housing have disabilities that may make it harder for them to deal with cold conditions, poor accessibility, difficult landlords, having to move on short notice, etc etc. Problems that would just be "kind of annoying" to you could be much more challenging to someone with disabilities, or even just someone living in poverty who can't buy their way out of trouble. And old housing stock has notoriously bad accessibility.
posted by quacks like a duck at 2:08 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
It's also worth bearing in mind that lots of people in social housing have disabilities that may make it harder for them to deal with cold conditions, poor accessibility, difficult landlords, having to move on short notice, etc etc. Problems that would just be "kind of annoying" to you could be much more challenging to someone with disabilities, or even just someone living in poverty who can't buy their way out of trouble. And old housing stock has notoriously bad accessibility.
posted by quacks like a duck at 2:08 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
Best answer: The US currently has the system you describe: instead of social housing the federal government pays for programs that provide rent vouchers and subsidies to private landlords. There are many problems with the current system:
1. Not enough money in the system leading to massive waiting lists, use of these funds for poor quality housing in segregated neighborhoods, and a completely inadequate housing safety net. Some of this is solvable by adding more money to the system but has not been done through decades of both Republican and Democratic administrations. One could argue this is inevitable in a system that is only for the poor, instead of for people with a range of incomes and amount of social power
2. Why should taxes subsidize rentier capitalism? Our system uses public money to pay landlords. How is that a public good?
3. The voluntary nature of these programs from the landlord end, along with other factors like the federal and state governments permissive policies toward local NIMBYism, amplifies economic segregation. Class is highly racialized in the US so along with straight up racist housing discrimination, rich white neighborhoods can keep out people who need housing subsidies, amplifying segregation.
4. Speaking of segregation, many social housing schemes build in economic diversity within a given building or neighborhood. If the government owns and administers the housing, they can charge varying rent based on income. Not how it works in the current system where low income housing is determined by "market forces".
5. Social Housing can have other benefits such as creating more rooted communities. Resources like playgrounds and senior centers can by placed on site.
Overall, housing "vouchers" are a horrible system with decades of failure behind them. If you want to just give people money I'm for that but I don't think that provides all the benefits of social housing and I have questions re if that can keep up with housing cost inflation.
posted by latkes at 2:37 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
1. Not enough money in the system leading to massive waiting lists, use of these funds for poor quality housing in segregated neighborhoods, and a completely inadequate housing safety net. Some of this is solvable by adding more money to the system but has not been done through decades of both Republican and Democratic administrations. One could argue this is inevitable in a system that is only for the poor, instead of for people with a range of incomes and amount of social power
2. Why should taxes subsidize rentier capitalism? Our system uses public money to pay landlords. How is that a public good?
3. The voluntary nature of these programs from the landlord end, along with other factors like the federal and state governments permissive policies toward local NIMBYism, amplifies economic segregation. Class is highly racialized in the US so along with straight up racist housing discrimination, rich white neighborhoods can keep out people who need housing subsidies, amplifying segregation.
4. Speaking of segregation, many social housing schemes build in economic diversity within a given building or neighborhood. If the government owns and administers the housing, they can charge varying rent based on income. Not how it works in the current system where low income housing is determined by "market forces".
5. Social Housing can have other benefits such as creating more rooted communities. Resources like playgrounds and senior centers can by placed on site.
Overall, housing "vouchers" are a horrible system with decades of failure behind them. If you want to just give people money I'm for that but I don't think that provides all the benefits of social housing and I have questions re if that can keep up with housing cost inflation.
posted by latkes at 2:37 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
also, as has yet to be mentioned, for this:
isn't the problem of affordable housing solved with government financial aid for individuals, allowing them more freedom and flexibility?
see e.g. New Report Shows That the Mortgage Interest Deduction is One of the Drivers of the U.S. racial wealth gap [national low income housing coalition]
posted by HearHere at 2:54 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
isn't the problem of affordable housing solved with government financial aid for individuals, allowing them more freedom and flexibility?
see e.g. New Report Shows That the Mortgage Interest Deduction is One of the Drivers of the U.S. racial wealth gap [national low income housing coalition]
posted by HearHere at 2:54 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
depopulation has led to vacant buildings that are hard and expensive to maintain, brain drain means that residents can't afford whatever the market offers, governments can't cope with the demand for affordable housing as building it takes time and resources. Would throwing money at the problem be a feasible solution in such cases?
The question that really needs to be asked is in whose hands any public money thrown at a problem ends up.
If public money is thrown at a rental market problem, that money almost instantly ends up in the pockets of property owners. In a market where most of the property is owned by a relatively small number of people who are already extremely wealthy, which in fact is most rental markets, that money will end up being used by those people to buy more assets - residential property included - shifting even such property as remains in middle-class hands into those of the very wealthy. So the overall effect of trying to solve a problem that actually needs to be addressed on the supply side by throwing money at the demand side instead is to worsen the existing wealth inequality that gave rise to the problem in the first place.
A better response is not to concentrate so much on throwing money in as on getting wealth out. If family wealth sufficient to put somebody well outside the middle classes were taxed in a way that included the unrealized value of assets - that is, if assets were taxed yearly according to a fair assessment of what their value would be if sold - then the owners of those assets would be forced to sell some of them off in order to fund their tax bill. This would depress their price and therefore lower the return expected from them, as well as moving them back into the hands of middle-class owners more likely to try to operate them as businesses than simply hoard them as stores of value. Some could even be bought by governments and operated as social housing.
If wealth taxes were in place, it would become possible to implement short-term fixes for social problems by throwing money at them without the risk of intensifying the conditions that cause those problems, depopulation included. It could also make quite staggering amounts of budget available for longer-term fixes like actually building sound and comfortable housing commensurate with the needs of the populace.
posted by flabdablet at 4:40 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
The question that really needs to be asked is in whose hands any public money thrown at a problem ends up.
If public money is thrown at a rental market problem, that money almost instantly ends up in the pockets of property owners. In a market where most of the property is owned by a relatively small number of people who are already extremely wealthy, which in fact is most rental markets, that money will end up being used by those people to buy more assets - residential property included - shifting even such property as remains in middle-class hands into those of the very wealthy. So the overall effect of trying to solve a problem that actually needs to be addressed on the supply side by throwing money at the demand side instead is to worsen the existing wealth inequality that gave rise to the problem in the first place.
A better response is not to concentrate so much on throwing money in as on getting wealth out. If family wealth sufficient to put somebody well outside the middle classes were taxed in a way that included the unrealized value of assets - that is, if assets were taxed yearly according to a fair assessment of what their value would be if sold - then the owners of those assets would be forced to sell some of them off in order to fund their tax bill. This would depress their price and therefore lower the return expected from them, as well as moving them back into the hands of middle-class owners more likely to try to operate them as businesses than simply hoard them as stores of value. Some could even be bought by governments and operated as social housing.
If wealth taxes were in place, it would become possible to implement short-term fixes for social problems by throwing money at them without the risk of intensifying the conditions that cause those problems, depopulation included. It could also make quite staggering amounts of budget available for longer-term fixes like actually building sound and comfortable housing commensurate with the needs of the populace.
posted by flabdablet at 4:40 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]
In the USA, any program that gives money to people is anathema to the right wing, and will be terminated if they get a majority in Congress or state legislature involved.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:06 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by SemiSalt at 5:06 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]
I worked in an agency that built social housing in Canada and networked worldwide and what I can tell you is - it’s complicated.
First, there are groups of people who need housing that is specialized. This can range from hard to house (long term homeless, people with addictions) to people who need different kinds of supportive housing (seniors, people with disabilities).
But it’s also about community and community supports. It’s a hard balance. Building large complexes of social housing, especially if other supports (schools, afterschool programs, youth employment, employment, language supports, job training, health care, recreation, access to food) aren’t in place, can be not great, but building housing with supports is awesome. It’s also really important that housing be built close to jobs, or at least close to decent transit. It’s funny - my parents live in a Toronto neighbourhood that has old “workman’s cottages” and row houses, because it was an industrial area (long since gentrified) - and all of those start around $900,000 now. And then there’s the issue of class (and other) diversity.
When you just provide money, besides the profit thing, you often get:
- a group of vulnerable and “undesirable” people who end up in very precarious positions without support - rooming houses is one example
- people living in less desirable areas - lack of transit or work, food desserts, lack of parks and schools etc.
- hidden needs and lack of supports
Mega complexes of social housing don’t always work either, but well-planned social housing can be awesome beyond its cost.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:33 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
First, there are groups of people who need housing that is specialized. This can range from hard to house (long term homeless, people with addictions) to people who need different kinds of supportive housing (seniors, people with disabilities).
But it’s also about community and community supports. It’s a hard balance. Building large complexes of social housing, especially if other supports (schools, afterschool programs, youth employment, employment, language supports, job training, health care, recreation, access to food) aren’t in place, can be not great, but building housing with supports is awesome. It’s also really important that housing be built close to jobs, or at least close to decent transit. It’s funny - my parents live in a Toronto neighbourhood that has old “workman’s cottages” and row houses, because it was an industrial area (long since gentrified) - and all of those start around $900,000 now. And then there’s the issue of class (and other) diversity.
When you just provide money, besides the profit thing, you often get:
- a group of vulnerable and “undesirable” people who end up in very precarious positions without support - rooming houses is one example
- people living in less desirable areas - lack of transit or work, food desserts, lack of parks and schools etc.
- hidden needs and lack of supports
Mega complexes of social housing don’t always work either, but well-planned social housing can be awesome beyond its cost.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:33 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
The voluntary nature of these programs from the landlord end, along with other factors like the federal and state governments permissive policies toward local NIMBYism, amplifies economic segregation.
To be a little more explicit about this, although source-of-income discrimination by landlords is illegal, it is notoriously widespread. Section 8 voucher-holders are a class of people with little practical ability to pursue their legal remedies; government enforcement is patchy at best.
posted by praemunire at 7:34 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
To be a little more explicit about this, although source-of-income discrimination by landlords is illegal, it is notoriously widespread. Section 8 voucher-holders are a class of people with little practical ability to pursue their legal remedies; government enforcement is patchy at best.
posted by praemunire at 7:34 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
In the USA, any program that gives money to people is anathema to the right wing
The exception is if you give the money to more or less everyone, such as with the COVID stimulus money and some versions of the child tax credit. Giving money only to the people who need it is the obstacle.
posted by momus_window at 8:22 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
The exception is if you give the money to more or less everyone, such as with the COVID stimulus money and some versions of the child tax credit. Giving money only to the people who need it is the obstacle.
posted by momus_window at 8:22 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
The US currently has the system you describe: instead of social housing the federal government pays for programs that provide rent vouchers and subsidies to private landlords.
For the OP, since no one has said this directly, this is Section 8.
I actually qualified for Section 8 during the six years I lived in Minneapolis. The wait list did not open in the entire time I lived there. (My landlord actually took Section 8. However, my Minneapolis landlord was seriously the best landlord I can imagine. It was nuts.)
posted by hoyland at 8:43 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
For the OP, since no one has said this directly, this is Section 8.
I actually qualified for Section 8 during the six years I lived in Minneapolis. The wait list did not open in the entire time I lived there. (My landlord actually took Section 8. However, my Minneapolis landlord was seriously the best landlord I can imagine. It was nuts.)
posted by hoyland at 8:43 AM on August 20 [5 favorites]
Best answer: In a lot of Eastern Europe, the problem is that vacant housing is where people don't want to live (because of a lack of jobs). Housing in desirable cities is expensive, which leads to a different kind of suburbanisation than in the US - people buy cheaper houses in the suburbs because they can get a five bedroom house with a garden for the price of a two bedroom city flat plus three hours of their life every day for the commute into the city.
Poland recently tried a high stimulus to ownership via a 2% interest rate for first time buyers in 2023. Housing prices in Warsaw jumped from a fairly stable USD 3K per sqm in late 2022 (already pushed up by inflation and influx of refugees as well as previous artificially low interest rates - used to be a fairly stable 2K from 2009 to 2018) to 5K per sqm early 2024, and the growth stopped the exact week money for that programme ran out. That's with a median pre-tax salary of 29K, so you'd need to work for about nine years and not spend a cent beyond taxes to afford a 380 sqf studio apartment. Rents rose proportionally to housing prices. This very clearly put money in the pockets of developers and existing real estate investors, while leaving poor people even more desperate than before. Gen Z is loudly saying they'll never be able to afford real estate now.
(And you know, I bought in 2010 and being a PLN millionaire on paper gives me exactly zero benefits.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:24 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Poland recently tried a high stimulus to ownership via a 2% interest rate for first time buyers in 2023. Housing prices in Warsaw jumped from a fairly stable USD 3K per sqm in late 2022 (already pushed up by inflation and influx of refugees as well as previous artificially low interest rates - used to be a fairly stable 2K from 2009 to 2018) to 5K per sqm early 2024, and the growth stopped the exact week money for that programme ran out. That's with a median pre-tax salary of 29K, so you'd need to work for about nine years and not spend a cent beyond taxes to afford a 380 sqf studio apartment. Rents rose proportionally to housing prices. This very clearly put money in the pockets of developers and existing real estate investors, while leaving poor people even more desperate than before. Gen Z is loudly saying they'll never be able to afford real estate now.
(And you know, I bought in 2010 and being a PLN millionaire on paper gives me exactly zero benefits.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:24 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]
The problem with giving people financial aid is that the housing market is a 'market', if you give a large group of people a discount, then the market will adjust for that with higher prices.
A good example of this is the so called 'Help to buy' scheme in the UK which gave first time buyers a 20% interest free loan for 5 years.
The result of that was that eligible houses jumped in price by 22% and if resold, the resale price would drop below equivalent new houses (because subsequent buyers would not get the HTB discount).
Most of the benefit went to the house builders not the buyers.
The cost of this scheme was £24.7 billion around £800 for every taxpayer.
During the 10 years it ran, house prices nearly doubled. Since it was scrapped prices have started to fall.
By complete coincidence the large housebuilders who gained the most from this scheme just happened to be major donors to the political party which implemented it.
posted by Lanark at 9:47 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
A good example of this is the so called 'Help to buy' scheme in the UK which gave first time buyers a 20% interest free loan for 5 years.
The result of that was that eligible houses jumped in price by 22% and if resold, the resale price would drop below equivalent new houses (because subsequent buyers would not get the HTB discount).
Most of the benefit went to the house builders not the buyers.
The cost of this scheme was £24.7 billion around £800 for every taxpayer.
During the 10 years it ran, house prices nearly doubled. Since it was scrapped prices have started to fall.
By complete coincidence the large housebuilders who gained the most from this scheme just happened to be major donors to the political party which implemented it.
posted by Lanark at 9:47 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]
Many cities in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe are like this - depopulation has led to vacant buildings that are hard and expensive to maintain
Some parts of the US have programs for low income homeowners to get help with fixing their homes.
There is an image that everyone who owns their own home has lots of money, but especially in rural areas this is not always true, especially for people living in a home that was handed down to them from a relative or elderly people who might have bought a home long ago when it was cheaper and they had more ability to earn an income. And as the OP has pointed out, repairs can be expensive on older buildings.
posted by yohko at 12:12 PM on August 20
Some parts of the US have programs for low income homeowners to get help with fixing their homes.
There is an image that everyone who owns their own home has lots of money, but especially in rural areas this is not always true, especially for people living in a home that was handed down to them from a relative or elderly people who might have bought a home long ago when it was cheaper and they had more ability to earn an income. And as the OP has pointed out, repairs can be expensive on older buildings.
posted by yohko at 12:12 PM on August 20
In a lot of Eastern Europe, the problem is that vacant housing is where people don't want to live (because of a lack of jobs).
That lack of jobs is a direct consequence of the hollowing-out of the middle class driven by massive increases in wealth inequality. Here's Gary Stevenson explaining how that works:
Understand the Economy Part 1: What is wealth? (YouTube, 13m8s)
Understand the Economy Part 2: What Is Wealth Inequality? (YouTube, 27m34s)
posted by flabdablet at 12:28 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
That lack of jobs is a direct consequence of the hollowing-out of the middle class driven by massive increases in wealth inequality. Here's Gary Stevenson explaining how that works:
Understand the Economy Part 1: What is wealth? (YouTube, 13m8s)
Understand the Economy Part 2: What Is Wealth Inequality? (YouTube, 27m34s)
posted by flabdablet at 12:28 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
In Eastern Europe there hasn't been a middle class since 1939. Our wealth inequality has actually been falling (Poland's Gini coefficient is 0.27, was 0.37 in 2004, USA has hovered between .38 to .41 in the same period and was at its more equal .34 just before Reagan) mostly due to high social transfers and public investment from EU funds - we're back to where it was in the early 90s just after Communism and before 15 years of World Bank enforced economic neoliberalism, though at a much higher level of societal wealth. You can't regard everything through a US lens, least of all the reorganization of geographic economic activity that resulted from the implosion of a centrally managed economy.
Honestly I'd point to the general policies of the EU for something that at least worked in Eastern Europe quite decently, while Brexit shows us the downside of stopping the same policies. Alas housing is not one of the common market regulated sectors so I can't point to overall EU examples there.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:11 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
Honestly I'd point to the general policies of the EU for something that at least worked in Eastern Europe quite decently, while Brexit shows us the downside of stopping the same policies. Alas housing is not one of the common market regulated sectors so I can't point to overall EU examples there.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:11 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
To follow up, here is an example from yesterday of discrimination against voucher-holders: Attorney General James Stops Illegal Housing Discrimination in New York City
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on August 21
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on August 21
In Eastern Europe there hasn't been a middle class since 1939. Our wealth inequality has actually been falling (Poland's Gini coefficient is 0.27, was 0.37 in 2004, USA has hovered between .38 to .41 in the same period and was at its more equal .34 just before Reagan) mostly due to high social transfers and public investment from EU funds
What does that mean? That everyone in Poland is extremely poor or extremely rich? The gini coefficient is only useful in comparison, ie: the gini coefficient can improve by everyone getting worse off, or (theoretically) everyone getting better off. Everything you are describing is pretty similar to the US, in terms of suburbanization vs city costs and hollowing of jobs in one place moving to another place, especially if you are comparing outcomes for those left behind, vs reasons why it happened, vs outcomes of those who left. Obviously leaving in the US is easier as there is a generaly shared culture and no border patrol at state borders stopping you.
rural areas this is not always true, especially for people living in a home that was handed down to them from a relative or elderly people who might have bought a home long ago when it was cheaper and they had more ability to earn an income.
This is extremely true, as repairs are paid for in current dollars, and houses are valued in past dollars (stored wealth is a primary reason to buy a home) so if the stored wealth part has no value, then all that's left is a comparison of some imputed rent expense (or the real rent if it's rented) vs the expense of keeping the roof on top. That can decidedly fall downwards until it is abandoned. This can be due to regional job loss, discrimination, age, NIMBY policies, weather or environmental catastrophes, and all sorts of reasons.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:59 AM on August 21
What does that mean? That everyone in Poland is extremely poor or extremely rich? The gini coefficient is only useful in comparison, ie: the gini coefficient can improve by everyone getting worse off, or (theoretically) everyone getting better off. Everything you are describing is pretty similar to the US, in terms of suburbanization vs city costs and hollowing of jobs in one place moving to another place, especially if you are comparing outcomes for those left behind, vs reasons why it happened, vs outcomes of those who left. Obviously leaving in the US is easier as there is a generaly shared culture and no border patrol at state borders stopping you.
rural areas this is not always true, especially for people living in a home that was handed down to them from a relative or elderly people who might have bought a home long ago when it was cheaper and they had more ability to earn an income.
This is extremely true, as repairs are paid for in current dollars, and houses are valued in past dollars (stored wealth is a primary reason to buy a home) so if the stored wealth part has no value, then all that's left is a comparison of some imputed rent expense (or the real rent if it's rented) vs the expense of keeping the roof on top. That can decidedly fall downwards until it is abandoned. This can be due to regional job loss, discrimination, age, NIMBY policies, weather or environmental catastrophes, and all sorts of reasons.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:59 AM on August 21
Risking chatfilter, this is why I mentioned above that in 1991 we were all desperately poor (I've told my banana story on Mefi multiple times) and now with the same coefficient we're much better off but still nowhere near the mythical US middle class. Again, if you don't know the realities of Eastern Europe, please don't generalise American experiences.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:26 AM on August 21 [1 favorite]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:26 AM on August 21 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
At least in large swaths of the US, this problem arises because housing is not actually a free market good; it's heavily regulated through zoning systems, which are often politically captured by the land-owning class (who have a strong incentive to oppose newer and denser housing, as it would reduce the value of the real estate they already own).
In an "ideal" capitalist world, housing would be a fairly elastic good that could be assembled fairly quickly to meet demand, and giving people money would help create that demand, thus encouraging more construction. There are places where this is somewhat true (at least moreso than the US); Tokyo is a good example. But in places where the system is already completely compromised by the existing land-owning class, reforming it to that degree is probably even less politically feasible than building dedicated social housing.
posted by etealuear_crushue at 1:30 AM on August 20 [17 favorites]