What do you mean no choice? There’s always a choice.
Realistically many people don’t have a choice to buy, because they don’t have the credit score, reliable income, or down payment, but I don’t see why that blame falls on landlords and not on the banks or the government?
Because plenty of folks would have a solid down payment, or better credit score, if rent wasn’t so damn high. Likewise affordable rent would make it easier for folks to move to places where they could get the type of stable job necessary for a mortgage, etc. It’s not the only reason folks don’t have the economic resources at hand, but it’s usually the biggest expense in ones budget, no?
Greedy landlords are the problem, imho, and unfortunately every landlord except exactly one I’ve rented from (out of about ten in total) have been greedy assholes.
As for a fix: housing is a right, imho. I’m not an economist so anything I offer will be full of holes, but some way of securing that people have stable, safe, comfortable housing is essential. Making sure people can’t exploit the need for shelter is a big component of whatever fix we need.
I think a big component of the problem is location. I may have a different perspective living in a low cost of living city. Just a few years ago I lived in a two bedroom apartment that was $650/mo. It was old and not very nice, but totally functional and reasonably safe. It was a bigger complex so the landlord was a management company. They weren’t amazing or anything, but they held up their end of the lease. I understand the situation somewhere like NYC or California is going to be radically different.
I think that’s where a really interesting question comes in though, do people have a right to housing? Or a right to housing in the place they’re currently living? It’s a big difference. Forcibly relocating people is… Problematic at best. But there are places like LA where it’s almost physically (geologically) impossible to build enough housing for everyone who wants to live there.
If you haven’t already I’d recommend listening to the podcast mini series “according to need” by 99 percent invisible. I really appreciated the perspective it offers into some of the practical challenges of trying to get homeless people housed.
Ultimately I don’t know that I’d call housing a “right”, purely for semantic reasons, but I do think the very existence of homelessness and housing insecurity is a devastating critique of our social and economic systems. I didn’t think we’ll ever have a system that completely eliminates renting/short term housing, but we do clearly need to change a lot of things about how housing works now.
And people who have no choice but to rent, and get fucked over repeatedly because of it?
What do you mean no choice? There’s always a choice.
Realistically many people don’t have a choice to buy, because they don’t have the credit score, reliable income, or down payment, but I don’t see why that blame falls on landlords and not on the banks or the government?
Because plenty of folks would have a solid down payment, or better credit score, if rent wasn’t so damn high. Likewise affordable rent would make it easier for folks to move to places where they could get the type of stable job necessary for a mortgage, etc. It’s not the only reason folks don’t have the economic resources at hand, but it’s usually the biggest expense in ones budget, no?
Greedy landlords are the problem, imho, and unfortunately every landlord except exactly one I’ve rented from (out of about ten in total) have been greedy assholes.
As for a fix: housing is a right, imho. I’m not an economist so anything I offer will be full of holes, but some way of securing that people have stable, safe, comfortable housing is essential. Making sure people can’t exploit the need for shelter is a big component of whatever fix we need.
I think a big component of the problem is location. I may have a different perspective living in a low cost of living city. Just a few years ago I lived in a two bedroom apartment that was $650/mo. It was old and not very nice, but totally functional and reasonably safe. It was a bigger complex so the landlord was a management company. They weren’t amazing or anything, but they held up their end of the lease. I understand the situation somewhere like NYC or California is going to be radically different.
I think that’s where a really interesting question comes in though, do people have a right to housing? Or a right to housing in the place they’re currently living? It’s a big difference. Forcibly relocating people is… Problematic at best. But there are places like LA where it’s almost physically (geologically) impossible to build enough housing for everyone who wants to live there.
If you haven’t already I’d recommend listening to the podcast mini series “according to need” by 99 percent invisible. I really appreciated the perspective it offers into some of the practical challenges of trying to get homeless people housed.
Ultimately I don’t know that I’d call housing a “right”, purely for semantic reasons, but I do think the very existence of homelessness and housing insecurity is a devastating critique of our social and economic systems. I didn’t think we’ll ever have a system that completely eliminates renting/short term housing, but we do clearly need to change a lot of things about how housing works now.