“When It Comes to Housing, We Know What Works”

I have appreciated the opportunity to write for Commonweal several times over the years, including articles that excerpted my past books on service-sector union organizing, religious socialism, access to prescription medicines, and human rights in Haiti. (All the articles are linked here).

So I was grateful that Commonweal editors followed up the publication of my March article for them highlighting religious traditions’ shared call for social housing as a human right with a request: could I contribute a short piece that reviews what we know about successful responses to our housing crisis?

The resulting article is online now, titled “A Crisis With a Clear Solution,” and it is available to read (no paywall) here. Editors typically choose titles, but I like the title they chose here. I also like the subtitle, “When It Comes to Housing, We Know What Works.”

Because we do. As several of you pointed out in response to my recent post about the marvelous housing success in Vienna, the missing element in the U.S. housing crisis is not proven solutions. The missing element is the political will to act on them.

So I encourage you to reward the good folks at Commonweal with the clicks of checking out the article on their site. But here is the outline of the clear solutions summarized there, with links to posts and articles that go into more detail:

1.    Fix our court processes so that evictions are far more rare and difficult to achieve.

2.    Commit fully to the proven success of the Housing First approach.

3.    Adopt rent control to stop price-gouging of tenants.

4.    Commit to steps, including zoning reforms and targeted subsidies, that begin to reverse the multi-generation legacy of housing racism.  

5.    Remedy the imbalance created by over-subsidizing wealthy landlords and homeowners by ensuring every person eligible for federal housing subsidies receives them. The short-term path to this result is universal vouchers, the long-term response is a big expansion and improvement of public housing.  

How do we get there? I invoked for Commonweal readers the same theme I have echoed in this newsletter and other venues: the inspiring, growing tenants’ movement fits history’s blueprint for how impactful social change comes about. Tenants organizing to demand their rights deserve our active support.

Spoiler alert: These same themes are the focus of my forthcoming book, tentatively titled Lessons From Eviction Court. More on that to come. As always, thank you for reading.