For the past decade and a half on the national level, after the bailout of Wall Street legalized gambling via swap deratives went bust, the housing sector in particular stopped creating more housing stock, creating the problem of supply vs. demand. However, that is just one side of it. Even if housing supply had increased, it would still be in the hands of for-profit institutions such as builders to create ‘Built to Rent’ housing and luxury apartments, which are then in turn sold to private equity firms such as Blackrock to squeeze renters and further the elites plan of creating permanent renters to have neo-feudalism, which is only further exacerbated by Arizona’s laws in favor of landlords and against tenants (no rent control). We, the working class, need to push back against these structures, fight these leeches, and reverse the horrible state laws that allowed this to happen. We are at a tipping point where half of Americans are rent-burdened and pay more than a third of their income for a place to rent; evictions are up to levels in 2008; and housing is the most expensive it has ever been in the history of this country. Here is my plan to really address the housing crisis. Housing is a human right.
- Plan a commission to create cheap, adequate housing.
- Enact a national emergency on homelessness.
- Rent control
- Ban corporate landlords and all financialization of housing.
- Ban short-term rentals.
- Ban rent to own construction
- Create community land trusts.
- Create public housing at rates not seen since the New Deal era.
- Use eminent domains to buy land to create more housing.
- In combination with the right to WFH, we will buy out many commercial properties to be converted to public housing.
- Lax zoning laws to build more housing, like in Europe
- End homelessness by creating a housing-first policy.
- Organize tenant organizations.
- Rebuild crumbling roads and revive ghost towns.
- Reintroduce the Homestead Act to create new cities.
- Ban rental junk fees (convenience fee, admin fee).
- Ban the rent application scam by creating a universal background check so that renters do not have to pay for a background check every single time they apply for a rental property.
- Only invest in non-market housing.
- Down payment assistance
- Right of first refusal to the tenants of a building or property