by Jordan Wasilewski
Ever since Donald Trump was re-elected, I have been thinking about what led to this morass. As somebody who grew up in a working class Democratic household with one parent as a member of a union, I recently changed my voter registration to “no party preference” because the Democrats have been defecating the bed on economic justice issues. After the federal government drastically reduced social safety-net programs in the 1980s, among them affordable housing, it has never restored funding to previous or even comparable levels. Anti-poverty advocates link the magnitude of today’s homelessness to this substantial disinvestment. Here are a few things that have been ignored at the federal level, but should be addressed to prevent homelessness from growing further.
1) Single Payer/Medicare For All: I believe that Medicare for All would help prevent and stop homelessness by preventing unpaid medical bills from piling up, which impacts people’s credit and their ability to get apartments, prevent poverty traps and welfare cliffs by allowing disabled people to rejoin the workforce without having to worry about switching their health care (or having to choose between health care and having a job), and prevent job loss by allowing for preventative care. The fact that many conservative listeners of Ben Shapiro are to the left of the Democratic party on this issue is telling. If there was a single payer/Medicare For All system, it would encourage more employment for those who are vulnerable to homelessness.
2) Universal Basic Income: In the place of welfare and Social Supplemental Income (and its stringent rules), everybody should be granted a basic income. It would be easier to implement, and would be funded by a negative income tax. As much as it might seem ridiculous to give out free money, there may not be enough jobs in the new economy for everyone, so this may be necessary in the future. This could help prevent homelessness in ways that should seem obvious. In fact, in Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Denver, programs that offered basic income helped most people out of homelessness, and with adjustments, could be scaled up. Even if the country isn’t ready for basic income as of yet, the principles could be utilized for disability income programs.
3) National rent control on housing more than 25 years old with vacancy control: Over the past six years, Californians have voted three times on repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act, which puts limits on cities’ ability to have effective rent control. The measures failed all three times, but that is likely because there are no spending limits for ballot measures and the pro-tenant forces do not have enough capital to battle the opposition’s lies. Rent control is made out to be some type of socialist conspiracy, but in reality, it is a regulation of the private market, and rent control laws must allow for a fair rate of return, meaning that such rents might still be too high for very low-income individuals—necessitating subsidized housing.
To show the importance of rent control on the marginally housed, when I was on the city’s SRO Task Force, one of the major issues was the conversion of private SRO units into tech dorms. This was facilitated by the Costa-Hawkins Housing Act, which prohibits vacancy control (that is, the act allows landlords to jack up the rent once a tenant vacates their unit). This incentivizes landlords to push tenants out in favor of higher rents for those willing to live in a smaller unit with no bathroom.
It’s time for, at the very minimum, requiring rent control on older buildings with vacancy control and allowing for buildings to “age into” rent control (I’d suggest 25 years). In fact, I would go a step further and demand that after a certain point, rents must be reduced to balance a fair rate of return with affordability.
Housing affordability is an issue that resonates among millennials and Gen Z people, who may be locked out of homeownership for the immediate future. Better housing policy would also help save states and localities money, because fewer people would require the homelessness response system.
