Housing As A Right

Should housing be a right. That is the question. But the real question is what would that mean and how do we make it more than a token right but an actual effective right.

In North America we had this mythology that everyone could own their own home. That has never been true. The closest we have come is at the peak of unionization when unions brought much of the working class into the middle class. But then the capitalist owners of the means of production moved the means of production to low wage countries and left the auto industry as the remaining remnant of what was once an industrial economy. They then transformed the service industry to a piece-work model, much of it based on “apps” that pretended low wage workers were independent contractors not entitled to the protection of employment and labour laws. This returned us to a state where the dream of home ownership was limited to the wealthy and professional classes.

However this myth led governments to create tax advantages for home ownership that distorted the housing market leading it to be dominated by much larger than necessary energy wasting homes which contributed to the creation of urban sprawl.

So how do we create housing as a right for everyone.

If housing is actually to be a right then everyone one must have access to decent and properly maintained housing at an affordable cost. The private sector will not provide this.

North America needs to take a more European approach where public sector housing is not relegated to the poorest of the poor but is available to the general population. Funding needs to be provided to eliminate public housing waiting lists and provide necessary maintenance. Co-operative housing needs to be encouraged and facilitated with government assistance. Living in publicly provided housing has to be normalized rather than stigmatized.

Fortunately the solution to the funding problem is the same as the solution to all public expenditure programs. Society has the money, it is just improperly distributed through an economic and political system that has created excessive financial inequality. The answer lies in taxing corporations and the wealthy appropriately, especially the excessive wealthy.

The private sector can still play a role as long as they realize the slumlord model is no longer an option with affordable decent publicly provided housing available to everyone. And they must accept that with housing as a right no one can be evicted without somewhere else to go.