A record number of Americans can't afford their rent. Lawmakers are scrambling to help
A record number of Americans can't afford their rent. Lawmakers are scrambling to help
A new Harvard University study found that half of U.S. renters are paying nearly a third of their income on rent.
Single mom Caitlyn Colbert watched as rent for her two-bedroom apartment doubled, then tripled and then quadrupled over a decade in Denver — from $750 to $3,374 last year.
Every month, like millions of Americans, Colbert juggled her costs. Pay rent or swim team fees for one of her three kids. Rent or school supplies. Rent or groceries. Colbert, a social worker who helps people stay financially afloat, would often arrive home to notices giving her 30 days to pay rent and a late fee or face eviction.
“Every month you just gotta budget and then you still fall short,” she said, adding what became a monthly refrain: “Well, this month at least we have $13 left.”
Millions of Americans, especially people of color, are facing those same, painful decisions as a record number struggle with unaffordable rent increases, a crisis fueled by rising prices from inflation, a shortage of affordable housing and the end of pandemic relief.
The latest data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, released in January, found that a record high 22.4 million renter households — or half of renters nationwide — were spending more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022. The number of affordable units — with rents under $600 — also dropped to 7.2 million that year, 2.1 million fewer than a decade earlier.
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In Congress, lawmakers are working on a bill that would expand a federal program that awards tax credits to housing developers who agree to set aside units for low-income tenants. Supporters say that could lead to the construction of 200,000 more affordable homes. Some lawmakers are also calling for more rental assistance, including a significant increase in funding for housing vouchers.
After failing to make a significant dent in the problem over the last decade, state and federal lawmakers across the U.S. are making housing a priority in 2024 and throwing the kitchen sink at the issue — including proposals to enact eviction protections, institute zoning reforms, cap annual rent increases and dedicate tens of billions of dollars toward building more housing.
They haven't done anything for decades...
But we should believe them now in the run up to an election that after the next election they'll really do something.
They've been saying the same thing as far back as I can remember, but as soon as their elected they go back to ignoring it.
We need to get the Republicans and neoliberals out of office if we want actual progress. Neither of them will actually fix this shit, because the people donating them money don't want it fixed.
The most we'll get is billions to real estate moguls to subsidize them building high end housing that doesn't address the issue.
116Sometimes they only campaign on "the rent is too damn high!"
15real estate/developer lobbies in most places fund all candidates in the US. Its hard to overstate how manipulative they are.
8NYC finally did something in 2019 about the predatory renting practices, such as having the tenant pay the exorbitant broker fees (typically 2x or more of monthly rent, which is around $2600-3000/month), this was now the landlord's responsibility.... Then in 2022 they repealed it.
6Get real estate developers and land lords out of the legislatures. Make it such a dirty word that being found out means your campaign is over.
5Let's not stop there. Get big corporations out of the legislature. End Citizen's United.
If the poor folk could organize, pool money together, and spend time lobbying, we might have a chance. We suck at organizing, we're too short on cash just trying to stay afloat, and we've no time to be spending lobbying, either.
4
Capitalism is forgetting that the number one rule of being a parasite is that you don’t kill the host.
113AI advancements as well as renewable energy should be a utopian paradise for all earthlings.
Instead its a tool to allow culling of the masses thru famine plague and war.
IMO, eventually there will be a tipping point.
23Xenomorphs be like: wut
7
Lawmakers are scrambling to help
Are they though?
82Yeah. Landlords need help.
31Scrambling to make it look like you weren't just faffing off when you were supposed to be working? Like when your boss comes in and you've got a video game up on your screen? Or your wife comes home from out of town, and you're running around picking up laundry and pizza boxes? That sort of scrambling?
21Definitely not
6If we just shovel more money at the already rich land developers and land lord corporations we can get another crumb!
4
US Lawmakers aren't scrambling to do anything but take bribes and engage in insider trading.
58I just saw that "the economy is booming" and I was like "yeah, of course it is, every business in the US has increased their prices by at least 30%", people are still struggling to live though!
25
21
Single mom Caitlyn Colbert watched as rent for her two-bedroom apartment doubled, then tripled and then quadrupled over a decade in Denver — from $750 to $3,374 last year.
In Denver, Colbert’s bathroom roof partly caved in from a leak last year, and the landlord delayed a fix even as rent went up $200 a month.
There's a name for landlords like that: slum lords.
49Kill them.
Edit: the abusive landlords
1There's precedent for this praxis.
3
Just tax the parasites (sorry, i mean landlords) at an appropriate rate and give the money directly back to the renters. If they raise rents raise the taxes. Make it automatic. For the people.
41That sounds like rent control with extra steps
13We work with the tools we have...
4
Land value tax is all that's needed.
As long as its legal to build alternative property.
The reason that rent is expensive but the house is shit, is because the house is actually worthless and the land is valuable. If people got taxed on the land they would be incentivised to knock it down and build much higher density that the market demands. It's honestly a failing of the market that houses are so low density in such high value land.
This would absolutely decrease rent and can also allow for better public transport.
Mix use developments will also help a lot.
What you mention will not work at all.
2
Meanwhile companies are raking in record profits, and the rich get richer. This won't stop until the workers seize the means of production.
40the means of production was offshored decades ago
22Do you mean kill them because that’s the actual answer.
5Bring back the guillotine
2
In Congress, lawmakers are working on a bill that would expand a federal program that awards tax credits to housing developers...
Stop paying them for creating the problem. Start putting them in fucking prison for hoarding a necessary resource and gouging people during a crisis.
37My and utilities finally caught up to me and I lost my home about 2 weeks ago...
The utility company here was responsible for burning down the entire town next to us. They passed the lawsuit payments onto the customers. My bill went from $50 a month, give or take $5, to $200 to $300 a month.
25I'm guessing PG&E?
And fuck these utility companies. Private-public partnership hasn't worked out. It's time to nationalize the grid.
15
I don't think they are
23No man, credits to bulwark the insane rents people are charging will only cement the practice. Why does it take 3x your income to qualify to rent a place? Why haven't corporations and foreign investors been moved out of the single family home industry? Why hasn't a cap been put on Air Bnb and other short term rentals? How about changing the regulations to allow zoning changes which can allow more homes on existing lots?
The government, as usual, simply doesn't understand the problem! So frustrating.
21I think they absolutely understand the problem. It's just that 60% of Congress are actively working against the American people on behalf of donors.
6Well the answer to the 3x question is that a long time ago, in the dark ages, economists theorized that affordable housing is 30% of your gross income. Those dark ages were 1969.
Wages have lagged 137 percentage points behind core inflation since 1974. So the metric was outdated decades ago.
3Exactly! If people on the bottom quartile of the income spectrum are given a free $500/mo for rent, guess what happens to rent? It magically increases by $499.
2It feels like the request is multi pronged: provide credits for temporary relief, in the meantime, invest in building more housing and rezoning. Credits are a long term solution, like you said, but rezoning and building denser housing don't quite provide fast results either
2
"Lawmakers are scrambling to fuck them even harder" is the realistic headline
21I was looking for the right words, but you nailed it.
4
Can we stop giving these assholes tax breaks or subsidizing these shitty companies with tax money so they can prop up shareholders and get rich?
14As someone who owns a house cause I'm very blessed to have had the means 8 years ago(0% VA home loan). I hope the housing market crashes hard.
12Hah, I'm looking forward to not being able to afford my rent when renewal comes up in a year.
I'll be making $110k, splitting the place with my brother, but who knows how much goes to my ex
12Doubt. But while they're at it how about some limits on how much a property assessment can increase each year? My house has gone up 10 to 15% for the last 3 years, which causes property taxes to go up, which causes my mortgage to go up. I'm paying $200 per month more than I was in 2020.
9Meanwhile, my grandma Rents a single room micro apartment at around 75 dollars a month where I live...
8The poor need to manage their trust funds better apparently.
5Housing Crisis 2, electric Boogaloo
5Housing crisis, car payment crisis, credit debt crisis, Healthcare crisis... wait, sorry, forget any of that. Joe says the economy is great. Just look at the stock market.
5COVID is doing great too! No stop looking at the numbers. Don't believe your eyes!
1
You need to build more places for people to live!
4But that would bring down the value of the current homes that the lawmakers own! Can't have that happen....
3
I own a place that I rent out. I am having a hard time figuring out how people are charging $3,000 plus a month. I don’t charge anywhere near that. The only time I raise my rent is when the city increases the cost of their taxes/fees, or if insurance for some reason goes up. Is it actually that expensive for property taxes and other things there or is just greed?
3Greed plus high demand and low supply.
3I would say it's fair to raise it for increased maintenance costs as well. Most of us aren't mad that we have to pay for housing. We're mad we're so obviously getting taken for a ride by companies operating illegally to control prices.
2It's been a few decades since I've rented, and my previous landlord was very transparent with providing information about increased taxes and utilities to explain why rent was increasing. He knew that if he just increased it for the lolz, I'd happily just find another place to rent.
With the market being the way it is, the shortage has provided the leverage crooked people can use against renters.
I do wonder how many landlords are crooked, and how many are being forced to drive up rent due to the rise of excessive tax hikes, insurance premiums, utilities, maintenance and labor costs, etc. I know personally, my home's property taxes have more than tripled in the past 5 years. I'm now priced out of my neighborhood.
2Lol the tool who downvoted you after reading your first sentence but couldn't be bothered to read the rest...
But yes the answer is absolutely greed. And the naivety that "oh look this place over here rented for $500 more I guess I can charge $500 more too..." + "Why would I lose out on $6000/yr?!" + "If I still rent out for what I was renting it out for some losers will just move in." + "This is how an investment works! I get more money because time and not because I actually improved the home to justify $500 more." ... The list goes on ...
1
Cap how much rent can increase to the CPI % per year not including increases in property tax or strata fees and utilities if they are included in the rent.
And if you have a mortgage on something you're renting out that's a risky decision, if interest rates go up and you can't afford the mortgage without raising the rent maybe you shouldn't have taken out a mortgage for something as a way to make profit. Interest rates should not factor into the cap on rental price increase.
3Hidin’ Biden, unironically: “I don’t get it, the economy is doing so good, why aren’t you people happy?!”
-5Don't you people own phones? Level of disconnect coming out of the white house lately.
3Precisely, or “don’t you people own rental properties upstate?!”
2
Yes the great republican lie, that the president single handedly controls the economy with a little knob under the desk in the oval office...
-1He doesn't have to pretend though. He'd get a ton of support if he called it like it is. And he realizes that because his in person messaging seems to have changed recently. The news just hasn't caught up yet or doesn't want to cover it.
3bruh, what?
no, bidey is literally out there boasting about how “good” the economy is doing. And by the traditional measures of economy, he’s right. Stock market hitting all time highs, record low unemployment, record high oil production, etc.
But, the reality on the ground includes a record high population of unhoused people, over 60% of Americans who cannot afford an emergency $400 bill, unchecked greed by rent seeking corporate landlords, and people working 2-3 jobs at once and still unable to make it work, living paycheck to paycheck with no hope of affording basic preventative medical care.
It’s a late stage capitalistic hellscape, and we are constantly gaslighted into believing it’s normal from all sides of the political spectrum. This isn’t a “guhh, republicans bad.” It’s a “dude, America is fucked and we need to change course NOW or the empire will fall.”
1