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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.
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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.
Sometimes they only campaign on “the rent is too damn high!”
real estate/developer lobbies in most places fund all candidates in the US. Its hard to overstate how manipulative they are.
NYC 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.
Get 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.
Let’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.
Capitalism is forgetting that the number one rule of being a parasite is that you don’t kill the host.
The rule is “don’t kill the host before you’ve had a chance to reproduce.” Capitalism is good at finding new hosts.
I meant host in the sense of the planet and humanity. So their only hope will be mars :)
Don’t worry they’re putting significant effort into that front, we’ll have a Mars colony before 2050, just about the time that the equatorial regions are getting roughed up from climate change
AI 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.
Xenomorphs be like: wut
Lawmakers are scrambling to help
Are they though?
Yeah. Landlords need help.
Scrambling 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?
Definitely not
If we just shovel more money at the already rich land developers and land lord corporations we can get another crumb!
US Lawmakers aren’t scrambling to do anything but take bribes and engage in insider trading.
I 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!
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.
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There’s precedent for this praxis.
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.
That sounds like rent control with extra steps
We work with the tools we have…
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.
Meanwhile companies are raking in record profits, and the rich get richer. This won’t stop until the workers seize the means of production.
the means of production was offshored decades ago
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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…
Stop paying them for creating the problem. Start putting them in fucking prison for hoarding a necessary resource and gouging people during a crisis.
My 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.
I’m guessing PG&E?
And fuck these utility companies. Private-public partnership hasn’t worked out. It’s time to nationalize the grid.
Yup!
I’m thankful I have a place to stay with family. Now my money I was using toward those insane bills will be used for paying off my debt. I just need to lay low for a bit, get everything paid off, save up, and I’ll be on my feet again!
I’m glad you’re landing on your feet. I’m pissed that you have to.
I don’t think they are
“Lawmakers are scrambling to fuck them even harder” is the realistic headline
I was looking for the right words, but you nailed it.
No 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.
I think they absolutely understand the problem. It’s just that 60% of Congress are actively working against the American people on behalf of donors.
Well 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.
It 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
Exactly! 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.
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?
Hah, 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
As 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.
