What America Could Learn From Countries That Actually Build Affordable Housing
For too long, it’s been easy to think of America’s housing crisis as a problem that belongs to someone else: the person sleeping in their car or the family facing eviction. But increasingly, housing insecurity is reaching people who once assumed homeownership would be a normal part of adult life. Rent is expensive, homes are out of reach, and middle-class families are finding that stable housing can consume an enormous share of their income.
There is no single fix, but there are plenty of examples of what a different approach could look like. Other countries treat housing less as a financial asset and more as a public good, with policies designed to keep homes affordable and homelessness rare. This week's story looks at how America got here, and what we might learn if we were willing to rethink one of our most basic assumptions about housing: that shelter is something you buy, rather than something everyone should be able to have.
What If We Treated Housing Like a Human Right?
About 16 percent of all households in the U.S. are “severely cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than half of their total income on housing. Those who are “severely cost-burdened” are often one surprise expense away from homelessness, living constantly on the edge of dire poverty.
America’s housing crisis is the product of decades of underbuilding, restrictive zoning, rising costs and policy choices. There are ways out — if we’re willing to think differently about housing.
From the Reporter’s Notebook 📓
At its core, America’s housing crisis has been fueled by the same insidious human trait that has leveled rainforests, poisoned water supplies, and led to vicious wars: Greed. For this piece, I spent time researching how other countries — Japan, Singapore, Austria, Finland — have met their populations' need for shelter. They’ve decided that housing is, first and foremost, a human right. Those nations obviously aren’t inoculated from greed, but they’ve at least created a system that isn’t completely driven by it. What I found most disheartening was that we’ve created a system which revolves around an inhumane, cutthroat, dog-eat-dog brand of American money lust. We’ve built a society where housing, just like medicine and education, is reserved for only those who can afford it. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can tame our own seemingly unquenchable thirst for more and more cash. But we first must decide that, if we genuinely want a better society for ourselves, we must find a way to put people before profit.
Next Up in the Series: The Courts
The federal judiciary may look immovable, but much of its structure is actually in Congress’ hands. Next week, we dive into what lawmakers could do to rebalance the courts and reclaim some of the constitutional power they’ve allowed to slip away.
Read More From the Series
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As borrowers face rising payments and an increasingly chaotic loan system, experts and advocates are pushing for solutions that address the cost of college itself — from stronger grants to free college and debt cancellation.
Read the full piece from Rainesford Stauffer here.
America’s Child Care Crisis Was a Political Choice
For decades, the U.S. treated child care as a private responsibility instead of a public good. States are now testing a different future.
Read the full piece from Elliot Haspel here.
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Read the rest from Kavin Senapathy here.
America’s Disaster Response Is Failing. Here’s How to Rebuild It.
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Read Sarah Sloat’s reporting here.
America’s Immigration System Was Never Built to Make Sense
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Read the feature from Felipe De La Hoz here.
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About the Series: What Would It Take to Actually Fix This Country?
Our new series looks past the churn of daily news to interrogate the systems shaping American life, and offers tangible fixes to the problems we collectively face.
Read the full introduction to the series here.