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You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Housing advocates lament the fact that a full-time worker making minimum wage can’t afford a two-bedroom apartment. This, they want us to believe, is an example of the affordable housing crisis. But they fail to explain why a two-bedroom apartment is the standard. They fail to explain why a one-bedroom apartment or a studio apartment…
A Unique Solution for Homelessness
Government officials in North Las Vegas have come up with a unique solution for homelessness: kick people out of their home and then bulldoze the house. A Nevada non-profit, New Leaf Community, purchased land and erected fifty square foot structures. The tiny houses had a window and locking door. The houses allowed homeless individuals some…
The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures
Few people deny that America has a severe shortage of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households. While there is agreement that a problem exists, there is little agreement about a remedy. Government officials at every level, along with housing advocates, frequently put forth a variety of policy proposals in an attempt to address the…
Remove Profit from Rental Housing
Housing activists have long called for the government to de-commodify housing—they want to remove profit from rental housing. A current effort to institute this policy has housing activists calling for the Federal Housing Finance Agency to institute national rent control for housing financed by the agency. In an opinion piece on The Hill, activist Tram…
The Landlord Shrugged
In her epic novel, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand dramatizes a world in which producers go on strike. Rand once commented that part of her motivation for writing the novel was so that it wouldn’t come true. Sadly, it is coming true and often in ways that few will notice. In the novel, government enacted a…
Economic Reality Bit St. Paul
As has been previously noted on this site, the city of St. Paul has amended its draconian rent control law. In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal notes that “according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there have been only two hundred (200) residential building permits in Saint Paul through April…