Brian J O’Connor Yahoo NewsThanks for reading The Most Revolutionary Act! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. For the first time ever, the median rent in the U.S. topped $2,000 a month in June — and the increases show no sign of stopping.
Yup. Even apartments cannot be built ANYWHERE in the US anymore that a single person making median wages can afford, not without subsidies. As for houses, that ship sailed 40 years ago.
That fact is just now starting to sink in to the collective consciousness. That and the understanding that immigration without any extra subsidized housing is what's driving rent and housing prices up.
It's a simple enough principle, if you can exclude unaffordable housing from the picture. If there are 100 housing units that households who make $50,000 a year can afford, and there are 100 such households, then all the households can have homes. If you let in 30 extra households, then either 30 households have to double up, move away or be homeless. Meanwhile, the desire of those 130 households to not have to the be the ones to double up, move away or be homeless drives up the prices of housing to the point that some households have to do one of those things.
Of course, there's no fixed boundary on prices of housing and incomes, and such, so it doesn't end up being quite so simple, but the problem is bad enough a lot of people are finally starting to get the idea.
I've been commenting on this on my facebook page and elsewhere for several years.
Yup. Even apartments cannot be built ANYWHERE in the US anymore that a single person making median wages can afford, not without subsidies. As for houses, that ship sailed 40 years ago.
That fact is just now starting to sink in to the collective consciousness. That and the understanding that immigration without any extra subsidized housing is what's driving rent and housing prices up.
It's a simple enough principle, if you can exclude unaffordable housing from the picture. If there are 100 housing units that households who make $50,000 a year can afford, and there are 100 such households, then all the households can have homes. If you let in 30 extra households, then either 30 households have to double up, move away or be homeless. Meanwhile, the desire of those 130 households to not have to the be the ones to double up, move away or be homeless drives up the prices of housing to the point that some households have to do one of those things.
Of course, there's no fixed boundary on prices of housing and incomes, and such, so it doesn't end up being quite so simple, but the problem is bad enough a lot of people are finally starting to get the idea.
I've been commenting on this on my facebook page and elsewhere for several years.
Thanks for your extremely thoughtful comment, Skeptical. I've just returned from Portland and the homeless are everywhere there.