well-read red: the contradictions of housing under capitalism
For the Old Mole Variety Hour March 9, 2015
First, from a 1946 New International essay by Miriam Gould on "Profits and the Housing Crisis: Conflicting Interests of Banks, Industry and Real Estate":
Way back in 1872, Frederick Engels made three generalizations about housing under capitalism, that remain the key to analysis of the problem today. . . . First, he said all the sermons liberals and reformists preach to capital about the profitability of low-cost housing are a waste of time. Capital has ignored the mass housing field because greater profits are to be made elsewhere, and profits, not human need, are the sole criteria of whether capitalism produces.
Second[], the ... problem of housing is subordinate to the basic question of income distribution. Until the unjust and evil system we have today is ended, planned, healthful living in cooperative, functional, truly human communities, is impossible.
Third, the general problem of housing can never be solved, without resolving the “antithesis between town and country.” Translated into simple terms: mass housing is impossible without city planning, and socialist regional and national economic planning.
Second[], the ... problem of housing is subordinate to the basic question of income distribution. Until the unjust and evil system we have today is ended, planned, healthful living in cooperative, functional, truly human communities, is impossible.
Third, the general problem of housing can never be solved, without resolving the “antithesis between town and country.” Translated into simple terms: mass housing is impossible without city planning, and socialist regional and national economic planning.
Next, from a 2014 Jacobin essay by Samuel Stein on New York City Mayor Bill "De Blasio’s Doomed Housing Plan"
DeBlasio, Stein notes, is an advocate of inclusionary zoning, a policy prohibited in Oregon, along with rent control, rent stabilization, and real estate transfer tax: all policies that have been used elsewhere to provide for more affordable housing.
Inclusionary zoning [as Stein explains, is] an extremely popular program among housing experts and advocates, and is becoming something like the country’s consensus housing policy. Hundreds of US municipalities have adopted this approach, including Boston; Washington, DC; Denver; San Diego; and San Francisco.
The details vary from case to case, but the idea is for private developers to incorporate some percentage of below-market-rate units into their new developments. These units can be rented or sold, as long as they are targeted towards households within specific income brackets.
[But, Stein argues,] inclusionary zoning is a ... flawed program. It’s not just that it doesn’t produce enough units, or that the apartments it creates aren’t affordable, though both observations are undeniably true. The real problem with inclusionary zoning is that it marshals a multitude of rich people into places that are already experiencing gentrification. The result is a few new cheap apartments in neighborhoods that are suddenly and completely transformed.
[Advocates for the houseless have also challenged the value of inclusionary zoning, noting that it
will do nothing for those in the shelters and the streets, and cannot possibly solve [New York] city’s housing crises.]
[But] many leaders in the housing movement continue to support it.... They argue that some new affordable housing is better than none, and that the program can be tweaked to produce better results.
The details vary from case to case, but the idea is for private developers to incorporate some percentage of below-market-rate units into their new developments. These units can be rented or sold, as long as they are targeted towards households within specific income brackets.
[But, Stein argues,] inclusionary zoning is a ... flawed program. It’s not just that it doesn’t produce enough units, or that the apartments it creates aren’t affordable, though both observations are undeniably true. The real problem with inclusionary zoning is that it marshals a multitude of rich people into places that are already experiencing gentrification. The result is a few new cheap apartments in neighborhoods that are suddenly and completely transformed.
[Advocates for the houseless have also challenged the value of inclusionary zoning, noting that it
will do nothing for those in the shelters and the streets, and cannot possibly solve [New York] city’s housing crises.]
[But] many leaders in the housing movement continue to support it.... They argue that some new affordable housing is better than none, and that the program can be tweaked to produce better results.
[As I noted, however, even the reformist policies of inclusionary zoning that Stein discusses here, or of rent control, rent stabilization, and real estate transfer tax are currently prohibited by Oregon law. Oregon House Bill 2564 would lift some of those preemtions, and you might want to contact your State representative about HB 2564, titled "Relating to Affordable Housing."]
The truth is, [Stein continues,] cities know how to create affordable housing. The simplest, most direct, and cheapest way to do it is to build or acquire public housing, and actually maintain it well. Public housing not only provides affordable homes, but takes land off the speculative market, acting as a bulwark against gentrification.
We also know that rent controls are the most effective strategy for keeping private housing prices down. The strength of rent regulation is its universality: rather than applying to a small percentage of otherwise exorbitant housing, it can keep all rents in check.
[Stein advocates for] Democratically controlled community land trusts. . . . [which generally] pairs a piece of land owned by a nonprofit with a building owned by a mutual housing association, which sells or rents the apartments at low costs and with limited outside management. If people can use these tools to take land off the market and develop permanently affordable alternatives, they can effectively decommodify their housing and reclaim community control.
The solutions are out there, but the political will is not.
Politicians and policymakers treat housing like a puzzle to be solved with the right balance of subsidies and profits. But affordable housing isn’t a mystery, it’s a contradiction: it can’t be done in a way that benefits both capital and workers in equal measure. There are ways to do it poorly but profitably..... There are ways to do it well, but they are not profitable.
We also know that rent controls are the most effective strategy for keeping private housing prices down. The strength of rent regulation is its universality: rather than applying to a small percentage of otherwise exorbitant housing, it can keep all rents in check.
[Stein advocates for] Democratically controlled community land trusts. . . . [which generally] pairs a piece of land owned by a nonprofit with a building owned by a mutual housing association, which sells or rents the apartments at low costs and with limited outside management. If people can use these tools to take land off the market and develop permanently affordable alternatives, they can effectively decommodify their housing and reclaim community control.
The solutions are out there, but the political will is not.
Politicians and policymakers treat housing like a puzzle to be solved with the right balance of subsidies and profits. But affordable housing isn’t a mystery, it’s a contradiction: it can’t be done in a way that benefits both capital and workers in equal measure. There are ways to do it poorly but profitably..... There are ways to do it well, but they are not profitable.
Of course, the politicians and policymakers Stein mentions are not the only agents involved. I turn now to some selections from a 1968 essay by Ian Macdonald in International Socialism on "Housing – The Struggle for Tenants’ Control" in which he describes a history of rent strikes in the early twentieth-century UK.
In strike after strike, the tenants took complete control of the buildings in which they lived. At the end of the strike, the tenants often signed a clause with the landlords so that, if the landlord did not carry out the repairs properly, the tenants would take complete control of the management and would themselves collect the rents for this purpose. In at least one case in [London's] East End this actually happened. The strike movement spread throughout the country, [and successfully pressured hostile governments to extend rent control and make other concessions to the tenants]
The struggle between landlordism and tenants is a continuous one, and will continue so long as the provision of housing is dominated by profits.
The struggle between landlordism and tenants is a continuous one, and will continue so long as the provision of housing is dominated by profits.
In Portland, groups currently working to support and organize with tenants include the Portland Solidarity Network and Right to the City Portland.
We need housing policies and tenant organizing that confront capitalism while providing a genuine social good.