Gov't uber alles: the housing advocates' long game

In a recent SJ Housing Dept community meeting, an advocate bemoaned the fact that "private property" concerns were getting in the way of a more "equitable" housing market. A quick look at National Low Income Housing Coalition's Advocates Guide explains the context for the comment, and gives an idea of how housing advocates are working towards a wildly expanded role for local government in owning and distributing housing, all under the banner of "housing as human right."

In the human rights framework, every right creates a corresponding duty on the part of the government to respect, protect, and fulfill
the right. Having the right to housing does not mean that the government must build a house for every person in America and give it to them free of charge. It does, however, allocate ultimate responsibility to the government to progressively realize the right to adequate housing, whether by devoting resources to public housing, universal vouchers, or renters tax credits by creating incentives for the private development of affordable housing such as inclusionary zoning or the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, through market regulation such as rent control, through legal due process protections from eviction or foreclosure, and upholding the right to counsel to enforce those protections and ensuring habitable conditions through housing codes and inspections, or by ensuring homeless persons are not threatened with civil or criminal penalties for sheltering themselves in the absence of adequate alternatives. Contrary to the current framework that views housing as a commodity to be determined primarily by the market, the right to housing framework gives advocates a tool for holding each level of government accountable if any of those elements are not satisfied. Human rights also actively embraces “special measures” for historically-marginalized populations, including affirmative action or reparations frameworks, that many have called for in the U.S.

Read the whole thing here.

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