POLI•RANT: Killing the Home Ownership Dream

Home ownership was once the cornerstone of the American Dream.

Let me start by saying the housing crisis in this country has been a long time coming. And while there are tons of reason — macro, and down to the local level — it still falls broadly under the umbrella of wealth inequality that has growing for decades now.

One of the foundational tenants of the American Dream has been owning your own home. Not only is it a milestone in life, but it brings with it both stability and the safety net of a second mortgage in the event of a family emergency.

And while the stereotypical house with the white picket fence was never a reality for a large (poor, black and brown) chunk of our population, it was for millions. And for generations it could be achieved by millions with just one breadwinner in the family.

I’ll go one step further.

For almost four decades after WWII a one income family could not only afford a house, but if they worked hard, even a second vacation cabin or cottage. Maybe a boat. Always a nice family vacation with (on average) more kids than today.

Those dreams have been fading for years — now more a mirage unless you come from an upper middle-class family, get a degree and a high-skilled job, and likely have two incomes to pull it off.

Putting that first home out of reach has had a catastrophic ripple effect throughout the economy. And society. This is the stuff that is wrapped up into a small ball of American national DNA.

And that’s a good thing.

Combined with young people getting married at a later age, there’s been a giant spike in rent prices — eliminating years of built equity that a home brings, and pushing the poor out of the rental market and into desperation.

That’s why it is so devastating to hear that the Trump administration is looking to cut the staff of the Department of Housing and Urban Development IN HALF. And that’s before deep cuts that are inevitable under a Republican budget.

Republicans have long hated HUD.

There mere fact that Urban is in the title was probably enough, but the fact that they help build affordable housing and help lift poor people to pay mortgages or rent goes against their one-size-fit-all, naïve at best philosophy that poor people are inherently lazy, and just need to work hard to make a home and the American Dream a reality.

The actual reality is that’s bullshit and that help in getting a home — and the stability it creates — costs far less than the societal problems of all stripes that come with not gaining that foothold and being pushed into poverty.

First, there are TONS of hard-working middle-class folks who get first time home assistance from HUD. But, yes, HUD does disproportionately help those on the margins.

Beyond housing, a big part of their charge is homelessness. This rant isn’t about the root causes of homelessness, but the idea that the majority of homeless people are lazy addicts and the mentally ill does not comport with reality.

Those might be the people you see asking for money, but many, many more doing everything they can to stay with friends and family before they are forced to live in their vehicles, or on the street.

Millions of hard-working Americans are one medical emergency away from facing the reality of homelessness. An abused single mom with a child, living out of a vehicle, getting her kid to school every day, setting up a PO box to keep a mailing address, and all the while looking for a job that pays enough to start getting them out of the economic hole is as much a reality as the strung-out vet on the corner.

HUD is crucial in keeping the homeless crisis from becoming an abject catastrophe.

They give millions and millions in grant money to private and church-based shelters and donation centers to keep the floor from absolutely bottoming out for millions of people.

A basic pillar of my political philosophy about helping people in situations like this is that it’s not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.

Drug abuse, domestic abuse, rape, violence, education standards, crime, incarcerations — take away these safety nets and we pay much, much more in the end.

Whether it’s cutting staff under the guise of saving money — for rich people tax cuts — or killing funding and programs, what’s going on in this regime isn’t just dumb. It’s cruel. And the cruelty is the point.

But, let me tell you this.

It can’t continue to go on this way.

Wealth inequality isn’t some socialist buzzword. It’s real and it’s getting worse and worse. And if more and more people continue to be pushed out into the margins, all the for-profit prisons they can build aren’t going to save the people at the top.

Be warned. When the masses rise up, and they will, they aren’t going to distinguish between MAGA and the 1% and the people who then claim to have always been against this cruelty but were scared to speak up.