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For the past few years, I’ve volunteered at a shelter in Providence that serves youth between 18 and 24 years old. It’s pained me to see how difficult it’s been for most residents — even those working full-time jobs — to secure an apartment of their own. A lucky few, with the help of aid organizations, have been able to be placed in apartments around the city. But most of the residents remain stuck in purgatory, navigating a Byzantine bureaucracy, the thought of affording rent on their own − on top of food, health care and student loan debt − a distant fantasy. These are good people. They are highly intelligent. Compassionate. Creative. Curious.
It seems to me – and many others – that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, it should not be this difficult to obtain a secure roof over one’s head. Imagine what kind of work could be done, how much more communities could be enriched, if the desperation that insufficient housing leads to and that grips millions of citizens slackened. Politicians often allude to the problem. But few, as far as I can tell, have made any sort of ambitious solution a centerpiece of their platforms.
A lot of reporting over the past decade has highlighted reasons for and ramifications of the housing crisis: homelessness, exploding rents, low housing supply, few economic incentives for starter home construction, and younger Americans unable to get their foot in the door of homeownership. Many of the proposed fixes, such as changes to zoning regulations and subsidies for developers, are worthy initiatives. But they’re piecemeal, slow and prone to run into opposition.
In a series, I wanted to expand the notion of what’s possible.
A theme that emerged in many of the articles I ran is that if there’s political will, there’s a way. The emergence of housing cooperatives in Uruguay, new social housing experiments in Seattle, a
construction boom of single family homes during World War I − all involved collaboration between governments and their citizens.
Urban policy scholars Alex Schwartz and Kirk McClure wrote about the fact that housing vouchers reach only roughly 25% of Americans who qualify for them. The estimated cost of expanding housing vouchers to cover everyone in need would amount to $118 billion per year – a big number, for sure, but smaller than just the increase in last year’s U.S. military budget.
Time and again while editing this series, I thought of a line from John Williams’ novel “Stoner.” During World War I, the protagonist, William Stoner, an aspiring academic at the University of Missouri, is conflicted about whether to enlist. One of his mentors pulls him aside to urge him to stay dedicated to his personal pursuits and battles.
“There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history,” he tells Stoner. “Remember that while you’re trying to decide what to do.”
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