To my knowledge absolutely no one saying “Ban landlords” is also saying “Don’t build any more housing.”
There are plenty of people (EDIT: some of whom are in this very thread) who like to site that there are more vacant houses in the country than there are homeless people, as if to imply we already have all the housing we need.
But the fact of the matter is that US and Canadian cities have increased in population without a proportional increase in housing stock. The difference is mostly made up by more people living with their parents into adulthood, people living with more roommates to make rent, and multiple families living in “single family” houses.
We don’t do anything about it because home owners treat housing as an investment and expect its price to keep going up forever. Also because people hate multi-unit residential buildings for all sorts of nonsensical and racist reasons.
To be clear I am an advocate for the Vienna model of public housing and programs that temporarily repossess and rent out vacant properties, but I am first and foremost an advocate for housing abundance.
There are plenty of people (EDIT: some of whom are in this very thread) who like to site that there are more vacant houses in the country than there are homeless people, as if to imply we already have all the housing we need.
But the fact of the matter is that US and Canadian cities have increased in population without a proportional increase in housing stock. The difference is mostly made up by more people living with their parents into adulthood, people living with more roommates to make rent, and multiple families living in “single family” houses.
We don’t do anything about it because home owners treat housing as an investment and expect its price to keep going up forever. Also because people hate multi-unit residential buildings for all sorts of nonsensical and racist reasons.
To be clear I am an advocate for the Vienna model of public housing and programs that temporarily repossess and rent out vacant properties, but I am first and foremost an advocate for housing abundance.