A Turning Point For America

There has been a lot of controversy concerning the validity of implementing rent controls especially in light of the continuing rate increases in housing and a housing crisis in general. When the Fed continues to rase interest rates it does nothing to ease the affordability of home ownership and for that matter inflation. The argument stems from the fact that there is a housing shortage. That is true in some parts. But the housing market has always been driven by what is called supply and demand. When the supply of housing is not sufficient to handle a population the price of housing has always driven up the cost of either renting or owning.

Here is the problem. When we embark on building housing whether it be rental properties, town homes, condos. or single-family homes too many times these dwellings the affordability factor always seems to be out of reach for the majority of people needing affordable housing. There is another fact to consider concerning our economy is that when people pay over 35% of their income or more as in the case of today just for a roof overhead the whole economy suffers. It is like a domino effect in economic retardation. People just don’t have enough disposable incomes to spend on much of anything else.

The effects of the housing crisis that the US is faced with has placed millions of Americans facing degrading circumstances by the sheer lack of affordability to obtain adequate housing. When the Mayor of Chicago stated that much of the deplorable conditions people are facing are due to major corporation placing their profit margins above the common good of the public. He may be right. Just think that for the past 60 years major corporations shifted the majority of the manufacturing sector of our whole economy overseas to increase their profit margins. 

What we are seeing has been a steady decline of American life as we used to know it. Consequently, when the quality of life continues to fall more and more people substitute that with what is going on in every city across America. Drug use, and rampant crime, have all steadily increased as a result of what our government has allowed major corporation to get away with.  In the end the United States today is now almost trapped into an economy based on service, hospitality and medical based economic structures. And the majority of these jobs are on the low end of the wage scale. As a result, today so many are unable to meet the financial obligations for their homes. And when financial insecurity hits this whole country is in trouble.

We have to remember that the whole demographics of the housing markets have shifted into conglomerates of big business. This has caused much of the problems facing renters, and home buyers. Today so many apartment buildings, Townhomes, Mobile home parks and even housing development communities are now owned and managed by corporations. Their first priority is not the tenants, or the homebuyers but shareholders and profit margins. And as such rents and mortgages have increased to meet shareholders expiations and profit margins continue to rise. All at the expense of tenants, and the homebuyer. 

What we are seeing today is the rising number of the public being not able to keep up with the rising cost of living.  Salaries haven’t become equitable to rent increases or interest rate hikes. And when cities finally institute so-called affordable housing still too many are left out in the cold. The reality today is that with so many people being unable to afford housing places the Section 8 voucher system being overwhelmed. This results in waiting list that last in many cases takes years before one is able to use that Section 8 voucher to offset the price of their home or apartment.

If we take a look around every major city and even small towns across America, the plight of the homelessness and the deplorable conditions millions are living in has to be a wakeup call for every American. When we look at the reports of rising crime forcing major retailers to close their doors while our government still can’t understand why the United States is faced with such a quagmire of a growing epidemic of social contempt for law and order we have to realize that our whole society is in jeopardy.

 If we let corporate greed take precedent over the welfare of the American citizen as they continue to do and allow our government to substitute more of a welfare state to take president over real economic reforms, we will look back to find that this period in history was the turning point that shifted America into a third world nation.