One of the most fascinating reads right now is not Theo of Golden or London Falling or The Calamity Club. It’s a 322-page report by United Nations-Habitat called The Global Housing Crisis: Pathways to Action, which dives deep into the real-life problems of the world’s housing crisis and the sensible approach to solve them. Unlike what the real estate industry and YIMBY leaders say, the pathways, as it were, are not only about building more luxury housing. Far from it.
More than 80 people worked on the report, finding countless data points and relying on street-level experience from around the world. What they found is astounding, and the pathways they offer are thorough, logical, and non-ideological. In other words, the report offers a number of important, even life-saving, truths.
The report is excellent, but long, so here are the insights from the “Key Findings and Messages” section – if you can’t find the time to read the entire report, read that section.
In the end, the world, including the United States, is dealing with an unprecedented housing crisis in which 3.4 billion people lack access to adequate housing, which is defined as a safe, secure, affordable place to live.
At the same time, housing affordability is worsening, with 44 percent of households, all over the world, spending more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent – in Sub-Saharan Africa that burden rises to 55 percent, and in many American cities, large numbers of people are spending 40 percent or more on rent.
Unsurprisingly, the people who feel the rent squeeze the worst are lower-income people: working-class families, seniors, the unemployed, and others.
In the big scheme of things, U.N.-Habitat emphasizes, over and over in the report, that there must be a multi-pronged approach to addressing the global housing crisis.
Just flooding the market with luxury housing, as corporate landlords and YIMBY leaders continually propose in America, will not fix a crisis that’s impacting, more than anyone, poor and moderate- and lower-income residents.
“Instead of addressing only one aspect of the housing crisis in isolation,” the report states, “such as meeting a numerical target for new housing units, policy frameworks should encompass all elements of housing adequacy.”
U.N.-Habitat adds, “These include secure tenure, affordability, access to services, habitability, accessibility, location, cultural adequacy, and environmental sustainability. Considering these dimensions together leads to more inclusive, resilient, and enduring housing outcomes.”
And for that to happen, local, regional, state, and national governments have to be involved and work together. Only relying on the market – relying on corporate developers, for example, to solve the housing affordability crisis – will not work.
“Experience over the years shows that market-led, ownership-centered approaches have not sufficiently addressed the housing crisis and have often deepened inequalities,” the report states. “In cities, where housing needs are most acute, low-income and vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected.”
It adds, “Addressing the global housing crisis requires integrated, people-centered, and rights-based approaches that reflect diverse tenure systems, socio-cultural practices, and local realities, supported by strong coordination across all levels of government and stakeholders.”
It’s a finding that housing justice activists in California and other places have been talking about for decades, only for politicians, who routinely take mounds of campaign cash from the real estate industry, to ignore them.
Interestingly, housing justice activists have also been saying, for decades, that there needs to be a multi-pronged approach to fixing the housing affordability and homelessness crises.
They talk about protecting tenants, through rent control and other tenant protections; preserving existing lower- and moderate-income housing; and producing new affordable and homeless housing through the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and pre-fabricated housing. The U.N.-Habitat report essentially calls for the same things.
Rent controls, for example, “can help mitigate these risks [such as gentrification driving up rents] by ensuring the future of poorer residents in their current place of residence even as market values continue to rise.”
Maintaining safe, affordable housing in one’s longtime neighborhood is something that lower-income, and even moderate-income, families, seniors, students, and others constantly worry about in American cities.
The report also repeatedly calls for reforming and streamlining the regulatory process for building more lower- and moderate-income housing, such as faster development approvals and construction permits.
“On the supply side, escalating land costs combined with restrictive regulations impede affordable housing delivery,” U.N.-Habitat notes.
By the way, the report states that “rent controls must be complemented by policies expanding supply, land availability, and public investment.” It’s something that housing justice activists have always understood and acknowledged, despite what the real estate industry says.
U.N.-Habitat also makes it clear that government must consider housing as a right, not just a profit-maker for real estate investment trusts such as Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, and AvalonBay Communities.
“In many contexts,” the report notes, “the social function of housing – its role in supporting well-being, equity, and the common good – has increasingly been overshadowed by its treatment as a financial asset. This imbalance risks reducing housing to a speculative investment while also creating market conditions that may deter responsible private sector participation.”
It adds, “A more balanced approach is needed to safeguard social function of housing while harnessing its economic contributions to sustainable development.”
The Global Housing Crisis: Pathways to Action offers many other clear-eyed insights and suggestions. It’s not filled with kooky ideology, and it’s not trying to finger point. It’s just focused on fixing a major problem, which, in its own way, makes for an absorbing must-read for anyone who wants to have, and create more of, safe, secure, affordable housing. The politicians, who pass the policies and help regulate housing, should read it, too.
Patrick Range McDonald is a veteran investigative journalist and the award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right.