Housing Crisis Research Articles

Framing the housing crisis: politicization and depoliticization of the Dutch housing debate

How does a housing crisis become a crisis? In answering this question, this paper turns to framing in public and political debate. The case is the Netherlands where in the decade following the Global Financial Crisis the debate on housing quickly developed. Drawing on a discursive analysis of parliamentary documents, newspaper items, and interviews, the paper reveals how a housing crisis frame became central in debate, through a sequence of incubation, development and escalation. These debates shown signs of politicization as they increasingly emphasize the structural causes and political roots of the current situation, while also framing housing as primarily a fundamental right rather than a market commodity. This politicization, however, is matched by depoliticizing tendencies as relatively much attention is directed to the housing issues of the middle classes and young adults. Findings help us understand how housing struggles are understood, and which policies are deemed acceptable and necessary.

The 3 Decades Global Financial Policy Failure in Housing Market, Runaway Home Prices, Today’s Growing Homeless Crisis: Eddison Walters Real Estate Housing Technology Structural Change Transformational Theory

Failure to address technological-driven structural changes in the real estate market that began three decades ago has caused runaway home prices that developed countries are experiencing today. The real estate crash that preceded the Global Financial Crisis, and the entire Global Financial Crisis resulted from the panic that was created about the rapid increase in home prices that was falsely labeled a real estate bubble by the media which was quickly adapted by policymakers. Policymakers and the media blamed greedy mortgage brokers for the rapid increase in home prices, accusing mortgage brokers of providing mortgages to too many people for homes that the borrowers could not afford. It turns out that the media and policymakers were completely wrong when mortgage brokers were falsely blamed for creating a real estate bubble because a real estate bubble never existed. The true cause of the rapid increase in home prices was the early stages of a real estate boom from technological-driven structural changes in the real estate market. Failure to address structural changes in the real estate housing market which started three decades ago, has resulted in runaway home prices in the United States and developed countries around the world. As a result of the failure widespread economic hardship from homelessness is a significant risk as working families find themselves priced out of the housing market. Three decades of economic policy failures and the mismanagement of the housing sector have resulted in a looming housing crisis that continues to increase as developed countries face runaway home prices. Policymakers throughout developed countries eagerly accepted the media-driven misinformation of a real estate bubble without any evidence presented supporting the narrative. The failure of policymakers to gain an understanding of factors that have been driving the rapid increase in home prices which began three decades ago, resulted in the real estate crash, Global Financial Crisis, and Great Recession. Much of the economic hardship and the looming housing crisis facing working families today could have been avoided. For many working American families, the prospect of home ownership no longer exists due to skyrocketing home prices. The looming homeless crisis facing the developed world today is the direct result of economic policy failures that have ignored the structural changes in the housing market for three decades. The move from print media real estate listings to online real estate listings and the adaptation of online mortgage loan applications along with automated mortgage underwriting between 1995 and 1999, exponentially increased the quantity of inventory needed in the housing market of developed countries. The shift in the demand curve for housing structurally changed the housing market in developed countries resulting in the complete transformation that saw the demand for housing skyrocket by 2000. New homebuyers who previously only had access to local housing markets before the transformation of the housing market began in 1995, had full access to homes listed anywhere online in other real estate markets by the end of 1999. The increased demand caused the rapid growth in home prices. Failure to implement policies to drastically increase home inventory in developed countries to address the structural transformation of the housing market which drastically increased the demand for homes was a significant economic policy failure. Instead of implementing policies to significantly increase home inventory, new construction was idle for over a decade as policymakers adopted the media-driven misinformation of a real estate bubble and supported policies to address the nonexistent real estate bubble.

Cracks within capitalism: Alternative rental practices and a politics of care among small-building owners in Chicago

ABSTRACT The United States is currently in the fourth decade of an ongoing, and worsening, affordable housing crisis, due in part to neoliberal financialization and the retrenchment of social safety net programs. Research has illuminated the role that landlords play in maintaining, and profiting, from this neoliberal turn in the housing market. Meanwhile, low-income renters and other marginalized people have engaged in strategic resistance and activism, drawing on a politics of community care and collectivism that runs counter to neoliberal market ideology. It is within this wider context—a housing market where neoliberal and collective care politics clash—that I analyze the viewpoints and rental practices of a unique group of housing market actors: resident landlords, or people who live in the same buildings as their tenants. Among a wider sample of 52 owner-occupants, I interviewed 22 owners who held anti-oppression viewpoints, and who attempted to put their politics into practice by adopting atypical rental practices. Drawing on Black radical and feminist traditions in urban political economy, I theorize these activities as political decisions that created sites of opportunity, where building owners and residents attempted to reconfigure their relationships under capitalism, providing a window into possibilities for more caring housing arrangements.

The NB Housing Summit: Solutions to Promote Housing Affordability in the Mid-sized City of Saint John, New Brunswick

Canada is in the midst of a national housing crisis that renders households vulnerable to unstable and unaffordable housing, and various forms of homelessness. New Brunswick is a largely rural Canadian province with three mid-sized cities that have lower housing values than larger Canadian centres. However, affordability is eroding in the province’s housing market, and the rental market offers few options for low-to-moderate-income renters. Simultaneously, visible homelessness and encampments are on the rise. Saint John, one of the mid-sized cities, is a relatively new destination for housing market investment and interprovincial migration, which is leading to higher rents and housing purchase prices. Through an analysis of World Café data collected with 85 individuals (representatives from government, people with lived experience of housing instability, non-profit agencies, housing developers, etc.) in Saint John, New Brunswick, this paper presents locally driven, on-the-ground solutions to the housing and homelessness crises in a mid-sized city.

A UTILIZAÇÃO DE CRÉDITOS TRIBUTÁRIOS EM PROJETOS DE HABITAÇÃO ACESSÍVEL

This article discusses the use of tax credits in affordable housing projects, exploring their advantages, disadvantages, and economic and social impacts. The choice of this theme is justified by the growing affordable housing crisis in the United States and the need to examine fiscal mechanisms that can alleviate this problem. Tax credits are fiscal incentives granted by the government that directly reduce taxes owed and encourage specific investments in strategic sectors. In the context of affordable housing, these credits play a fundamental role in financially enabling projects that would otherwise be unfeasible.

Precarity and resistance: Mediating home across contemporary Europe through the short hybrid film

Addressing an increasingly globalised housing crisis, European filmmakers have turned their attention to the precarity of home, generating a vast mediascape of activist documentaries, essay films, shorts, and some features. Adopting a film and urbanism approach, in this article I take a specific focus on the short film form, framing it as a space for experimentation, and offering a snapshot of a wider transnational corpus of media. I compare two 2019 short films by two emerging women artists: British Ayo Akingbade’s Dear Babylon and Portuguese Leonor Teles Dogs Barking at Birds (Cães Que Ladram Aos Pássaros). These artists’ works establish film as a form of resistance while, at the same time, being rooted in an understanding of socio-economic inequality in housing. Purposedly merging observational, participatory methods with the fictional, these two films share a focus on young people in uncertain living conditions. Grappling with their individual situations the youth at the centre of these stories build forms of resistance to their present housing struggles in the attempt to shape a better future for themselves and their community.

Housing Vulnerability, Shared Housing, Informality, and Crowding: The Housing Strategies of China’s Recent College Graduates

ABSTRACT Mirroring developments elsewhere, for recent college graduates in China the transition to employment is increasingly protracted and, for some, precarious. Case studies of individual strategies and cities indicate a diversification of housing pathways, where economic precarity is rendering at least some vulnerable. Based on original survey data collected in 2019, I investigate the housing choices of Chinese college graduate job market entrants and ask who is vulnerable and whether adverse outcomes are mere market entry strategies or lasting. I find that recent graduates generally find housing in central locations, close to their work. However, to achieve favourable locational outcomes on low budgets, many resort to sharing. High-density room sharing of three or more people is illegal but prominent and dominates in first-tier cities. The findings highlight how urbanization interacts with housing vulnerability and contribute to theorizing on the housing crisis, the Global North-South binary, and the very nature of home sharing.

Conflicts within the neoliberal state? The limited representation of renters in Israeli housing policies and debates

Following housing protests in 2011, Israeli politicians advanced a program to create a massive supply of rental housing and enact new rental regulations. A few years later, the focus shifted to a program that encouraged homeownership. We analyze newspapers’ coverage of this process, and the representation of actors, location and of social, spatial, and physical themes. We investigate whether, and how, the discourse reflected or challenged the prevalence of property interests and the neoliberal ideology. Our findings show that despite early tensions and debates, throughout the process, renters and their issues received limited representation, while the discourse highlighted market means and images, and the population that could buy and invest. Eventually, the media interest in the program was replaced by fascination with homeownership and investments. In this vein, rentiership – the option to become owner-investors – was highlighted as the state’s popular solution for the housing crisis. We conclude that in this context, rental reforms are unlikely to garner significant social support.

Cracking the housing crisis: financialization, the state, struggles, and rights

Cracking the housing crisis: financialization, the state, struggles, and rights

Житлово-побутові умови та комунальне обслуговування мешканців м. Вінниці у 1920-х роках

The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the state of the communal economy of the city of Vinnytsia in the historical period of the 20s of the 20th century, in particular, the formation of such components as housing, electricity supply, water supply, sewage, transport, and the organization of urban space. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, objectivity and systematicity, as well as the application of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (problematic-chronological, specific-research, historical-comparative, critical) methods. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that, based on the analysis of available documentary and empirical material, the study of a wide range of scientific works, the authors made a comprehensive analysis of the situation of the communal economy of Vinnytsia during the period of the formation of Soviet power, taking into account the specifics of the Podilsk region. Conclusions. In the period of the 1920s, the communal economy throughout Ukraine was in a state of crisis and needed almost complete reconstruction. This was explained not only by the consequences of the revolutionary events of 1917-1921 and the civil war, but also by the Bolshevik policy of "war communism". The problems of improving housing and living conditions for the population were particularly acute in Podillia and, in particular, in Vinnytsia, due to its border location and the conduct of hostilities in the region. The gradual improvement of the city's communal economy began with the introduction of a new economic policy. The main task of the government was to restore the housing stock, economic facilities, city communications and infrastructure. Thanks to the steps towards decommunization, reforms of the management structures of the communal economy, the formation of local budgets, certain positive developments took place in its development: the solution to the "housing crisis" began, favorable conditions for the normal economic operation of buildings began to be created, the reconstruction of electric companies and city transport was carried out, and the communal infrastructure was improved , which contributed to the improvement of the life of the population and the well-being of the city. However, despite these positive trends, there were a number of problems faced by city dwellers - lack of housing, unsanitary conditions of residential premises, incomplete operation of electricity and water supply, insufficient number of communal baths, deficiencies in the organization of fire protection. A number of problems of the improvement of the city originate from the 20s of the 20th century. and is not fully resolved even in modern conditions.

"There is a storm coming!"

This video essay explores the storm as a metaphor and structuring device in the 2011 film Take Shelter and links it to the U.S. housing crisis, extractivism, and the climate unconscious.

Missing Housing: How Los Angeles Is Wasting Multifamily Housing Units in the Midst of a Housing Crisis

Like other US cities, Los Angeles faces a housing crisis, with sale and rental prices exceeding the national average. We used data on property characteristics and zoning status to examine properties zoned for multifamily use in the city of Los Angeles, particularly those not building to their legally permitted maximum number of units, to determine whether those properties were capable of reaching this level of development. Our study reveals a 400,000-unit unbuilt allowable housing gap, predominantly in properties over 50 years old. We analyzed the properties as-built and developed scenarios under which they were built to their legal maximums, and found evidence that regulatory limits, mainly minimum parking requirements (MPRs), inhibit full development of these properties. However, there are also a large number of additional allowable units in buildings that do not face regulatory constraints. Our analysis of the upzoning Transit-Oriented Communities policy reveals that while zoning changes allow for more multifamily developments, many eligible properties still face regulatory hurdles. Our research shows that a core strategy for improving the Los Angeles area housing shortages should be policies to facilitate older properties redeveloping or adding units.

Revolutionizing affordable housing in Africa: A comprehensive technical and sustainability study of 3D-printing technology

The global challenge of providing affordable and sustainable housing, particularly in Africa's intensified housing crisis, has spurred interest in transformative solutions such as 3D-printing technology. This research addresses a significant gap in understanding the technical and sustainability characteristics of 3D-printed housing, by comprehensively assessing a full-size 3D-printed house. Beyond examining building performance, a thorough life cycle assessment quantifies the whole life cycle carbon and cost, comparing the 3D-printed house with its conventional counterpart. The findings underscore the superior performance of 3D-printed housing in both technical and sustainability aspects. A 48 % reduction in the carbon footprint emphasizes the environmental sustainability of 3D-printed house. Despite a 70 % reduction in construction duration, the initial costs of technology and imported proprietary materials contribute to a higher life cycle cost for the 3D-printed house (381 %) in Africa.These results affirm the potential of 3D-printing as a sustainable and efficient mechanism for revolutionizing the African housing sector by improving performance and expediting delivery. The study provides valuable insights for housing stakeholders, advocating for the judicious use of 3D-printing and local bio-mediated geo-materials to address African housing crises, enhance residents' quality of life, and, consequently, sustain African cities and society.

How Can the Circular Economy Contribute to Resolving Social Housing Challenges?

The construction sector stands as the predominant consumer of cement, steel, and plastic and is accountable for a substantial 55% of industrial carbon emissions. Greenhouse gases and other forms of pollution linked to the housing sector significantly contribute to the adverse environmental impact of the construction industry. This study underscores the need to incorporate pertinent issues into the Circular Economy (CE) agenda for a lasting and effective mitigation strategy. Through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), this article explores answers to the research question: “How can the Circular Economy contribute to resolving social housing challenges?” The findings from this comprehensive review highlight that refurbishing the social housing (SH) built environment and formulating public policies targeted at the SH sector emerge as pivotal themes for effective solutions. The principles of the Circular Economy present a sustainable model that can play a crucial role in addressing the social housing challenge. In conclusion, this SLR demonstrates that Circular Economy principles offer a viable approach to tackling the social housing crisis. By embracing these principles, a sustainable model can be established to address the challenges posed by social housing, thereby contributing to the broader goal of environmental conservation in the construction sector.

A Review of the American Housing Crisis: Governments, Practitioners, and Communities

The housing crisis is an issue that involves the absence of homes, especially affordable homes, from today’s market. This review asks a series of questions on this crisis that focus on why the housing crisis exists, its history, and solutions. These questions are then answered through discussion of various perspectives that highlight the importance of three groups: governments, housing practitioners, and communities. As discussed in this paper, these groups are essential to move forward from the current state of the housing crisis, developing its solutions and, hopefully, resolving the crisis altogether.

Fiscal and real repercussions of the Central Bank of Iraq’s real estate initiatives by using Multiple Correspondence Analysis

The importance of the study stems from the fact that Iraq’s economy is facing a housing crisis, especially in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, great demographic pressure due to pronounced population growth over the past two decades. The Central Bank of Iraq undertakes several initiatives represented in granting real estate loans, mainly through the Real Estate Bank at very low interest, and in the last two years, the interest has become zero. The purpose of the study is to analyze the fiscal implications of the Iraqi central bank’s real estate initiatives, as well as its real impact on the spatial dimension of the Iraqi governorates through new housing in those governorates. Using data mainly from the Central Bank of Iraq’s bulletins, the study obtained a 6-year sample of study variables for 15 Iraqi governorates. Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was used to test such repercussions. One of the study’s findings is that the greatest impact of the Iraqi central bank’s real estate initiative was the fiscal and real repercussions for the year 2021, and the highest relative impact was in Baghdad governorate, with fiscal and real returns distinct from the rest of the governorates. One of the conclusions reached is that the strength of the fiscal repercussion was more important, more significant, and stronger than the real impact of the initiatives of the Central Bank of Iraq. Similarly, it was concluded that Baghdad was the first governorate that benefited from the effects of the initiative.

Landlord opposition to rent control and the politics of class monopoly rent

Housing costs have soared in the United States and beyond in recent years, leading to growing calls for rent control among tenant rights advocates and legislators. This push to enact rent control has been met with substantial opposition by landlord associations, an opposition which is mobilized by long-standing arguments by economists rooted in neo-classical economic principles. The article extends existing criticism of one particular facet of this opposition: the argument that rent control will only worsen any housing crisis as rents increase due to landlords actively reducing supply. We argue that this argument amounts to the pursuit of something that mainstream economists have long ignored or disavowed to counter-act the intended purpose of rent control: class monopoly rent. By drawing on evidence from the statewide rent control legislation passed in Oregon in 2019, we engage with scholarship on the sociology of housing markets and Marxian rent theory to reveal that landlords acting as a collective voice through landlord associations to advance this argument effectively constitutes the discursive deployment of class monopoly power as a political strategy to lobby against tenant rights proponents. As such, we argue that landlords effectively engage in a “politics of class monopoly rent” which functions as a discursive weapon against tenant rights activists and low-income renters otherwise held captive in unaffordable housing markets. We offer this article as a resource for tenant rights activists and legislators who must inevitably confront this opposition in the process of mobilizing rent control legislation.

Homelessness and Mental Illness: Medicalizing a Housing Crisis

Homelessness and Mental Illness: Medicalizing a Housing Crisis

Those who leave: Out-migration and decentralisation of welfare beneficiaries in gentrified Paris

In major metropolitan areas, gentrification, financialisation and welfare retrenchment contribute to a severe housing crisis. Over the past 20 years, home price inflation and affordable housing shrinkage have been particularly acute in Paris. Such issues have been linked to the displacement of lower-income Parisians and the suburbanisation of poverty on a regional scale. In this article, we match disaggregated data from the Family Benefits Fund (CAF) with information on local housing markets, to empirically document these expulsionary processes. Our methodology is twofold. First, we investigate out-migration factors using logistic regressions. Second, we compare households’ changes in access to the city centre and urban resources following a move. Data show that social vulnerability is associated with a greater risk of leaving Paris and that housing welfare is playing a crucial role in mitigating this risk. Also, the higher the pressure on local housing markets, the more social inequalities determine mobility behaviour. Finally, beyond the effects of family structure, patterns of decentralisation are related to income level: less affluent households go farther from the city centre, job opportunities and services than higher-income households.

The political economy of populists in power, between policy and polity: Evidence from the Israeli case

This paper explores the connection between the current wave of populism, economic policies and governance practices. We first review the different ways in which populist political economy has been conceptualised, focusing on the relationship between populism and neoliberalism in terms of both policy and polity. We then briefly discuss right-wing populist governments’ recent economic policies and institutional changes. We argue that, while representing a continuation of neoliberalism in some areas, right-wing populism may, when in power, undermine neoliberal economic policies and institutional power by subverting governance norms and reintroducing the state as a major actor in the economy. To demonstrate and support our argument, we analyse the Israeli case, in which the right-wing populist leader Benjamin Netanyahu led three governmental coalitions between 2009 and 2019. We focus on the Israeli government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis and the housing crisis. We show that the populist Israeli government went beyond clientelism and welfare chauvinism and moved towards a more redistributive and expansionist economic agenda. To finance and legislate this agenda, it used unorthodox, short-term governance practices to bypass or overcome institutional limitations.