I believe that safety & shelter are human rights, and that no government should be able to claim legitimacy so long as its people go without.

Housing affordability has become a crisis, due in large part to the outsized influence of private equity. Corporate landlords use their wealth & access to capital to out-compete working families for single-family homes, pricing them out of the American dream, and with it, the most crucial tool for building wealth and prosperity.

When landlords collude to inflate rents – via both legal and illegal price fixing, the use of AI, intentional vacancy meant to give an illusion of scarcity – they create conditions that have led to nearly half of all renter households becoming cost burdened, spending more than 30% of the income on rent. This has not only increased the cost of living, reduced discretionary spending, and eliminated many households’ ability to save, it has also led to a rise in unhoused and underhoused individuals and families even while housing units sit vacant.

It's time we decommodify housing by taking a Housing First approach. Rather than criminalizing homelessness, we must attack it at its core by providing adequate short-term shelters, staffed with social workers to tend to the needs of our under-housed populations.

We must repeal the Faircloth Amendment – which in 1999 functionally ended the creation of public housing in favor of private investment - and create a “fast-lane” for public projects to enable a resurgence of public housing in America. Safe, quality at-cost housing for young and struggling families can create savings, acting as a springboard to eventual homeownership while competition on the low-end of the rental market will free many distressed single-family properties from “slumlords” for improvement by new owner-occupants, revitalizing our neighborhoods.

Finally, we must loosen the grip of private equity on our housing supply. This includes a ban on corporations and hedge funds from purchasing single-family homes, as well as new laws and strict enforcement to prevent price fixing and artificial vacancy.