Affordable Homes and Rent for Thriving Communities

The problem – For years, wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living. Many of us are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling under the cost of basics like health care, housing, transportation, groceries. All while the super-rich and corporations use donations and lobbyists to manipulate the rules in their favor.

• High housing costs and rent are breaking family budgets, forcing long-term residents to leave their homes and ripping apart communities. Families are being priced out of neighborhoods they’ve made their home for years, sometimes generations.
• Housing is not a luxury good; it’s a basic need for everyone. But today, too many people are being forced to choose between paying their rent or feeding their families, while a growing number of people become homeless.
• High rents and housing costs in long-established Black and Latino neighborhoods, are forcing many people to leave their homes, tearing apart families and communities.
• Our outdated laws don’t provide essential protections for people who rent, like preventing big hikes in rent, requiring that homes and apartments are well-maintained and allowing renters to stay in their homes.
• Landlords and developers use lobbyists and campaign contributions to manipulate the rules so they can profit at the expense of everyday Americans.
• Big corporations aren’t paying to solve the problems they cause – like high housing costs, traffic congestion and crowded schools.

 
Our solution – Guarantee that every family has good, safe and affordable housing in stable, thriving communities.

• Working families and the middle class are the engines of the economy. When we have good jobs so we can care for and support our families, educate our children, afford our health care and housing, shop in our neighborhoods and retire in security, we drive the economy forward and build thriving communities.
• By making housing more affordable, working people will be able to live and shop in the communities where they work, creating jobs on Main Street and helping local economies to thrive.

How we get there – It’s time to rewrite the rules so that every family has the security that they can afford their housing and live in a safe, thriving community.

• We should update housing laws to stop landlords from hiking rents to profiteer from housing shortages and by limiting rent increases to a set amount based on increases in the cost of living.
• We should allow families to stay in their homes by preventing evictions even when a lease expires as long as the family is paying the rent.
• Landlords should be required to keep housing in good repair and fix problems promptly.
• We should require developers to build housing and rentals that are affordable to the people who now are living in those communities.
• We should provide financial support to assure that low-income families do not pay more that they can afford for housing.
• We should provide homeless people with the financial and health care supports they need to stay off the streets and in a safe home.

Call to action – Together we can build an America that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few, where our families and communities can thrive.

• It’s up to us to demand that our elected officials say no to greedy landlords and developers and say yes to making safe, quality housing affordable for all our families.

Download the Housing Narrative