Hey Olly, I’m pro free housing, but i often get stuck on how it would work? Like, how would who gets what housing be decided? What if everyone wants to move to a beach town but all the housing is taken—do people get on some kind of wait list? Should housing be run by the govt, or should it be generational, like you bequeath your housing? Idk when I think about a system where you apply to the govt for your housing and it gets approved or denied, I worry about corruption/tankie shit. Any thoughts?
I get this a lot, and in the first instance I think it’s often framed in a pretty unrealistic way. I very much doubt everybody would suddenly want to move to a beach town because people put down roots wherever they are and have connections and jobs there.
That said, obviously people will want to move sometimes, just like now - so you’re right to think about how that would work! I can imagine that a local council, or some public body under local democratic control, would have a list online of all the properties that are currently empty. If you're looking to move you can browse the list, pick one you like, and apply! If more than one person applies for the same house then we can have a lottery system (unless it’s got special features that one person needs, like it’s on the ground floor and they can’t do stairs, in which case we can let them take priority there). Once you get the house you can pick up the keys and move in! You would be responsible for maintaining it, so once every so often someone from that local body will come round and say, “Hey, you need to clear the gutters or install some fire doors or whatever.” Once you’re done you give back the keys and move out! The important thing to realise is that whilst not everybody will get their first choice house - that is already true of the current system. No rent, no mortgages. The house is not owned by anybody and so it cannot be sold: homes are no longer the sorts of things that can legally be commodities.
Won’t there be corruption and people moving their friends up the list for the nicer houses?
Almost definitely! Again though - real estate corruption already happens under the current system. At least this way nobody dies of homelessness and nobody amasses fortunes on the backs of other people’s misery.
Won’t this mean every estate agent and landlord is out of a job?
Yup. But we will also be creating new jobs! Someone will need to administer that list, manage applications, show people round properties, inspect them... Seems like estate agents have a lot of transferrable skills that will be useful! Their new jobs will be much more stable since they won’t be conditional on the fluctuations in the housing market! Let’s make sure they’re unionised with pensions and decent wages while we’re at it!
But people won’t take care of the houses if they don’t own them!
It’s hard to think of anything that has more evidence against it than this. Private renters already take care of housing which they don’t own because they live there. My landlord hasn’t set foot in my flat for three years: I do all the cleaning and repairs and I make it a home. The owner does zilch!
But what if someone wants to come into my house and just live there?
Same thing that happens now if you rent, you have a right to privacy so you can tell them to leave? I don’t own the flat I currently live in, but I can control who comes in - even the owner is required to give me notice.
But I want to own a house someday so I can sell it and getta tha mon-ey!
Tough titties I’m afraid. You don’t get to amass wealth at the expense of other human beings anymore.
I agree that the current housing crisis is a problem, but can’t we just introduce strong pro-tenant regulations?
The housing market and the housing crisis are the same thing. That’s the point. Consider that every regulation you introduce will be challenged and eroded by the most rich and powerful people in the world. We have tried for over a century to regulate our way out of the housing crisis and it’s been a miserable, deadly failure. It’s time to cut the Gordian knot and realise that we will not solve the housing crisis until we do to landlords what Thatcher did to the miners: absolutely remove them as a political force.
But who will build new houses if nobody can sell them for a profit?
We have a free healthcare system, don’t we? Why not a housing system too? It’s not perfect of course, and it’s vulnerable to privatisation by the backdoor, but if a job needs doing the government can pay people to do it - that is a thing that can happen.
But I already paid half my mortgage! Now you’re telling me my house isn’t an asset anymore?
Admittedly, that sucks. But hey, at least you don’t have to pay the other half, and now you live in a society where you will never go homeless!
Won’t wages go down once people no longer have to pay rent or mortgages?
Maybe. Sounds like a good reason to join a union and have robust minimum wage laws for everybody! But even if they did - if your living costs have just been reduced by half cause you aren’t paying rent anymore and there’s now zero chance that you will end up on the streets, you could lose some wages and still be fine.
But people won’t go to work if they don’t have to pay rent!
Absolutely right. Would you still go to work at your shitty job if you had free housing? Would you maybe go half as much, and spend the other half doing something you actually enjoy? If your boss harasses you or makes your job miserable, aren’t you now in a much better position to say, “Screw your job!” Guaranteeing free housing puts a massive amount of power in the hands of workers and would expose just how coercive capitalism is! Suddenly, if rich people want their floors cleaned or their coffee served - well they’d better pay the person doing that job properly or it won’t get done. All the people who actually keep society running in low-paid shitty jobs are suddenly able to demand the respect they deserve. Every pro-worker party should be demanding free housing: it’s hard to think of a move that would benefit the working class more than taking away the threat of homelessness used to keep them in line.
Won’t banks be in serious trouble if mortgages suddenly aren’t a thing?
Probably. Some might go under. They will not get bailouts - if bailouts are required they will go directly to the employees and customers, who, remember, have all just had their living costs massively reduced because they have free housing now. They will not end up on the streets because homelessness won’t exist.
This is ridiculous!
For most of human history housing was not a commodity. There is more empty housing now than homeless people. The fact that people find it difficult to imagine an alternative now is a function of Capitalist Realism, but a lack of imagination on their part isn’t a moral or intellectual failing on mine.
I’m a foreign billionaire and I bought loads of property in your country so I can leave them empty to inflate my assets/launder my money that I got from doing crimes. Now you’re telling me I’m going to lose everything cause you’re confiscating those properties and letting people live in them?!
Get rekt lol
amandla
2087
jimmyeatworldofficial
gummygunk
izzy806
pixelskylines
