September 6, 2019
I read a heartbreaking story this week about a man found dead on a West LA street. A 51-year old man died on the sidewalk. Blocks from where he died, some of the most powerful lawyers, financiers, real estate developers in the country go to work every day. The premier public institution of higher learning and research in the country is barely a mile away. And a man can die on the sidewalk, homeless and alone.
The reaction on social media was sadness, disturbed disbelief. But how many times do those who are shocked walked past a dirty, disheveled homeless person with nothing but disdain? Or claim that they can’t give money to someone who will probably use it for drugs or booze? We refer to the homeless as ‘them’. They are mentally ill. They don’t like authority. They resist help. I hear those excuses all the time. But the homelessness crisis is not limited to the mentally ill, or veterans, or those who choose the fringes of society. Too many simply can’t afford the required rent and have nowhere to go.
Yet there is angry resistance to any kind of rent control. It’s unfair to the people who carry the financial responsibility. How can anyone make a profit if their hands are tied? No one will want to be a property owner. Renters are flaky. Renters don’t take care of their places. The excuses are endless.
I live in a city where once upon a time, a public school teacher could own a home on a single income. That same teacher can’t afford a 2-bedroom apartment now. But the market dictates so whose fault is it? Developers who want to make ever more money? Politicians who refuse to stand up to the developers? Stagnant wages?
It’s all of those and none of them. It’s far more fundamental and endemic in my mind.
I was watching Property Brothers. I hate Property Brothers. I resent everything it stands for. I hate the HGTVing of our living spaces. I hate the idea that every house has to be “updated” before it’s put on the market. I hate that they make every space look the same. But mostly I hate their contribution to spiraling housing costs. It’s bad enough in major cities, but people expect to pay a premium in cities. Driving up the prices in moderate communities is, to me, unconscionable. The Brothers and other HGTV shows have successfully transformed our national idea of what our homes should look like; they have given us a template by which we measure whether our homes are satisfactory.
That’s despicable.
Our homes should be a reflection of who we are. A home should be a place that we treasure for the people it houses and welcomes. It should shelter us and embrace us and it should evolve with us. In the episode I watched, the family whose current house was being “updated” to be able to list for max profit walked in to see the finished refresh and commented, “It looks like a luxury hotel!” As if that is a good thing. The obsession with perfectly current, on-trend houses is coming at a very high price.
We see our homes as bearing an innate financial reward. We buy houses with an eye on what we’ll be able to get when we sell. This is not normal. Historically, houses have been places to live, not a way to increase wealth. Thanks 1980s, just one more gift that keeps on giving. Every time we buy a house, hit refresh, resell at a profit, the market is driven up. Housing gets out of reach for more people. Additionally, property values on rentals goes up along with single family homes. I live in a rental house that’s under LA rent control. The property was purchased in 2007 by an investor. He paid more than the property was worth and struggled the whole time he owned it. He sold it in 2015. The new owners tried to evict us “because they wanted to charge more rent.” That was ridiculously illegal, when they realized they couldn’t do that, they re-listed. They sold it 6 months after buying it (and putting almost no money into it) for a $25,000 profit. That profit is insane.
We can claim compassion for the man that died on the street, but if we believe in capitalism and the inherent righteousness of the profit model, we contribute to his death. If we believe that making money on our own property is more important than ensuring that everyone has a roof over their heads, we are complicit. Our hunger for personal wealth allows us to vote down laws that would benefit those who can’t afford housing. Instead we side with the wealthy in the fantasy belief that we too can someday make a killing off that real estate. Don’t limit the profit opportunity, I may have a chance someday.
Capitalism is literally killing us and we ignore it as stubbornly as we ignore climate change in the face of rising seas, raging wild fires and monstrous hurricanes.
Money. Either we break up our obsessive affair with it, or we will continue to doom ourselves, one and all.
dawnhalloran 