We have a version of section 8 here too which I think works pretty well. If your income is below a certain point the government will cover some or all of your rent which goes to the owner.
I would think that if youāre arguing that regulated capitalism is the best system that youād see the benefit of the way the Section 8 program works. The landlord gets their rent for sure (assuming they pass inspections) and has very little legitimate reason to not build or buy property for the purpose of having low income Section 8 tenants.
If his argument is simply right now under the pandemic should people not be evicted then we are in total agreement. Perhaps I misunderstood but I thought he was making a much larger claim that rent should be abolished forever.
I expect currently people are not moving or renting at a normal rate due to the lockdown and anyway the market still functions because property owners have an expectation that they can evict at some point in the future and collect unpaid rent via the courts if necessary. If evictions were permanently stopped it would be a different matter entirely. No one would be able to find a place to live without some sort of insurance or collateral to cover the landlordās risk.
Itās like if we placed a ban on firing people or laying them off. It might be a good thing for a lot of people up front, but as a permanent policy the distortion in the market would cause declining companies to go bankrupt faster and cause all companies to drastically reduce hiring. As a standalone rule change, it would be an absolute failure.
Landlordism is a part of almost every first world society, the most successful social democracies have a much higher rate of it than the USA. Changing the market in this way is not something that has been tried anywhere to my knowledge. If you expect the proposal to be taken seriously by people who are not already aligned with your views there needs to be some attempt to explain how this would work in the long term without leaving more people homeless than the current system.
The chance of abolishing private property in the USA in the next 50 years short of an armed revolution, (fighting against the current owners of all the weapons including the US military), is a pipe dream. Much greater chance to fix the system in the short term by improvements to the current system.
Heās not talking about just during the pandemic, but then he also didnāt say heād abolish rent forever - just violent evictions.
And again, why is the pandemic so special? People are evicted for heart wrenching reasons all the time.
Yes. I highly recommend peeps give it a read.
Have you readā¦
Under Section 8, any change in the tenantās income (either up or down) leads to a fairly quick, official change in how the rent is apportioned between the tenant and the housing program.
I had some Section 8 people who paid $0.00 per month, and I had at least person near the end of his multi-year tenancy whose income had increased enough that his rent share was close to 50% of the total rent owed.
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When in doubt if two options could work equally as well I prefer to leave agency with individuals.
Itās not all or nothing. There are squatters right now. There is even a legal concept of Adverse Possession. There are lots and lots of cases where courts refuse to evict people because of either the conditions of the property, behavior of the landlord, or circumstances of the tenants.
Iāll second this recommendation and (tie-in!) thereās a pretty good SF-oriented podcast called Podside Picnic that released an episode on this story just yesterday. Paywalled, unfortunately, though people should check out their free eps.
Ok, but the problem there goes to the basic argument that capitalism is a better system. To what degree will people develop rental properties? The security they have in getting rent is a big factor there.
I think almost all of the major disagreements ITT resolve down to capitalists, and I count myself as one, versus socialists.
If the gov is going to subsidize rent it should just skip the middle man and subsidize owning instead. Hell i can get a mortgage cheaper where i live for a comparable place then i can rent wise. Even save the tax payers moneyā¦
Anarchist: Seize the property and the maintenance and management is henceforth the responsibility of the people closest to it - the occupants and perhaps other people living in the building.
Socialist: Government owns the property, builds properties and is responsible for maintaining it.
Capitalist: Free market - but the government helps you with the violence part.
State-capitalist charity: Government gives money to landlords to accommodate people in need.
State-libertarian charity: Government gives money to people in need.
I think thereās room for all of the above to a varying degree. Itās a big world.
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Another thing I just thought of is that if we cover loss of income instead of providing section 8 assistance we also solve the problem for mortgage holders who fall ill or who have some other qualifying event.
I think there are some unintended consequences to watch out for when you want any system that affects so many people. Government assistance in buying houses drives up housing prices A LOT. And, at least in some places, thereās such an extreme demand for housing that the assistance accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Ok, but you still have people living in your building who donāt pay rent. That may work out ok for them, but it has other effects. It certainly lowers the value of income property, making it so more property developers are going to build single family homes and condos and fewer rental properties.
I know Iām like all over the place in this discussion, but the point is that itās all complicated and the answer is almost always some kind of āit dependsā. The free-market absolutists who never recognize the limitation of the market are not going to have the right answer in all cases and neither are the state communists and an honest anarchist should also be very willing to acknowledge what some people will consider drawbacks (see Ursula Le Guin).
Because eventually all of the people who the landlord was paying with those rents will come looking for their check?
Should be minimal if we had universal health care and protection of income against job loss, illness, disability, etc. And we can still have state owned housing.
If itās just somebody who would rather not pay rent even though they could, well to be honest Iām ok with violence in those cases.
Just saw your edit: Iām not arguing like a free market absolutists, I hope?