Ideal #1: Everyone has access to affordable housing Let the questions begin!
- What does ‘access’ mean? Does it mean everyone can be housed if they so choose to be housed? What if they so choose not to be housed? What if they choose to be housed in a way that violated other ideals, like the right of everyone else to live in safe and sanitary conditions?
- What does ‘access’ mean? Does it mean housing is guaranteed in certain metro area? Or that it’s available somewhere in the country, but you might have to move to redeem your access? Or that everyone also has a right to not have to commute more than a certain amount to work (combination time/money)?
- Is a certain housing size or number of bedrooms per person also a right?
- Does this mean subsidized housing?
- How would the housing materialize? Will the housing become available through expansion in the housing stock? What if adding housing in an area reduces the quality of life in an area? What is ‘quality of life’? How much quality should be guaranteed to existing residents? Who gets to decide? Should existing residents has a say in how much housing development there is in their neighborhood? Why? Why Not? How much?
- How does one keep a stock of affordable housing available when housing supply and demand is constantly changing? Does it need to be available everywhere? If not, where does it have to be available?
- Should assistance to low-income households be specific to housing or simply general income/tax credit assistance so that they can afford housing? If income assistance, what happens if individuals spend their money unwisely and still don’t have enough for housing?
- Since housing stock is mostly privately developed and owned, how does one incentivize property developers and owners to provide affordable housing?
- How does one guarantee the right to affordable housing without overbuilding affordable units that are then left vacant and create blight?
- Does the right to affordable housing mean not having to live with unrelated persons, i.e., roommates? Should families have the right not to have to take in boarders?
Those are top-of-the-head questions. Moral: the devil’s in the details.