The resolution of the housing crisis is a topic that impacts all living people worldwide and particularly impacts property management company owners in daily life and careers. The argument of whether the government should be involved in-depth in solving the housing crisis has at least two sides. It can be argued that the government must be involved in solving the housing crisis. But in this paper, it can be proven that the government cannot be involved in resolving the housing crisis. In proving that the housing quality will be poor, impacting small-time landlords and causing more rental shortages due to a lack of financial means to keep rentals available. Government involvement in resolving the housing crisis would cause irreparable damage rather than resolving it because it will impact the quality of housing, raise eviction rates, and have poor long-term financial impacts on communities.
Government involvement in resolving the housing crisis can be seen in other cultures and countries that have taken over housing authority, but in looking to our own country, for example during the COVID-19 pandemic (Greenblatt, 2022). The rent memorandums allowed for rentals to not face eviction for non-payment of rent when they were impacted by the pandemic from the government mandates. The reasoning for this was varied, but they wanted the public to be able to shelter in place. They offered ways to make up for the lack of employment with unemployment being easily available. The funds were there, but with no consequences for not paying rent; many people chose to spend the money on things other than rent, which meant for some, they owed a year plus of back rent. In the state of Oregon, it was said that about 35% of renters owed some unpaid rent and up to 41% said they were not able to pay (Bates, 2020). Renters could refuse to allow landlords to maintain the property, which caused severe damages also to ensue. Over this time the pandemic laws caused irreparable damage to the housing market, and this was the government’s solution to help resolve and prevent more of a housing crisis. The history of the government’s attempt at resolving the housing crisis at a low level during the pandemic is still impacting us today in a negative way.
Government involvement in housing policy raises the need for evictions, thus causing more homelessness. Evictions happen when a lease violation is ignored by the tenant (Lyons, 2018). This can be unpaid rent, damage to the property, or violation of rules. Government laws impact this is when they offer ways to allow tenants to violate rules without accountability. Emotional support animals (ESA) would be one example of this, where the federal government allows an ESA animal to have the same rights as a service animal, which has specific tasks for a person with a disability. An ESA does not have the same training, which leads to the destruction of property since there are no limits on how many animals are allowed to be considered such. If a landlord views their property and sees the destruction caused by the animal, they are limited in what they legally can do (Grellas, 2021). They are forced to pursue legal evictions to remedy, as they cannot appear to discriminate against the tenant. The laws do not allow them to prevent multiple untrained animals on the property, as they are in a protected class. The landlord is forced to take legal action without addressing the actual issue, the multiple animals even if a bite is involved (Grellas, 2021). They instead seek out alternatives, escalating it to court, which raises the rate of evictions, leading to more homelessness. Government involvement in a more hands-on manner would only worsen this problem, causing more evictions.
Government-owned housing projects are of lower quality, ill-kempt, and poorly managed in some areas. There can be seen a pattern of poor management and frustration when looking at the United States government subsidized programs such as USDA-RD loan programs, apartment complexes, and building programs (Lyons, 2018). The safety in these homes is often compromised as the red tape to get repairs done is extensive. In a privately managed home, a tenant would submit a maintenance request. If their water heater goes out by state law in Montana, there is a three-day time limit to have adequate hot water restored or an alternative offered. Government-owned housing projects seem not to be subject to the same landlord-tenant laws. The lack of maintenance of public housing projects stresses other programs when housing must be condemned or demolished due to a lack of basic needs. Inspectors overlook home issues such as mold, lead, poor wiring, lack of smoke detectors, heat, and water (Lyons, 2018). Tenants are afraid to complain as they do not know where else they will live that they can afford. The circle of the housing crisis increases because of poor management. The ability to own homes privately would become outdated, and property care would not be offered. Community-wide protests are common when a new public housing project is scheduled to be built, believing it will bring down the value of surrounding homes due to the lack of care it will receive. This is known as the “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) construct (Greenblatt, 2022). The government has not been proven in its history of public housing that it could be trusted to resolve the housing crisis.
The opposing argument would be that the housing crisis cannot be resolved without the government intervening. The evidence provided for this is held up by the rising costs of housing, causing it to be unaffordable for the general blue-collar worker. If they have an emergency, they could be forced out of their housing, increasing the rate of homelessness in the area, as well as upping the risk of injury, death, and crimes of desperation (Greenblatt, 2022). While the evidence is plain that there is a problem, using the government as the solution to the issue is not backed up by the evidence. When examining the evidence presented, the government’s resolution can create more problems than the original issue. There are tenants without any financial skin in the game who do not maintain or clean the property. They do not prioritize their small monthly rent payments. Utilities still fall behind. It can be noted that the issue is not a matter of lack of affordable housing in some tenants’ cases but that they do not prioritize the need to make payments on time.
As seen in the pandemic and otherwise, people use the money for things other than rent, causing a backlog of unpaid bills without taking personal responsibility (Ortiz & Johannes, 2018). The government could not keep up with applications for assistance, which led to a backlog of unpaid owners. The owners did not have any type of loan forbearance, which meant that some homeowners were foreclosed on due to lack of ability to pay at the government policies put in place. Homeowners lost their homes, sold them occupied with non-paying tenants, or once the state laws lifted evictions, evicted the tenants, and then sold the property. The houses often did not return to the rental market and sold for higher prices than previously because of a lack of inventory. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of units available for eligible households with lower income decreased by 757,000 (HUD, 2023). With the shortage of rentals, the price of rent rose, causing many people to be priced out of being able to rent anything other than an apartment, and even then, many of them could not rent those due to only working a minimum wage job (Greenblatt, 2022). Property management companies began to place stricter guidelines on what they were looking for in tenants after so many costs the owners beyond what they had normally budgeted for loss in the rental business. When there are fewer privately owned homes and more run by the federal government, the community pride in ownership will be lost. By creating policies such as rent memorandums, the government added to the housing crisis rather than fixing it, thus demonstrating what would be seen if they oversaw resolving the housing crisis.
In conclusion, if there is a reliance on the government to resolve the housing crisis, it will create more of a crisis than has already occurred in causing the quality of housing available to lessen, eviction rates to rise, and our communities will be impacted fiscally as well as by the lack of small-time landlords managing their properties. Homelessness will rise even more than it is now. There will be a loss of personal responsibility in caring for the well-being of our towns and homes and frustration from the consumers about not being able to get vital services in their rentals. The government as the solution will cause more issues than it will repair. If they address some of the flaws presented here, this argument may change, but as it stands now, the government cannot be the solution to the housing crisis.
References
Bates, L. (2020, September 1). Stability, Equity, and Dignity: Reporting and Reflecting on Oregon Tenant Experiences During the Covid-19 Pandemic. A Research Justice Collaboration Community Alliance of Tenants Portland State University. https://www.pdx.edu/homelessness/sites/homelessness.web.wdt.pdx.edu/files/2020-09/Renters%20in%20Covid-Oregon%20summer%202020.pdf
Greenblatt, A. (2022). Homelessness crisis. In CQ Researcher. CQ Press https://doi.org/10.4135/cqresrre20221223
Grellas, C. (2021, October 1). The tenant who cried wolf: How fake emotional support animals unfairly … Scholarly Commons. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1363&context=uoplawreview
HUD. (2023, October 3). Worst case housing needs reach highest level in 2021 as the pandemic exacerbates the persistent shortage of affordable housing. Worst Case Housing Needs Reach Highest Level in 2021 as the Pandemic Exacerbates the Persistent Shortage of Affordable Housing | HUD USER. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-research-100323.html#:~:text=HUD’s%20Worst%20Case%20Housing%20Needs,worst%20case%20housing%20needs%20following
Lyons, C. (2018). Affordable housing shortage. In CQ Researcher. CQ Press https://doi.org/10.4135/cqresrre20180302
Ortiz, S. E., & Johannes, B. L. (2018). Building the case for housing policy: Understanding public beliefs about housing affordability as a key social determinant of health. SSM – population health, 6, 63–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2018.08.008
