Universal provision of housing makes everyone healthier and safer. Stable rent benefits neighborhoods in a plethora of ways. Housing-first programs have demonstrated drug use, sex work, theft and other crimes of desperation can be drastically reduced by giving everyone a safe and stable home. Housing as a human right is a radical concept, but it’s one the city of St. Paul is ready to get behind – if city council doesn’t thwart us.
Housing as a commodity hasn’t worked for our city. Racial covenants and racist housing practices paid dividends for white workers and homeowners through the 20th century and have made local property developers and out of state investors very rich. Owning a home gives me, and other people like me (with generational wealth and supports) an opportunity to have stable rent in perpetuity. But the wealth gap and current value of housing have made it so that a safe and dignified home is out of reach for anyone who doesn’t have access to generational wealth. Our regional prosperity is matched only by our regional inequity.
I saw displacement and gentrification happen in Minneapolis, as my neighborhoods transformed around me and the residents who gave the neighborhoods their character and vibrancy were forced out by rising rents. As a renter organizer on St. Paul’s Eastside, I’ve talked to dozens of renters who are either suffering from 30%-40% rent increases (even in subsidized housing) or are forced out of their homes of many years. This is due to their homes’ commodity status. Investors know housing in St. Paul is a very good bet, thanks to the economic engine of our city and the strong need for dense housing, in community, that provides the resources and support we all need. You can read one story of an Eastsider who was displaced here.
Sadly, what’s good for investors is not good for the rest of us. St. Paul residents voted 53% to implement a 3% rental increase cap across the board to all rental properties in the city. We did this because we knew that stable, amortized increases make everyone safer. We also did this because we knew it would be a small barrier for gentrification and skyrocketing prices, allowing us to put in more supports into place and transform our system of housing before our communities are changed for good.
More than 100 renters showed up at city council to demand it protect the law we passed. During the public council session on Aug. 24, we heard moving testimony from elderly renters whose social security payments have not increased at a rate anywhere near rent. We heard from residents who were counting on city council to protect them and keep their housing rates reasonable and from homeowners who knew stable rent benefits us all. You can listen to the powerful testimony here. City council chose to ignore us and listen to the five or six developers who threatened to hold us hostage by withdrawing their capital if we didn’t provide them unlimited rent increases, and therefore unlimited potential income on property resale.
These developers are already receiving millions in public subsidy. Ryan Companies, receiving millions in TIF dollars from St. Paul taxpayers, threatened to bail on their development project in one of the richest parts of the city if they don’t get exemptions to rent stabilization. I, and the 53% of St. Paul voters who passed rent stabilization, did not say “as long as it works for the developers.” We said 3%, for everyone, into perpetuity. New housing can have initial prices set at any point the owner wants.
Sadly, city council decided to agree with the few over the many and give developers and “affordable housing providers” the handouts they were asking for.
Worse, the newly exempted “affordable” housing uses regional Area Median Income (AMI) standards set by HUD. This means residents in low-income neighborhoods have their max rent set based on the median income of our entire metro area. Our metro area’s median income often makes residents eyes bug out when we learn how out-of-reach that “median income” really is. AMI is skewed by wealthy suburbs like Sunfish Lake, which, like our entire metro, rely on workforces of low income city-dwellers and immigrants to keep our powerful economic engine turning.
The idea that housing can only come from private investment is a lie that benefits the rich. Many other countries take a robust hand in building and providing exceptional housing. However, we have stuck with our tragically failing dedication to commodity, subsidizing only the private owners, never the residents themselves.
St. Paul City Council disagrees with the voters. With Ordinance 22-37, they told us the “right” of investors and developers to profit is more important than the right of everyone to stable rent and a dignified home.
America is allergic to treating economic needs as human rights, but St. Paul is ready to move past this. The American Bar Association and Urban Institute Initiatives agree, we’re past due time to declare housing as a true right for all.
St. Paul is ready to house everyone. We know it will unleash the potential of all of us and allow us to thrive. Developers who need unlimited profits don’t need to be part of the picture. The millions that go to housing subsidy should always stay in public hands in perpetuity, and must guarantee every Minnesotan a safe and beautiful home in a place where they want to live and access the resources and community we all need.
We don’t need to accept housing as a commodity anymore. With a state surplus, we can and must invest in every Minnesotan, not in the rich owners of our communities. We’re ready for something better. St. Paul City Council needs to catch up.
David Ackos is a St. Paul resident, community organizer, and participant in the East Side Freedom Library Housing Justice program.
It’s not a “right” if someone else has to pay for it. Anything you receive for “free” from the government is out of the kindness of the taxpayers’ hearts. They could reverse that in one election. People should be grateful that such benefactors still exist.
Oh, oh….
I find myself in semi-agreement with Dennis twice in one week.
I am sure Mr Ackos in addition to housing also sees healthcare and food as basic human rights.
All very nice, but not based in reality.
A little prioritization may be in order.
Feeding yourself and housing yourself is a personal responsibility not a human right. Whether or not tax payer dollars are used to help individuals is up to law makers, who the taxpayers vote in or out. I’ve said it many times before, the blending of our tax dollars and private money has always lent itself to cronyism. As always, the best welfare program is a job.
If Saint Paul were a closed system we would have X amount of people and Y amount of housing units. Where X is greater than Y the city could sell bonds to build enough housing to make up the difference. But the city is open, and more people want to live in Saint Paul than can be currently housed there. So rents will continue increasing without several kinds of interventions.
Rent control is one intervention that can slow rent increases, though it comes with a lot of administrative burdens and unintended consequences. If designed properly it can provide some stability at the margin, but the effects will be modest at best. And rent control does less than nothing to address the housing shortage.
The strongest intervention would be to remove some of the supply constraints that effectively outlaw building more units in much of the city. Where it is legal to build, other laws make it unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming. We need lower cost new construction.
Other interventions have to be undertaken by larger units of government. More government owned housing can help a little. More direct housing subsidies for low income renters would be more helpful, but only if there are more units available to rent.
“More people want to live in Saint Paul than can be currently housed there. So rents will continue increasing without several kinds of interventions.”
There’s no need for any “interventions.” In a free society, the high rents would cause people to consider living elsewhere … someplace with lower rents. If enough people did that, to the point where St. Paul landlords were having difficulty finding renters, rents would come down naturally. Let the market decide.
There is high demand for housing, but the supply is artificially constrained by over-regulation. It is not a freely functioning market.
I’m arguing for substantial deregulation of zoning, height restrictions, parking minimums, lot coverage maximums, etc. Our building codes have not kept up with newer building materials and construction technology.
Every day I drive past large, prime vacant lots that developers have held for years because they haven’t been able to get permits to build a profitable apartment building. So yes, let’s let the market decide.
A few “reminders” in response. First, if memory serves the 53% quoted by advocates of rent control/stabilization represented 17% of registered voters as many voters stayed home. This does not represent the significant support often quoted. Second, rent price is simple economics. One wish I have before I leave this planet is that we have a requirement that everyone learn what high demand and low supply and the opposite creates. In the meantime, a reminder that currently supply is not sufficient to provide the demand that would organically lower prices.
The desire for an absolute rent cap is just so tiresome as it completely ignores costs of the provider of housing. For instance, when energy costs have increased almost 60% as has occurred in the past year why is this completely ignored by folks such as the writer of this opinion piece. Property taxes, property insurance, and maintenance costs have also increased significantly.
If the public (taxpayer) wishes to provide housing for those with little or no income they can do so as absent a revenue source (rent paid by renter) the private market cannot provide housing for this segment of the population. If the public chooses this path, however, prepare yourself for large tax increases foisted upon the taxpayer to subsidize the effort. Outside of that segment the government should stay out of the contract between the “buyer and seller” of market housing.