As Bernie Sanders says in this op-ed, “I believe that every American should have a fundamental right to safe, decent and affordable housing. Stable and affordable housing is not only essential for a person to live with dignity, but without it, economic opportunity is simply an illusion.”
… Though this is the wealthiest country in human history, wages have stagnated at the same time many locales offer almost no affordable housing. Make no mistake about it: this crisis is enriching Wall Street investors and real estate speculators -- and making it impossible for many families to survive.
Data from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies tells the story. Since the 1960s, when I lived in that rent-controlled apartment, the median renter's income has increased by just 5%, while the median rent payment has skyrocketed 61%. It is a similar story with homeowners, whose incomes rose 50% at a time when home prices increased 112%.
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In response to this crisis, President Donald Trump has channeled his own life experience as the scion of a family that gave him millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs -- and whose political connections secured him special tax breaks and subsidies. As President, he has used the White House to represent the interests of his fellow real estate moguls.
He has proposed an 18% cut to federal housing programs. He has pushed to dramatically raise rents on low-income Americans who receive housing assistance. He has proposed to eliminate the National Housing Trust Fund, which funds affordable housing and was based on legislation I spearheaded in Congress. And he has signed tax legislation that enriches real estate investors and encourages gentrification, rather than needed investment in affordable housing.
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As one of the first members of Congress to introduce legislation to establish the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, I believe we must substantially expand this program to build the7.4 million units of housing that lower-income people, senior citizens and people with disabilities desperately need. We must also invest far more resources into maintaining and expanding our public housing stock.
In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we must end homelessness in America by doubling funding for HUD's McKinney-Vento homelessness assistance grants and providing critical outreach services.
We need to substantially increase grants for cities and towns that wish to create community land trust housing. This anti-gentrification tool -- which was first pioneered in Burlington, Vermont, when I was mayor -- allows low- and middle-income buyers to purchase homes at affordable, below-market prices on community-owned land.
We should also support communities' rent control ordinances and their mandates that developers include affordable housing in their new projects. And we must aggressively defend and promote the legal protections of fair housing, so that we are making sure no one is denied housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender or disability.