Housing Access and Affordability in Lake County

Written By Lakefront DSA

In a country which cared fully for the well-being of its citizens, housing would be a fundamental right everyone should have access to, like running water or clean air. Yet, in the US, our government is far from obligated to provide such. And it has only gotten worse over time as our ‘representatives’ continue to gut the welfare state. College graduates moving back in with their parents, unable to find work that pays enough to justify exorbitant housing costs, has become a common occurrence. Many have resorted to living in their cars, if they even have one.

Ever since the New Deal’s Housing Act of 1937 was first implemented - part of a great but not perfect series of reforms implemented by President FDR in the wake of the Great Depression - both parties have worked to curtail the program. Under Reagan in particular, the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development was halved. Then, in 1998, the Housing Act was amended to prevent any federal funds from going to projects which would yield a net increase in available housing! This intentional sabotage, fueled by the Red Scare and conservative propaganda, led to deteriorating, horrible living conditions for residents, usually people of color. 

As such, the current Section 8 voucher system is demeaning and obtuse. Landlords of properties under the system often go unpunished for discrimination or forcing people in need to suffer undo time on waiting lists. Regulations also frequently stifle the construction of more space-efficient apartments and condominiums by designating sparse few areas for multi-family zoning. On top of all this, property taxes impose a barrier to ownership and create both positive and negative feedback loops, enriching already prosperous towns while making it harder to support those already in need of investment.

The corporate alternative presented to us is even worse. Under capitalism, homes are twisted into commodities, not necessities. Everyone from small-time landlords to national private equity firms are allowed to buy up homes they never use personally. In 2022, private equity firms bought up a third of all newly constructed houses nationwide! Rather than ‘provide’ housing, as they often espouse, these entities are more accurately described as scalpers, raising costs for the people who actually work. Think of how much cheaper concert tickets or packs of trading cards would be if you could actually buy them at their original price! 

Moreover, new construction is not keeping up with population growth, while prices increase faster than income and inflation. When these companies do build new homes, they are often luxury apartments or larger, single-unit houses, gentrifying neighborhoods as they sit vacant, impossible to afford for most. Sometimes they even convert permanent dwellings into air b&bs with prohibitively high rents! 

That’s not even mentioning the various cruel practices they employ to boost their profits at others’ expense. Algorithm software lets them collude to set rents as high as they can, or intentionally lower occupancy rates. High turnovers contribute to faster rent hikes too, perpetuating homelessness through increased, merciless evictions, forcing many to live in their cars or onto the streets.  

But how do we escape this nightmare? Democratic socialists pave the way along the clear path we need to take: pursue the existing alternative that is public housing. While the term has been intentionally stigmatized in the media, public housing by no means has to be subpar! All it means is that the residence is owned collectively, whether by a municipality, tenant union, or other nonprofit organization, taking greed out of the equation for everyone. And it’s been done well in numerous countries such as Austria, with the social housing complexes in Vienna even featuring wide, green courtyards and pools. 

Since public housing is publicly accountable during every step of the process, that means less waste, safer construction both during and after, and better paid workers. Labor unions could help with the upkeep as well. The end result is homes which are built to last, more efficiently maintained, and provide a more dignified standard of living. No political or corporate interference gets in the way of increasing the number of units available, and we can create purpose-driven initiatives which focus on communities with the highest need, prioritizing the unhoused and marginalized populations instead of the wealthy. Better that than more data centers!

Rather than new construction, public housing programs are also far more likely to see the benefits in quickly and cheaply renovating existing structures such as unused retail space instead of replacing them completely. This is better for the environment too, producing less waste! And by getting together and pooling funding, existing privately owned apartment complexes which are already fit can be appropriated for public use too, opening them up to complete occupancy. Even smaller steps such as increasing eviction protections would also be a huge relief for those being preyed upon by avaricious landlords. 

Only the people’s collective outcry can replace this fundamentally broken system, and together, we can build that future. Educate your friends on the subject, run for local office, fight landlords whenever you can. In Illinois specifically, repealing the 1997 Rent Control Preemption Act and then implementing rent controls to cap these ludicrous prices would be a huge win for Lake County residents. If we keep up our efforts, then someday soon none of our Lake County neighbors will be forced onto the streets or into squalid conditions ever again!


Sidebar quote = Amee Chew, Public Housing Is Social Housing, Jacobin

“Low Income Housing Tax Credit provides tax breaks to for-profit investors who invest in lower-income housing. This means LIHTC essentially wastes our public dollars on enriching private Wall Street investors. The investors are earning more in tax breaks from the government than they actually pay into affordable housing. It would be more cost-effective for the government to directly fund the production of affordable housing instead of allowing this profit-skimming to occur.”

Lake County Statistics sidebar, list sources = US census, Realtor.com, bestneighborhood.org, Lake County Partners

Lakefront DSA
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