America Can’t Afford Ben Carson’s Housing Cuts
Access to decent affordable housing underpins the U.S.’s social safety net and economic dynamism.
If you build, they will prosper.
Photographer: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Last week, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson proposed legislation to make affordable housing “work” by making it stingier. The bill would force low-income households to pay more of their scarce earnings in rent, tripling the rent for the poorest. Carson claims the changes would “provide an incentive [for renters] to increase their earnings.” That flies in the face of research showing that making housing more affordable helps to improve economic self-sufficiency and increases children’s future earnings.
The time has come for policymakers to ensure that every American has access to decent affordable housing. As with education and healthcare, such access should be considered a basic right — one that underpins not just our social safety net, but our economic dynamism.