POLITICO 06/13/24
By Michael Shank
Incumbent leaders have largely failed to tackle key socioeconomic issues like the rising cost of housing.
All across Europe and the U.S., new right parties are rising to power, threatening progress on many social and environmental issues, including critical climate action. The recent EU parliamentary election clearly illustrates just how quickly populist parties are gaining political purchase, and it also serves as a harbinger of the potential pendulum swings ahead of the U.S. elections later this year.
On both sides of the Atlantic, these parties are gaining traction because incumbent policymakers have largely failed to effectively tackle key socioeconomic issues like the rising cost of housing. With housing protests cropping up across European cities, from London and Lisbon, and across the U.S. from the west coast to the east, it’s no wonder Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, called the housing crisis “the social issue of the 21st Century.”
The younger generation is particularly enraged, as housing is now unaffordable for so many. And their surprising support for right-wing populist parties is impacting elections everywhere.
In the Netherlands, where the housing crisis continues to be a top concern for voters, last year’s election witnessed wins by Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party. In Portugal, which is also plagued by a housing crisis, we saw a substantial surge in support for the Chega. In Germany, rising rent helped grow support for the Alternative for Germany party. And in Sweden, a housing market with few rental options led to segregated housing for migrants and the growth of a far-right party with neo-Nazi origins, which now commands over 20 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is suffering a serious housing affordability crisis of its own. Housing prices in the U.S. have tripled since 2000, eclipsing other economic indicators like average salaries, which have improved under President Joe Biden. As others have noted, if it weren’t for housing costs, inflation would be “at a healthy and stable 1.8 percent” instead of at almost double that figure. And if voters blame the current administration for their economic woes, former President Donald Trump could win a second term this November.
And who can blame all these voters? If you can’t afford a place to live, you want to point fingers at someone, and incumbent politicians make an easy target — as do migrants. These grievances, then, make easy pickings for parties keen to rally that rage. And that’s where political candidates like Wilders and Trump do well. It’s a simple rhetorical flourish, but one that’s politically powerful and palatable to a public that’s understandably upset that they can’t find an affordable home.
Fixing this problem will take courage. Across Europe and the U.S., the market has dictated the terms, leading to housing bubbles, crashes and more unaffordability. Governments, meanwhile, have consistently misdiagnosed the problem, resulting in policy solutions that not only fail to bring down prices but generate more carbon and conflict.
To be clear, housing unaffordability is rarely the result of a lack of supply — despite what the British Labour Party might claim in its political manifesto, or what the U.S. media might say. This kind of misdiagnosis often leads to the conclusion that the only treatment is more construction, buildings and embodied carbon. It positions climate activists as obstructionists, blaming them for not letting governments build the homes needed. And it fuels the “migrants are stealing our homes” narrative, prevalent in the U.K. and now the Netherlands.
To combat this issue, Housing Europe’s Secretary General Sorcha Edwards suggests “public-interest financing,” with “social conditionality and strings attached.” That’s a good start. Then add to that “environmental conditionality and strings attached,” so the building materials for renovations aren’t detrimental to the climate. But the bigger ask is that affordable, adequate and secure housing be enshrined as a fundamental legal right.
That’s a political lift, to be sure, but now is the time to campaign on it — when everyone’s focused on housing. It won’t require a bunch of new construction. The building stock for this already exists. Rather than letting developers run the show with new builds that have little to no required social and environmental standards and that exacerbate existing housing and climate crises, it’s time to press pause.
Now is the time for a different way of doing business, with policies that incentivize retrofits and renovations. For example, New York City’s tax breaks for developers to convert empty office buildings into residential properties is having a positive impact on conversions — something Washington is also replicating in its latest budget. In Baltimore, organizations are working with African American women to rehabilitate vacant and deteriorating houses in historically disenfranchised neighborhoods, promoting wealth creation via home ownership. In Minneapolis, there are workforce training programs in deconstruction and reuse warehouse safety and operation, and in Seattle, they’re building healthy homes for those who are homeless.
Creating such incentives for businesses in priority communities, developing affordable housing with existing building stock, and addressing displacement and negative impact from retrofits are where governments are going with this work. It is how they can embody justice in the built environment.
Without question, grievances about housing unaffordability are very real, and governments across Europe and the U.S. need to take them seriously. This is the social issue of the century. But we can, in fact, tackle multiple crises at once — from housing injustice to climate injustice — if we’re intentional and intersectional.
Affordable housing is, indeed, a fundamental right, which right-wing populists actually understand. Now, the rest of us should get it too.
