Cav's Place

Today started reasonably well, so maybe I’ll be able to actually write something non-personal here for a change. And the best bet seems to be this post that’s been in my drafts for over two years and on my mind for even longer. The topic, as the title shows, is housing. More specifically, how could we ensure that all have decent housing of their own, as in not only making sure that nobody’s left homeless or living in unsuitable conditions, but also that nobody needs to live with anyone other than those they specifically want to live with. After all, this should be a basic human right, shouldn’t it?

Anyone who knows anything about me will know that I’ll start this by mentioning population. If the population would steadily drop, there would be no need to build new homes, the existing ones eventually becoming sufficient and then even exceeding any potential demand, at which point large apartment buildings could be replaced by smaller ones and eventually even by houses, while those who already live in houses could end up having bigger and bigger gardens. Granted that human greed would immediately find a way to mess that up as well, but the point of this post isn’t to go that far, but to analyze the current situation and offer some solutions that could, at least theoretically, solve the problem in the very near future.

This “crisis” that started in 2008 and is still apparently affecting the whole world was actually caused by the housing sector. United States banks gave loans to people who wanted homes but couldn’t afford them in any way and, at the same time, attempted to use risky investments as a safety net, which obviously exploded right in their faces. Which, when it comes to the matter at hand, boils down to the fact that housing is not affordable. Whether a person chooses to take out a loan in order to purchase a home or goes the completely wrong way and rents it, they’ll end up needing to pay an arm and a leg for it every month and a whole lot of people couldn’t afford having their own place at all.
That shouldn’t happen! But it’s not that easy to find a culprit, because everybody’s to blame for the current situation in one way or another. The real estate industry is a symbol of greed, inflating prices as much as they possibly could every step of the way, or at least they did before the “crisis” and they’re doing their best to get back in that position as soon as possible. The banks also bleed any potential buyers as much as possible when they offer them the loans that these insane prices require. And the buyers themselves perpetuate this situation not only by accepting these conditions but also, in case of those who have at least a reasonable income, by looking for the biggest and best they could possibly afford, and sometimes even more than that, instead of stopping at just what they actually need.

So what do we do about it? Well, I think declaring the right to live in adequate housing without any need to share it with anyone you don’t actually want to share it with a basic human right could be a start. But those are just some words on a piece of paper, so the important part comes afterwards.
Any homes built from now on need to be as environmentally-friendly as possible and also made to last. When the population will hopefully finally drop to the point where we’ll start thinking of tearing down existing homes to build smaller ones because there’d be nobody left to live in them, there are plenty of older ones we’d need to set our eyes on, so all new ones must be built with the future in mind. That means being extremely sturdy and energy-efficient, but also built in areas that currently aren’t and likely also won’t be threatened by major natural disasters. This ensures that future generations will have good homes readily available to them, without the need for major repairs or improvements, therefore greatly reducing future resource consumption and costs.
But, you will say, that implies putting a whole lot of care, effort and resources into construction, which means the resulting homes will cost even more! Which would be quite right if the homes would be built and sold or rented as they are now. But they won’t be. In fact, the next step would be to make any new homes really simple, only answering to the actual needs of the people and allowing each of them to later make improvements or additions as they see fit and can afford to. Yes, that means no more homes with everything already in place the moment they’re bought, and it also means no more really large homes for anyone unless they can afford to build them themselves and can do so without negatively affecting the environment or taking up space that would otherwise be necessary to build simple homes for those who actually need them.
As long as greed doesn’t rear its ugly head yet again, that shoud theoretically make homes much cheaper at first, with all additional costs handled by the new owners as time passes. After you have a home of your own, you can worry about making it end up just as you want it. Besides, this way you can actually do that, without anyone shoving anything down your throat. But, of course, there will still be lots of people trying to shove things down others’ throats, so any and all rules that require homes in a certain area to look more or less the same need to be completely forbidden and the market for the products and services people will require in order to turn an empty, simple dwelling into a proper home needs to be properly regulated so nobody will be able to saturate it with just their products or artificially inflate prices.
On top of that, since we all know greed actually will rear its ugly head, strict regulations need to be put in place for the real estate industry as a whole, making sure that any new homes fully adhere to the standards and don’t cost any more than they really need to. In addition, I think nobody should be allowed to own more than two homes and checks should be in place so large families who live together won’t be able to own a large number of dwellings they’ll never personally use either. That should take care of the utterly evil concept of renting a place to live, paying someone else every single month of your entire life for the right to have a roof over your head and yet still need to respect their rules and put up with their demands. Renting should only be available for those who know for sure that they’ll spend no more than, at the very most, a few years in that particular city, so there’s little to no reason to have any significant number of homes available for rent unless the city is an university center, in which case the prices need to be suitable for students.

A basic home, which everyone should be entitled to own even without paying anything, would basically include the walls, roof, plumbing, wiring and any equipment essential to make it energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly. The numbers I’m working with right now call for 25 to 30 square meters of usable space for each of the first two people a dwelling is meant for, an additional 20 to 25 square meters for each of the next two and 15 to 20 square meters more for each one after that, but no more than 150 square meters total, to add one more way to discourage large families. This doesn’t include the attic or any rooms built underground, right under the house, for those who’ll have houses.
On a related note, I’m thinking there should be few dwellings meant for a single person and that living alone should be somewhat discouraged in other ways as well, but not so much as to make it a problem for those who really need to move and don’t have anyone they’d really want to live with in their city of choice. The main purpose of this would be to encourage people who are in relationships to move in with their partners and those who are not in relationships to at least move in with close friends. But that has to do with encouraging people to depend more on their family of choice and give more importance to it over anything else, which I guess is another issue entirely.

There’s a whole lot to say about this and I’d have plenty of other details to add, but I’ll need to get back to it some other time because it got messy enough already and, considering how I’m feeling, it’ll only get worse if I continue. The point is that people should fully own their homes and be able to live in them without the stress of having family members or simple roommates they don’t actually want to live with around. A resource-based economy would go a long way towards ensuring that, but some things can be done even under the current circumstances.