433

Kamala Harris has a new advertising push to draw attention to her plan to build 3 million new homes over four years, a move designed to contain inflationary pressures that also draws a sharp contrast to Republican Donald Trump’s approach.

Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, highlights her plan in a new minute-long ad that uses her personal experience, growing up in rental housing while her mother had saved for a decade before she could buy a home. The ad targets voters in the swing states including Arizona and Nevada. Campaign surrogates are also holding 20 events this week focused on housing issues.

In addition to increasing home construction, Harris is proposing the government provide as much as $25,000 in assistance to first-time buyers. That message carries weight at this moment as housing costs have kept upward pressure on the consumer price index. Shelter costs are up 5.1% over the past 12 months, compared to overall inflation being 2.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Vice President Harris knows we need to do more to address our housing crisis, that’s why she has a plan to end the housing shortage” and will crack down on “corporate landlords and Wall Street banks hiking up rents and housing costs,” said Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground states director.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] distantsounds@lemmy.world 45 points 4 months ago

It will not fix anything. There are plenty of homes already. Corporate greed is the cause of the housing crisis. There needs to be legislation that makes it unprofitable to own and hold unused properties

[-] KRAW@linux.community 25 points 4 months ago

There are plenty of homes already.

Plenty of homes where? In my city, which is a major job center, there are hardly any houses for sale. It doesn't really matter if there are plenty of houses 1+ hours away from my job.

[-] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 4 months ago

Hardly any houses for sale doesn't mean there aren't plenty of empty houses available. They're just fucking bought up by corpos to sit on as investments or for rentals.

[-] distantsounds@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

How many of the 3 million houses will be built in your area and what impact do you think they will have?

The problems that are causing the crisis are corporate greed and Airbnb-esque rentals.

Are you looking to fight the symptoms or the cause?

Edit: I live in a major city and there is plenty of housing, just not affordable

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 points 4 months ago

"Affordable" doesn't exist in a constrained market.

The price will rise to whatever the richest person without a home can afford to pay.

[-] KRAW@linux.community 6 points 4 months ago

I'd be curious to get some good numbers on this. From a cursory search I got the impression that a very small proportion of homes are AirBnB rentals, but I'm definitely open to looking at conflicting data. Corporate ownership of homes is definitely a problem, and I certainly hope that part of this plan is to prevent these homes from being sold to investors rather than residents. No one is saying we can't build more homes and address the underlying cause of the shortage at the same time. I know that 3 million homes is not a lot relative to the country's population. However I am not ready to write them off as useless, since strategically placing these homes in the right areas may still have a significant impact.___

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I live in a small city outside a major city. I do not know what Harris plans but I have hope for a recent state law encouraging multi-family housing near transit. We do have a train station at the center of town that’s also a bus hub and a great walkable area with shops and restaurants. We already have larger condo and apartment buildings here, and more of those are our best hope to affordability. While those new places won’t be affordable, all the surrounding older three deckers should drop in price, with increased supply

[-] distantsounds@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Going from suburban to urban was a major quality of life upgrade for me. It still blows my mind how much safer cycling is in the city than in suburbia. I’m hoping the 15min city idea gains momentum because it’s such a better use of space. Transit and micromobility initiatives would be a great thing to hear more about from Harris.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yeah, just this past weekend I was driving to a different town out in suburbia and got caught behind an emergency response. While I couldn’t take time to look, given all the action, it surely looked like someone hit a cyclist.

The road in question gets quite a few cyclists, especially that day and I can see how it would be a good ride. However it winds through the woods with a lot of turns and reduced visibility distance; traffic is heavy as a major route through suburbia; it has no obvious protected lane nor even a shoulder.

[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 months ago

In my city, there's hundreds of empty homes for sale, valued at 250k-500k more than what they were a decade ago.

The houses an hour away in the burbs are all in the middle of nowhere, supported by stripmalls and a single big box store. Those houses are also the same price.

[-] jhymesba@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Have you checked to see how many AirBNB houses you have in your area? There are over a thousand in the area where I live. Of course, AirBNB knows how bad the real number would make them look, so they obfuscate it, but every AirBNB listing can represent a house where a couple might get started. But why sell a home at even 400k when you can rent every room in that house for $250 a night. $250 * 3 (Bedrooms) * 7 * 52 = 273k a year to START, and that number keeps going up and up and up...

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Same here. Prices are high because so many more people want to live here than there are houses for. There’s almost no unoccupied buildings, but also no undeveloped land. So housing prices are high but no one wants to sell until interest rates come down. Average home prices are racing toward $1M …. And we’re the “affordable” town surrounded by expensive places.

Sure, I’ve seen places with empty houses …. In the Adirondacks where there are no jobs, in the upstate NY town I grew up in where there are no jobs, where my cousin lives near Buffalo where there are no jobs, etc. Do you see a pattern?

[-] ted@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago

Both. Supply is a real issue, building homes and preventing corporate uptake are both needed to solve this crisis.

[-] criticon@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 months ago

Where? In my area as soon as they announce a new development a few weeks later they have a sign that says "lasts houses left" and a few after that they remove the sale sign

These are giant ranch houses too, we need lots of small and medium houses

[-] chaogomu@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Are those houses then listed as corporate rentals? Because that's super common.

[-] zeekaran@sopuli.xyz 5 points 4 months ago

Supply is absolutely an issue! Many cities have growing populations. Empty homes in the sticks aren't doing us any favors.

[-] Corvidae@lemmy.world -2 points 4 months ago

There are 258 million adults and 144 million homes in the US. Even if vacant housing is reduced to 0, there's still not enough housing.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 months ago

Aren't the homes designed for more than 1 person each?

[-] Corvidae@lemmy.world -3 points 4 months ago

Sure, people sharing housing, but 36 million people live alone. How many more would live alone if they could?

[-] distantsounds@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

We live in condo, not a house.

[-] Corvidae@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

From WordNet 3.0

house I noun

  1. a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families (Freq. 157)

By that definition, a condo is a house

this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
433 points (96.8% liked)

politics

19244 readers
3180 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS