Affordable Housing discussions in modern capitalist nations begin with a faith-based assumption: that the human need for shelter can be compatible with the capitalist right to invest in a commodities — land and housing — and profit from them.
One analogy: we believe a Rubik’s cube has been designed to have six solid-coloured sides because we’ve seen that puzzle solved when we buy a pristine, untouched cube. We believe that if we deliberately scramble the cube, then fiddle for long enough, those six solid-coloured sides will eventually reveal themselves once more. In the case of Rubik’s cube, our belief has a foundation of proof, and indeed our faith proves out in the end.
But what if the Rubik’s cube emerges from its wrapper pre-scrambled? Where is the evidence that the puzzle can be solved?
The question here need not be framed by an ingenious little plastic construction. Consider the world-wide housing crisis. Is there any solid evidence that housing as shelter can interlock in some manner with housing as an investment vehicle and make everybody big bucks with a roof over their heads while solving a housing crisis?
Or does an unfounded leap of faith about two incompatible human needs doom us to endlessly frustrating political, social and economic arguments and failed experiments?
It is quite possible to choose another leap of faith: that shelter and investment are not, and never will be, inherently compatible. Choosing such a framework from which to solve an affordable housing crisis almost immediately begins to provide answers — some with historic precedent — that can satisfy a need for either shelter or investment, but not necessarily both in the same ‘vehicle.’
A recent survey article considers the problems associated with rationalizing shelter and investment in Canadian housing. From one perspective — assuming that shelter and housing are compatible, we are handed entire sets of thorny issues that somehow have to be balanced against each other — affordable shelter, municipal employment, foreign investment, etc, etc. From a second perspective, that shelter and investment are not necessarily compatible, practical solutions immediately become apparent that do not necessarily need to be balanced against other needs.
Read more (with leaps of faith in mind) at Global NEWS: Affordable Housing: Would Copying New Zealand’s Foreign Buyers Ban Help?
