This housing crisis has been an open wound in our society for generations. Job loss during the COVID-19 pandemic has poured salt in that wound, putting 40 million people in danger of eviction

Stopgap measures will not address the underlying issue: Our country lacks any cohesive plan to address the housing crisis.

Twenty-five billion dollars in rent relief amounted to $650 per person — that doesn’t even cover one month’s rent for the average one-bedroom apartment in the U.S. We must change the system to ensure housing as a human right to prevent millions of people from losing their homes.

Even before the pandemic, 20 million households were paying a disproportionate share of their income for rent, with some paying 70% of their income toward housing. The problem is magnified for people of color who are twice as likely to be renters and who make up 80% of people facing eviction. 

Demand congressional support for a comprehensive program to protect tenants and homeowners, ensure affordable housing as a human right and finance alternatives to exploitative, market-based housing, including:

• guaranteeing tenants’ rights nationwide
• defending and expanding cities' rights to enact local rent control laws
• enforcing and strengthening fair housing laws to prevent discrimination
• bold measures to provide safe and stable housing for the homeless
• preserving and increasing the affordable housing supply, including public housing and community land trusts, to take the profit motive out of housing as a basic human need

This transformation is integral to a real Green New Deal that not only averts climate catastrophe but also seeks to bring essential needs — housing, energy, education, healthcare, food, communications — into community stewardship.

Greens seek to finance this transformation through:

• monetary policy such as “Greening the Dollar”, which would ban the private creation of money and allow Congress to completely fund needed programs without inflation or incurring more Federal debt or taxes
• cutting the military budget by 75%, which would still leave the U.S. at the top of global military spending
• ending cavernous tax loopholes for corporations and the rich
• a more progressive overall tax system so everyone pays their fair share