The circumstances that lead to housing bubbles and homelessness are
described as a set of individual choices and thus individual
responsibility: if you save and are willing to settle, you can get a
roof; if you have too many kids or if you’re not willing to move
somewhere cheaper, you sleep rough.
But housing isn’t just an asset class, it’s a human necessity and a
human right. Housing crises in LA and other major cities are unsolvable
for so long as housing stock is viewed as an investment vehicle first
and a critical part of the city last.
Homelessness afflicts everyone in a city, not just the people sleeping
on the streets or in parks. That’s because the human race has a shared microbial
destiny: the diseases of homelessness are not contained within homeless
populations. Rich people may have better medicine and better food, they
may be protected by armed cops, but you can’t shoot germs.
So the epidemic of typhoid fever – spread from animal feces into humans
through contact with broken skin or mucous membranes – that has struck
Los Angeles is a reminder that housing is our shared responsibility and
homelessness is an (unevenly) shared tragedy that afflicts everyone.
I’ve had typhus. I lost 40 pounds in six weeks, running fevers so high I
hallucinated, while my joints ached and my ears rang so loud I couldn’t
hear.
The story of individual choice, individual liberty and individual
consequences is a complicated one: choices have external consequences
that are borne by people who are not a party to those choices. If your
right to swing your fist stops where my nose starts, where does your
right to precipitate a public health crisis by speculating on housing
stop?
ForLoveFromFear 