Renters In America Are Running Out Of Options — Transcript

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1. 0:02i'm 75 years old
2. 0:04i had to get out of this trailer it was
3. 0:05making me sick
4. 0:07now i'm living in my truck
5. 0:09tonight i'm going to try to lay across
6. 0:10this way because my legs swelling so bad
7. 0:13they just kept raising it and raising it
8. 0:15and i felt like i was losing control of
9. 0:17my life private equity is about the
10. 0:18quick buck everything else be damn the
11. 0:21problem with the system now is greed
12. 0:24so
13. 0:25urban suburban
14. 0:27ex urban rural
15. 0:29do we have a housing crisis in america
16. 0:30yes you didn't even hesitate there no i
17. 0:33don't hesitate republican or democrat
18. 0:35nobody wants affordable housing in their
19. 0:38backyard there's no life
20. 0:40like being homeless
21. 0:43[Music]
22. 0:55the affordable housing crisis in america
23. 0:57is a national issue there's nowhere that
24. 0:59is immune from it but it's especially
25. 1:01acute in places like manhattan and big
26. 1:04cities where to my left you have public
27. 1:06housing and right to my right six
28. 1:08million dollar apartments for sale
29. 1:12[Music]
30. 1:15there might be disagreement on cause
31. 1:17there's certainly disagreement on
32. 1:18solutions but there's a unanimity of
33. 1:21opinion that the united states is in the
34. 1:23midst of a housing crisis
35. 1:25after two years of lockdowns in a
36. 1:26faltering economy an inflation rate
37. 1:29creeping towards double digits the cost
38. 1:31of housing has exploded with rent
39. 1:33increasing 11 percent in 2021 and home
40. 1:36prices a staggering 19
41. 1:39in a single year
42. 1:41this building is asking
43. 1:44for a 28
44. 1:47rent increase
45. 1:48shame
46. 1:52change the disappearance of regular
47. 1:55stimulus checks and the federally
48. 1:56mandated moratorium on evictions for
49. 1:59those on the margins of the american
50. 2:00economy the future looks grim
51. 2:03this building was established for
52. 2:05moderate low-income housing 28
53. 2:09nobody can get over that my income isn't
54. 2:11going up social security in the pension
55. 2:13they don't raise
56. 2:1628
57. 2:18new york has tried almost everything to
58. 2:21alleviate this problem with limited
59. 2:23success over the past 10 years the plan
60. 2:26has financed construction and
61. 2:27preservation of more than 130
62. 2:30700 affordable units this plan
63. 2:33over the next 10 years
64. 2:36will create opportunity for so many
65. 2:39people are currently being priced out of
66. 2:41our city
67. 2:42in the past 10 years the new york city
68. 2:44housing authority has processed 25
69. 2:46million applications for the housing
70. 2:48lottery in a city of 8 million residents
71. 2:51but as anyone who's ever bought a
72. 2:52powerball ticket can attest lotteries
73. 2:54are an insufficient solution to an
74. 2:56existential problem
75. 2:58chris mayer is an economist and
76. 3:00professor of real estate at columbia
77. 3:02business school he spent most of his
78. 3:04adult life studying the thus far
79. 3:06inelectable problem of affordable
80. 3:08housing
81. 3:09market rates in new york city are never
82. 3:12going to create a situation where
83. 3:15affordable housing is going to be widely
84. 3:16available i mean there's not a lot of
85. 3:18land where you can build not a lot of
86. 3:20land but you can build a density
87. 3:22globally cities are much more dense than
88. 3:25they are in new york and there are many
89. 3:27places
90. 3:28right well they say they don't want it
91. 3:30right they're not in my backyard why is
92. 3:32it that you look over there and you see
93. 3:34all these really tall buildings why
94. 3:36shouldn't we be able to build up higher
95. 3:38here and in many parts of the city yes
96. 3:40we need some infrastructure and we
97. 3:42should put money into effective and
98. 3:45efficient public transportation but we
99. 3:46need to be able to build more units
100. 3:48because housing will not become less
101. 3:50expensive if new york is an attractive
102. 3:52place to live housing will not become
103. 3:54less expensive unless we build more of
104. 3:56it there's no way around it
105. 3:58yeah
106. 4:00on the continuum of affordable housing
107. 4:02options in america at the cheapest end
108. 4:04is the humble trailer park which after
109. 4:07years of negative associations has been
110. 4:09rechristened manufactured housing
111. 4:11they're inexpensive and often available
112. 4:13to those with bad credit
113. 4:15and six percent of americans live in one
114. 4:18there are though some downsides
115. 4:21so we're pulling into the schwartz creek
116. 4:23estates which is a mobile home park in
117. 4:25michigan
118. 4:26that is now owned by a private equity
119. 4:29firm and people can't afford to stay in
120. 4:31their houses
121. 4:34holy sorry
122. 4:36i get that reaction a lot are those
123. 4:38yes
124. 4:40so i keep tarantulas
125. 4:42holly hook is the founder of michigan
126. 4:44mobile home residence for affordable
127. 4:46housing she makes her living selling
128. 4:48young adult ebooks on amazon
129. 4:50her niche is apocalyptic novels
130. 4:53give me an idea of what an apocalyptic
131. 4:55book is usually it's a group of
132. 4:56survivors trying to survive like a major
133. 4:58disaster like an asteroid impact or a
134. 5:01nuclear blast so this is
135. 5:04comparatively not as bad the situation
136. 5:06you're in right now is not quite
137. 5:08apocalyptic it's not quite apocalyptic
138. 5:10it's pretty bad but it's not that bad
139. 5:13while rents are increasing everywhere
140. 5:15what might sound like small increases in
141. 5:18the manufactured housing sector say a
142. 5:20hundred dollars can be catastrophic for
143. 5:22those on fixed incomes the necessary
144. 5:24thing to remember with mobile homes is
145. 5:26that if you own it you still pay rent
146. 5:28that's because your mobile home isn't
147. 5:30mobile it's in a fixed position
148. 5:32and while you might own the structure on
149. 5:34top of the land
150. 5:35someone else owns the land it sits on
151. 5:38three years ago the utah-based company
152. 5:40haven park capital bought swartz creek
153. 5:42estates where holly lives july of 2018
154. 5:45they came in and put notices on our door
155. 5:48saying hey we're haven park capital we
156. 5:50just bought your community okay
157. 5:52we bought your community yes we are
158. 5:54pleased to acquire your community is how
159. 5:56they worded it because of course they
160. 5:58were pleased
161. 5:59was anybody in the community please
162. 6:01no because they immediately put on a 22
163. 6:04rent increase for the slab of dirt fee
164. 6:07yeah which is a good way to put it yeah
165. 6:08and how much is a slab of dirt rental
166. 6:10fee well when i started out it was only
167. 6:12290 a month under the old owner that was
168. 6:15in 2012. that was in 2012. that's a
169. 6:18pretty good deal there so it's gone up
170. 6:20from 290 to today the lot fee by itself
171. 6:23is 416. 416. and there's other fees
172. 6:26heaped on top of it now that used to be
173. 6:28included in our rent we have trash sewer
174. 6:30we have a school tax we have an admin
175. 6:32fee after they took over billing us for
176. 6:35water it's been a roughly a 55 percent
177. 6:37increase in three years there's going to
178. 6:39be some increase at some point right i
179. 6:42mean the rent has to go up i mean
180. 6:44everything the expense of everything
181. 6:45goes up inflation etc
182. 6:47what do you think a reasonable rent
183. 6:48would be or a reasonable rent increase
184. 6:51three percent per year seems more
185. 6:53reasonable the previous owner they did
186. 6:54raise the rent a couple of times
187. 6:56but it was ten dollars and i think that
188. 6:58happened once or twice in the five years
189. 7:00before haven park came in
190. 7:03haven park responded to our inquiry
191. 7:05about increasing rents with a statement
192. 7:07saying they were necessary because they
193. 7:09enabled us to make key community
194. 7:10upgrades add amenities and cover rising
195. 7:12cost inflation
196. 7:14in the period covering holly's rent
197. 7:16increase haven park told us that their
198. 7:18operating costs at swartz creek
199. 7:20increased 59 percent driven largely by
200. 7:22property tax increases payroll increases
201. 7:24and insurance increases
202. 7:26thieven park has been in the news for
203. 7:27similar rent increases at other parks
204. 7:29across the country haven park capital
205. 7:31planned to raise the rent 69 percent but
206. 7:34recently announced a new policy it would
207. 7:37not increase lot rents more than 50 in a
208. 7:39year
209. 7:41who owns this park now haven park so
210. 7:43this is a haven park capital or they
211. 7:45call it something else now right haven
212. 7:47park bunnies and ferries or something
213. 7:49it's something nicer yes right
214. 7:51yes yeah remember what is haven park uh
215. 7:54communities but it used to be haven park
216. 7:55capital yes right
217. 7:57okay so
218. 7:58what are the general complaints about
219. 8:01haven park capital in this community the
220. 8:03general complaints are they're always
221. 8:05raising the rent
222. 8:06constantly raising the rent uh there's
223. 8:09excessive fees
224. 8:10administration fees trash sewage fees
225. 8:14pet fees even when you own your home
226. 8:17harold johnson works as an organizer for
227. 8:19mh action an activist group dedicated to
228. 8:21building campaigns to protect the
229. 8:23affordability and quality of
230. 8:24manufactured housing communities and
231. 8:26advance racial economic and gender
232. 8:28justice
233. 8:29she's also a former mobile home owner
234. 8:32whose last fixed address was a missouri
235. 8:34park managed by impact communities one
236. 8:36of the largest owners of manufactured
237. 8:38housing parks in the country
238. 8:40i was actually renting the home and i
239. 8:43was renting the land after about four or
240. 8:46five months the management came to me
241. 8:48and offered me a rent option program
242. 8:50where i could start purchasing the home
243. 8:52so rent to own sort of thing yeah since
244. 8:54i've done so good with renting she
245. 8:56wanted to offer me to purchase the home
246. 8:58she said it would be a lot cheaper and
247. 9:00so i took her up on her offer after
248. 9:02about nine months into purchasing my
249. 9:04home i received a letter saying that
250. 9:06they're not going to renew my lot lease
251. 9:08and i thought well they're not going to
252. 9:10renew my lot at least because they're
253. 9:11going to start another lot lease and so
254. 9:13i asked them about that and they said no
255. 9:15you have 90 days to move
256. 9:17how the hell does that work that you're
257. 9:18starting to own the home and then you
258. 9:20can't rent the ground that the home is
259. 9:23on i didn't know it at the time how
260. 9:25common it was yeah
261. 9:28johnson says her lot lease was
262. 9:29terminated and she was subsequently
263. 9:31evicted
264. 9:32the court went in favor of impact
265. 9:34community because on my lease it said
266. 9:37that i can in my lease or they can end
267. 9:39my lease and he went with impact
268. 9:40community he went in favor of them
269. 9:43not having the five thousand dollars it
270. 9:44would cost to move her home it was
271. 9:46repossessed by the mortgage company so
272. 9:48what they did was technically legal
273. 9:51if the court rubber stamped it they're
274. 9:53saying it's legal and so that's the laws
275. 9:55that need to be changed to make that
276. 9:56illegal for them to do that so where did
277. 9:58you go after that i've been living in a
278. 10:00hotel with my family since then and so i
279. 10:02am
280. 10:03i am considered homeless
281. 10:06i would never want anyone to go through
282. 10:08what i'm going through it's nothing
283. 10:13there's a personal
284. 10:19there's no life
285. 10:20like being homeless
286. 10:24one insider told me that a flurry of
287. 10:26negative news stories has made the
288. 10:28manufactured housing industry press shy
289. 10:30and our attempts to get people on the
290. 10:32record seems to prove that
291. 10:34but one entrepreneur frank rolfe who
292. 10:36runs a so-called university for
293. 10:38potential mobile home park investors has
294. 10:40become the de facto public face in the
295. 10:43grey eminence of the industry and he has
296. 10:45little problems saying what everyone
297. 10:47knows to be true but thinks impolite to
298. 10:49say one of the big drivers to making
299. 10:51money is is the ability to increase the
300. 10:53rent we didn't have them hostage if they
301. 10:55weren't stuck in those homes in the in
302. 10:56those mobile home lots it would be a
303. 10:58whole different picture the subsequent
304. 11:00press has not been kind to rolf wow
305. 11:03usually when someone is that
306. 11:05contemptuous of poor people they're
307. 11:06immediately visited by the ghost of
308. 11:08christmas future
309. 11:09i asked ralph about these
310. 11:12comments this is frank frank this is
311. 11:15michael moynihan from vice how are you
312. 11:17hey i'm doing good how are you doing
313. 11:19great so you come into
314. 11:21a lot of media focus because of the uh
315. 11:24university if i said i want to take your
316. 11:26course how would you sell it to me that
317. 11:28this is actually a great profit
318. 11:31generator for me you know we don't sell
319. 11:34people
320. 11:35on investing what we do is we educate
321. 11:36them
322. 11:37if they are going to invest
323. 11:39how to do it properly the main
324. 11:41attraction is people are betting on the
325. 11:43fact that the lot rents will continue to
326. 11:46go up probably for years to come i've
327. 11:48talked to some people who say we were
328. 11:51happy maybe slightly dissatisfied with
329. 11:53our previous owner but when these big
330. 11:56guys come in and they jack up the rent
331. 11:5830 percent there have been you know new
332. 12:00charges for water that they didn't have
333. 12:02to pay for before it doesn't matter what
334. 12:04the item is no one likes paying higher
335. 12:06prices typically 10 of the park is using
336. 12:09more water with higher water charge than
337. 12:11the entire lot rep i've seen water
338. 12:13charges as high as five six hundred
339. 12:15dollars a month they have no sense of
340. 12:17conservation at all the cost of waters
341. 12:19has gone up a lot that to me does not
342. 12:22seem in any way unjustified i mean
343. 12:24almost every single park we've bought
344. 12:25we've literally brought the park back to
345. 12:27life and to make it worth doing you have
346. 12:31to raise the red
347. 12:32do you really want to refer to people
348. 12:34who are living in your parks as hostages
349. 12:37well when i
350. 12:39give a class it's 30 hours that sound
351. 12:43bite is a few seconds of 30 hours i
352. 12:46don't understand how it could be
353. 12:47contextually any different if you say if
354. 12:49we didn't have them hostage if they
355. 12:50weren't stuck in the homes in the mobile
356. 12:52home lawns i certainly do not believe
357. 12:54customers are hostages and if that
358. 12:56offends anyone i apologize for offending
359. 12:58them but no one at that class came away
360. 13:00from that thinking any different than
361. 13:02these are the customers and it's not
362. 13:04they're not hostages we don't tie them
363. 13:06up or anything like that so that i mean
364. 13:08that's not in any way correct i don't
365. 13:09think anyone actually would think that
366. 13:12the word mobile
367. 13:13is a misnomer it is not a mobile home i
368. 13:16thought they must be cheap to move
369. 13:18they're not cheap to move at all
370. 13:20so again i liked that
371. 13:22do you mind not being liked we are liked
372. 13:25by our customers the rents had doubled
373. 13:28but their quality of life had gone up
374. 13:30infinitely because they had roads that
375. 13:33were paved and working water and sewer
376. 13:36and a nice office and a nice entry and
377. 13:38new signage so it all comes back to
378. 13:41value the majority of the residents are
379. 13:44thrilled with that so we're liked by our
380. 13:45customers but we're just kind of not
381. 13:48liked by the media
382. 13:50one thing that the media never gets
383. 13:52right on that whole concept is mobile
384. 13:55home park people have a very real option
385. 13:56that no other housing people have not
386. 13:59houses not condos not anyone i mean the
387. 14:01options are they can sell the house if
388. 14:03they're unhappy they can sublease it if
389. 14:06they're unhappy they can obviously walk
390. 14:08off and abandon it but the fourth item
391. 14:10is any mobile home park owner in the us
392. 14:12will happily pay to move anyone who
393. 14:15unhappy's home from one park to their
394. 14:18park it costs about five thousand
395. 14:20dollars to move a mobile home and
396. 14:22probably every single park owner out
397. 14:24there with the exception of some moms
398. 14:25and pops will happily pay that bill
399. 14:28[Music]
400. 14:30they have the ability to not extend your
401. 14:33lease on your property depending how
402. 14:34you're treating your property even
403. 14:36though i own my house i can be evicted
404. 14:38if i'm not following whatever their
405. 14:40guidelines are there's really no
406. 14:42security they can say at any time hey
407. 14:44you got to go but they're really not
408. 14:46movable especially have decks on them
409. 14:48and everything else you know it's pretty
410. 14:50expensive
411. 14:51i don't have 10 000 to move this that's
412. 14:53what it costs and i can't afford to sell
413. 14:55it
414. 14:56because i can't afford to fix it it's a
415. 14:58pretty incredible sentence i can't
416. 14:59afford to sell it
417. 15:01so how much was the trailer well i
418. 15:02bought it they sold it to me from
419. 15:04nineteen nine
420. 15:06that's an 86 trailer that trail is only
421. 15:08worth about five to six thousand dollars
422. 15:14grover canine is a 75 year old retired
423. 15:16welding instructor and maintenance
424. 15:18worker he spent the last few months
425. 15:20living out of his truck
426. 15:26every time i come here i see this and it
427. 15:29hurts
428. 15:31my whole life's in this
429. 15:3310 by 20 shed
430. 15:36so you've been living in your truck for
431. 15:37a couple of months yeah
432. 15:39which is better than living in the
433. 15:40trailer yes to me it is the trailer that
434. 15:43i was in is full of black mold the
435. 15:45furnace would come on it was like i was
436. 15:47strangling i couldn't breathe
437. 15:49and the more i investigated it the more
438. 15:51i found out what was wrong with the
439. 15:52trailer who owned the park when you
440. 15:54bought the trailer the group that owned
441. 15:56it is called impact they don't take care
442. 15:59of anything most of these trailers are
443. 16:0110 15 years old or older they buy them
444. 16:04from some place down south and that's
445. 16:06the company yep impact yes so they sold
446. 16:10you that true piece of piece of
447. 16:12yeah contractually is it their
448. 16:15problem like when you sign up to live
449. 16:17there
450. 16:18do they have any obligations at the time
451. 16:21i bought the trailer they told me it was
452. 16:23okay you didn't have an inspection no
453. 16:25because i moved in in the winter time
454. 16:26and they told me the trailer is fine
455. 16:28there's nothing wrong with it
456. 16:31neither impact nor the park manager is
457. 16:33responded to our request for comment
458. 16:35two of canine's neighbors said they saw
459. 16:37the mold in grover's home and that they
460. 16:40too had similar problems because of
461. 16:42recent flooding
462. 16:43but one of grover's neighbors said
463. 16:44impact had made improvements including
464. 16:47fixing some of the park's roads and a
465. 16:49bus stop
466. 16:51well michigan mobile home residence for
467. 16:53affordable housing is first of all an
468. 16:55informational website about haven park
469. 16:58we found out that bellwether enterprise
470. 17:00who's a subsidiary of enterprise
471. 17:02community partners the big non-profit
472. 17:04housing company they were actually
473. 17:06financing haven park's buy-up of our
474. 17:08communities
475. 17:09and so far as we know they tangled web
476. 17:12we yes
477. 17:13so they're a non-profit
478. 17:15yeah a big affordable housing nonprofit
479. 17:18from what i understand they're an
480. 17:19affordable housing nonprofit affordable
481. 17:22and non-profit are the two key phrases
482. 17:24there that are funding
483. 17:26a large
484. 17:27finance capital group to buy
485. 17:30homes and raise around yes
486. 17:32if i'm following that right that seems
487. 17:33something illogical about that but it's
488. 17:35i yeah i believe it's quite illogical
489. 17:37too
490. 17:38illogical but typical
491. 17:41a well-intentioned government program
492. 17:42requiring fannie and freddie to better
493. 17:44serve families in the manufacturing home
494. 17:46market a contribution to mitigating the
495. 17:48housing crisis is taken advantage of by
496. 17:51those who well doing nothing illegal are
497. 17:53already cash flush and using the low
498. 17:55interest loans to acquire more parks
499. 17:57faster
500. 17:59residents like ms hook were left with an
501. 18:01impossible choice of banning the home
502. 18:02they own with nowhere to go with
503. 18:05literally nowhere else to take their
504. 18:06home or pay rent or try to pay rent they
505. 18:09can't afford
506. 18:10holley's agitating attracted the notice
507. 18:12of senate housing committee chair
508. 18:13sherrod brown who invited her to testify
509. 18:16both fannie mae and enterprise claim
510. 18:18they advance affordable housing but when
511. 18:21they finance predatory investors like
512. 18:23haven park they destroy it
513. 18:25neither fannie mae or bellwether
514. 18:26responded to our request for comments
515. 18:29enterprise community partners told vice
516. 18:30news in a statement that the business of
517. 18:32manufactured housing requires both
518. 18:34policy and capital solutions to protect
519. 18:36residents and make sure that speculative
520. 18:38developers don't buy up those homes
521. 18:41how is fannie and freddie involved in in
522. 18:44your business they have
523. 18:47been the bedrock to many of these older
524. 18:49properties being brought back to life
525. 18:51and
526. 18:53as a result of them doing that people
527. 18:55have the confidence to go in and buy
528. 18:57mobile home parks with them financing
529. 18:59them so is it fair to say
530. 19:01that the government is subsidizing some
531. 19:04of these purchases it's a regular loan
532. 19:07but the industry has such a poor
533. 19:08stereotype that many lenders won't make
534. 19:11loans on mobile home parks so fannie
535. 19:14freddie bridge that gap let me just put
536. 19:16it in simple terms like you're a guy
537. 19:18that has money coming in
538. 19:19uh taking money from poor people and you
539. 19:22know it doesn't matter as long as the
540. 19:24economy is going south the need for
541. 19:26affordable housing grows exponentially
542. 19:28regardless of politicians or really
543. 19:31anything single-family homes in
544. 19:32california are thousand dollars a square
545. 19:34foot that's not affordable and so
546. 19:37home prices just don't make any sense
547. 19:39and as a result people get stuck they
548. 19:42can't buy stick belt homes apartment
549. 19:44rents are insane that's what fuels the
550. 19:46demand for affordable housing so you
551. 19:47think there are bits of legislation and
552. 19:49you know on a state level
553. 19:51that you think would be beneficial you
554. 19:53have to define what beneficial is you're
555. 19:55not going to be able to
556. 19:57hold back the force of the market when
557. 20:00it comes to rent i mean you can try rent
558. 20:03control but it hasn't stuck almost
559. 20:05anywhere in 100 years
560. 20:07and due to the ever-increasing demand
561. 20:09for houses and departments
562. 20:11all rents have been frozen to prevent
563. 20:13profiteering
564. 20:15during world war ii the federal
565. 20:17government introduced wage and price
566. 20:18controls and large-scale rent control
567. 20:22the instinct of a lot of people
568. 20:24is rent control so in the trailer parks
569. 20:27where you have people who own the
570. 20:28structure on top of it i think rent
571. 20:30control is a pretty reasonable solution
572. 20:32given that situation so this is a
573. 20:35targeted rent control right that would
574. 20:37be if you own something that isn't on
575. 20:39top of somebody else's land they cannot
576. 20:41just basically torture you to death
577. 20:43because you'll be forced to move out and
578. 20:45you can't take that with you exactly
579. 20:47that problem is one of the examples of
580. 20:49ways that you know low-income people in
581. 20:51this country get taken advantage of that
582. 20:54to me is a great place where you'd sort
583. 20:55of say rent control really works what
584. 20:57about large i mean in the country as a
585. 20:59whole i mean is
586. 21:01rent control
587. 21:02a viable solution
588. 21:04outside of that very one specific
589. 21:06example of trailer parks the downside of
590. 21:08rent control is it reduces people's
591. 21:10willingness to build stuff the trade-off
592. 21:12you have to make is how do i figure out
593. 21:14ways to keep people from being ripped
594. 21:16off but how to allow the market to work
595. 21:18to allow people to build more housing
596. 21:20and the way to get more housing to me is
597. 21:23instead of saying we have a fixed amount
598. 21:25of housing
599. 21:26and what we're going to do is not let
600. 21:28anybody raise rents on it so we just
601. 21:30build these bigger and bigger and bigger
602. 21:32lists of people who want to get into the
603. 21:34housing and that's not a good solution
604. 21:37the solution instead ought to be to make
605. 21:39housing more affordable
606. 21:41and while economists tend to agree on
607. 21:43very little there is something
608. 21:44approaching a consensus that rent
609. 21:46control hasn't produced the desired
610. 21:48results and was abandoned in liberal
611. 21:50enclaves like berkeley california and
612. 21:51cambridge massachusetts
613. 21:53we are a country that has
614. 21:56an inequality problem would you agree
615. 21:58with that yes
616. 21:59how do we house
617. 22:01poor people make it a heck of a lot
618. 22:03easier to build immediately and i would
619. 22:06put tens of billions of dollars into
620. 22:08vouchers at the federal level to help
621. 22:10tens of billions of dollars yes we have
622. 22:12to have a way to sort of allow new
623. 22:15people coming in whether they're young
624. 22:16people whether they're families whether
625. 22:18they're immigrants
626. 22:20and people who are coming in new to a
627. 22:22market
628. 22:23and to give them the ability to buy and
629. 22:26live in affordable housing which is the
630. 22:28things that our parents had the ability
631. 22:30to do if we want societies that people
632. 22:33can afford we have to build them
633. 22:36here you might expect something
634. 22:37approximating a conclusion wherein i
635. 22:39condemn villainous landlords and defend
636. 22:41virtuous tenants followed by a pretty
637. 22:43simple fix for a housing crisis that has
638. 22:45eluded local and state governments for
639. 22:47centuries but that i've solved in 30
640. 22:49minutes
641. 22:50these stories are never so simple the
642. 22:52virtue and villainy never evenly
643. 22:54distributed stories are often
644. 22:55complicated by bad personal and economic
645. 22:57decisions worsened by a broken system
646. 23:00compounded by landlords motivated by a
647. 23:02bottom line
648. 23:03but perhaps this too is wildly
649. 23:05oversimplified short of the government
650. 23:07taking over the housing market and
651. 23:08somehow solving the problem of stagnant
652. 23:10wages the landlords and mortgage brokers
653. 23:12servicing low-income clients are
654. 23:14necessary and will always be motivated
655. 23:16by profit but therein is not where the
656. 23:18housing crisis lies
657. 23:20if anything as christopher mayer
658. 23:22suggests we need more housing which
659. 23:24means more mortgages and landlords and
660. 23:26we need higher wages and better jobs
661. 23:29and then we've fixed it
662. 23:31easy
663. 23:34right here's where sadie and i stay
664. 23:37[Music]
665. 23:43how do you get out of this situation
666. 23:46i'm hoping for a miracle
667. 23:49you don't see any obvious way i know
668. 23:51right now i've thought about suicide
669. 23:54i've thought about it
670. 23:55to be honest with you
671. 23:57i've been talking to people
672. 23:59and that's helped
673. 24:01just like talking to you now
674. 24:03that takes some of the pressure off
675. 24:09[Music]
676. 24:14[Music]
677. 24:22i'm michael lairmonth editor-in-chief of
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