NPACH Perspective: A New Housing Internationalism?
Shortly before leaving office, HUD Secretary Mel Martinez finally acknowledged what advocates, bipartisan commissions, people living in poverty, service providers, and public officials have known since the Bush Administration came into office: that the nation faces a "critical housing shortage."
Ironically, Sec. Martinez made these observations not about the United States, but rather about the Island of Cuba in a speech concerning his new role on the President's "Commission on a Free Cuba."
But the Administration's concerns about the housing crisis are evidently not limited to our neighbors to the south. To date, an estimated $130 million has been devoted to the construction of housing in Iraq as part of the overall $87 billion military and reconstruction package, and in December the former Secretary was in Russia working with municipal officials on an agreement to develop public housing and possible Congressional assistance to the tune of $20 million toward the creation of a mortgage market.
Despite the fact that the Administration continues to refuse to recognize housing as a fundamental human right, a new and very ideological housing internationalism appears to have emerged as part of American foreign policy- a curious development in light of the striking lack of progress in addressing the United States' "critical housing shortage." This shortage can be defined in human terms: 14.4 million people pay over 50% of their income on housing, over 5 million renter households live in "worst case" housing situations, 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year, and the poorest renters face a lack of over 2 million affordable units. The American housing crisis takes place against the sobering and troubling backdrop of recent U.S. Census data, which revealed that 34.6 million Americans are living in poverty.
Unlike his assessment of Cuba, Secretary Martinez characterized this nation's housing deficit and crisis as a "local problem," thus justifying the Administration's slashing funds for an already anemic Section 8 program and actively working against passage of the National Housing Trust Fund Act.
HUD's abandonment of national housing programs should not come as a great surprise. After all, HUD's FY2003-2008 Strategic plan states: "Success in helping the homeless achieve housing stability is affected by a variety of factors beyond HUD's control…the incidence of homelessness is driven by macroeconomic forces such as the availability of low-cost housing."
HUD has no control over the availability of low-income housing? Macroeconomic forces are a local problem? Such perplexing and contradictory statements might be humorous if they did not belie unspeakable hardship and tragedy for millions in this wealthiest of nations.
As the FY2005 budget process moves forward, we can expect to hear a great deal about decisions to fund affordable housing as operating "within the constraints of the budget." Against the backdrop of record deficits, huge spikes in military spending, reckless tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and plans to send a mission to Mars, these "constraints" amount to a conscious program to ignore the poorest of the poor. Until we do something to restore some equity in social investment, any talk coming forth about "ending homelessness" is just that - talk.