Issue Position: Housing is a Human Right

Issue Position

Issue Position: Housing is a Human Right

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including … housing …" But today many Mainers lack adequate housing. Some have no housing at all, some live in homes that have become too burdensome to maintain, still others pay so much for housing that they can not afford other basic needs such as food, clothing or health care.

Like universal health care, universal access to adequate housing is both the right thing to do and also makes sense economically. Employers in high-cost housing markets have a hard time recruiting people to work for them. Employees who find their paychecks eaten away by rent or mortgage payments often take on energy-draining second jobs or look for higher paying new ones.

Income vs. Housing Costs
Fundamentally, housing conditions are inextricably linked to income. Maine families that have adequate financial resources and incomes tend to have acceptable housing while lower income households often struggle to pay their bills. Not surprisingly, housing costs represent one of the highest monthly financial obligations for every Maine household. Predictably, when incomes are low or uncertain - as they are for so many in Maine - people fail to keep up with housing costs. Add in home heating costs, property taxes and home repair expenses and Maine's housing costs quickly become beyond reach for many.

Housing problems take a number of forms. Some families struggle to pay their rent or mortgages, some cannot make necessary repairs to their home, some cannot come up with required security deposits while others who would like to buy a home often cannot afford the down payment. Others are forced into unsafe or overcrowded conditions and far too many have no home at all and live in shelters or on the streets. The unifying element in all these problems is the lack of personal financial resources necessary to overcome the challenge.

With this in mind, strategies to increase affordable housing must include four guiding principals:

1) Reduce housing costs by increasing the supply of lower cost housing units;;

2) Supply subsidies to those who need them;

3) Increase funds for programs to help address housing problems or lower housing costs;

4) Maximize flexibility in government programs to address the myriad of housing problems.

Program Expansions and Improvements
There are many effective affordable housing programs currently in operation. Unfortunately, most are under funded, many are overly regulated and other are woefully misdirected; currently, the wealthiest 20% of our nation's population receives over $66 billion dollars in tax breaks for mortgage interest and property tax deductions while the poorest 60% (the entire middle and lower class) collectively received less than $3 billion for these same tax breaks. We must fundamentally change this inequality by redirecting housing tax benefits of the wealthy to housing assistance for lower and middle income families. . Key programs that need additional funding to be successful are the Section 8 rental voucher program; the federal HOME block grant program; the Community Development Block Grant program; the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program; tax exempt mortgage revenue bond programs; fuel assistance; weatherization; HUD Continuum of Care programs for people who are homeless; the HUD 202/ 811 programs and the Rural Development 515 programs.

All of these programs could provide critically needed assistance to Mainers, but they been gutted by 25 years of constant funding cuts. As your Representative in Congress, I would work to stabilize these programs by committing adequate financial resources to them over the long term.

Seek Creativity
There exist great ideas for providing housing assistance; it is our government's responsibility to endorse creativity rather than temper such ideas with exhausting funding restrictions. In-fill housing development in our downtowns; live-work space for artist housing; adaptive living improvements for frail seniors; housing first models to enable homeless people to live in housing rather than shelters; service-enriched housing for families with special needs; and down payment assistance for homebuyers are among the many programs worthy of additional funding and relaxed regulations.

Just as we seek creativity in programs, we must also be creative in funding models.

Highlight the Need and Commit to Addressing It
Many Maine citizens are poorly housed and many others are actually homeless. Frail elders are often unsafe in inappropriate homes; young couples are leaving the state to find more lucrative paying jobs that enable them to buy a home; many are homeless and on the streets. We cannot ignore this; instead, we must acknowledge that providing decent affordable housing is necessary for economic growth. Whether we focus on housing because we are compassionate or because we seek an improved economy makes no difference. The key is to focus on and recognize housing as a critical issue and to maintain the commitment to improving it.

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