Elizabeth Warren’s Housing Platform is a Gamechanger for Tenants
Posted on March 19, 2019 by lsilver
For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2019
Media Contact:
Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482
STATEMENT: Elizabeth Warren’s Housing Platform is a Gamechanger for Tenants
“We need bold housing policy to protect our fundamental right to a stable, affordable home,” says national community organizing network
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator and Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren launched in a Medium post her platform for housing. In a first for a presidential candidate, Warren includes protections for tenants and supports for our increasingly renter nation. In response, Dianne Enriquez, Director of Campaigns for Community Dignity at the Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPD Action) released the following statement:
“We increasingly live in a renter nation, but our public policy has lagged far behind our reality. Elizabeth Warren has used her platform as a presidential candidate to broaden debate and recognize that all people in this country, whether renters or homeowners, deserve an affordable place to call home. Her inclusion of rent control measures in a federal housing proposal would stabilize rent for millions of people who are at risk for eviction and displacement. In a time where wages are stagnant and rent is rising, we need bold housing policy to protect our fundamental right to a stable, affordable home.”
After the financial crisis, the cost of housing has skyrocketed, while wages have stayed stagnant. Eight in ten low-income renters pay too much for housing and nearly half of all renters in the country -- 20 million households -- pay unaffordable rent.
In a recent report, The Center for Popular Democracy, PolicyLink, and Right to the City Alliance demonstrate that rent control policies are unrivaled in their speed and scale to make sure that renters and homeowners alike can afford to live in the place they call home. Rent control immediately provides relief to renters facing unaffordable rent increases. Because it applies to private rental housing, the policy has the broadest reach of public policy solutions to housing unaffordability. And in creating a schedule for reasonable and gradual rent increases, it ensures that landlords receive a fair return on their investment.
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Center for Popular Democracy Action promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
