Responses to "a letter to a heartless landlord"
Sunday Oct 19 1997
<james@jmarshall.com>
OK, my ideas, in no particular order:
To landlords, it's about profit (not to underestimate that; maybe some
families are using it to invest for kids' education, etc.). For tenants,
it's about having a roof over their heads. If a tenant has to move, s/he
may have to leave SF, find a new job, lose contact with friends and
community, etc.-- major upheaval. It simply affects a tenant MUCH more
than it affects a landlord.
Landlords don't seem to realize this; perhaps this is exacerbated by the
fact that most come from privileged backgrounds, and don't understand the
daily economic struggle most people deal with. Also, wealthier people
don't tend to be as community-oriented.
The landlord's mortgage payment doesn't rise just because the rental
prices go up, so it's not like they're making less money from a stable
tenant, they're just not making more money.
Tenants (residents) improve a neighborhood, not landlords. Tenants then
get kicked out for higher rent-payers.
Virtually all pro-landlord arguments are based on the concept of the "free
market". However, capitalism is not an ethical system, it's an economic
system. It was never meant to exist without ethics. In fact, the housing
market is a perfect example of when the free market DOESN'T work. It's a
human necessity in limited supply-- imagine if food prices were controlled
by a monopoly. Effectively, a small percentage of the population
(landlords) has cornered the market on housing. (Note that this is NOT a
direct slam on capitalism, it's just an observation on it; I don't want to
alienate the majority of our society who has been brought up thinking
capitalism is the cat's meow.)
If someone wants to become a homeowner, they are effectively bidding
against professional landlords who can afford larger down payments and can
see long-term profits from rent. Even if a homeowner is bidding against
other homeowners, the price is so high only because landlords have
squeezed the market.
If there were no landlords, then the median home price would be more in
line with the median income, and we could all afford to buy our homes
(or most of us, anyway).
** Every apartment that is rented by a landlord is keeping someone else
from owning their own home!
Long-term problem: If rent control continues to be eroded, and people
can't buy their own homes, then we'll continue toward a small percentage
of people charging whatever they can get for rent (a human necessity),
which will be a larger and larger percentage of the tenants' income,
effectively creating the equivalent of a feudal state under the guise of
capitalism.
People will be even more desperate than they already are.
You can't just say "move to Livermore, where it's cheaper", because
eventually (in a few decades) there will be nowhere to move to.
Also, you can't just say "move to Livermore, where it's cheaper", because
the resident has invested a lot of personal energy into his/her community
and city.
You know about vacancy decontrol, right? Basically, vacancy control was
outlawed at the state level a few years ago, preventing cities from
passing vacancy control. If we had it, we wouldn't have nearly the OMI
problem that we do now.
James
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