2020 Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker has unveiled an ambitious housing and homelessness prevention plan.
With his plan, the current junior senator from New Jersey and former Newark mayor takes a multi-faceted approach that aims to address many of the structural issues that underpin the country's housing affordability crisis.
To help rent-burdened Americans better afford their existing housing, for example, the candidate proposes a so-called "renters credit" that would cap rental costs at "30 percent of income for working and middle-class Americans." The plan will refund money to renters whose housing costs exceed 30 percent of their before-tax income. In a Medium post announcing the plan, Booker writes, "According to researchers at Columbia University, the impact would be sweeping: the credit would benefit more than 57 million people, including nearly 17 million children, and lift 9.4 million Americans out of poverty. The median credit for a benefitting family would equal $4,800."
Booker also aims to establish a "baby bonds" initiative to help combat the nation's persistent racial wealth gap due to the effects of redlining by creating a "federally-funded savings account for every child at birth seeded with $1,000 and that could grow by up to $2,000 every year thereafter depending on family income." Under the plan, a child born into the most extreme poverty could unlock nearly $50,000 in seed money to "do the kind of things that create wealth and change life trajectories, including putting a down payment on a home" when they turn 18, according to Booker.
The senator's plan would also spur the development of new affordable housing units through comprehensive zoning reform and by offering development incentives tied to enacting those reforms at the local level. As part of this effort, Booker plans to strengthen the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule that has been scrapped under President Donald Trump.
Booker also promises to "fully fund the Housing Trust Fund with $40 billion each year to build, rehabilitate, and operate rental housing for individuals earning less than the federal poverty level or 30 percent of the Area Median Income in neighborhoods with greater access to opportunity, including areas with transportation, healthy foods and more."
18 Comments
homelessness doesnt seem like a great issue to base a national campaign on. democrats need to win the racist white vote. plus, we've already got Ben Carson on the case.
Just refund people's rent? So simple, yet so brilliant!
WE CAN DO THIS, PEOPLE! YES, WE CAN!
It worked so well for college tuition...
To call this idea half-baked would be generous. it is horrifically bad: refunding rent is just another public subsidy for rentiers. This is Obamacare for landlords, guaranteeing profits. Rent control and limiting the profit of the ownership (leech) class is the only way to address this issue.
But it is perfect politics, as it appeals to bother tenant and landlord, who can now jack up the rent without fear.
hard pass on Booker
vote for me and get a free tv!!! Free!!! Everything is free when you vote for me!!!
It's really laughable at how much you are all over the map on this shit. If I recall, you think Andrew Yang would be good, am I correct? UBI is central to his platform. Free money.
Yes, I think he’s a serious candidate who wants to solve problems for all Americans. Same for Gabbard. The others are
more concerned about winning and saying/promising whatever to win. I think UBI is an inevitable fix that we will need to implement at some point. It’s also in to way inconsistent with libertarian ideologies (not that I follow that strictly, jus sayin) Milton Friedman was a proponent of UBI. Many libertarians are. Yang is not a socialist. He’s a pragmatist. There is a difference between policy and ideology. One can support a policy and reject the ideology that it is attached to. It’s also noteworthy that Ron Paul endorsed Gabbard because she is the only rea non-interventionist candidate. Left/Right is important, but more important is up vs down imo on the spectrum. I’ll always support the more libertarian candidate over the more authoritarian one (not talking about party, but about the actual definition of the term...)
Also important to note...Yang doesn’t promote giving UBI to only certain classes of people. He wants UBI for all. He rejects identity politics and other divisive political games that divide. The divide and concur game is being played by both sides and it’s gross.
My problem with these give aways isn’t that people are getting stuff...that’s fine...it’s that the state is taking stuff. These leftist policies always require an ever expanding police state with greater and greater power to take. The target of the taking is moot. Once the machine is powerful enough, and the liberties have been eroded, the focus can turn on anyone. Their brand of Socialism requires police force and authoritarianism. I think we should be working to reduce that, not increase it. Oddly enough, minorities don’t seem to vote in ways that minimize the state, despite the fact that they are the biggest victims of the police state past and present.
They never go after the masses at first, it’s always some group that easy to vilify. They need your initial support. Once the power is consolidated through...and they get what they want...see Venuzuela, Russia
, China...
People can afford rent and house payments when there are actual good jobs to be had. The USA has managed to screw that up on two fronts by 1) allowing big segments of industry to relocate overseas and 2) trashing the public education system, especially the segment that used to provide vocational training for the not college-bound.
The prevailing response to this state of affairs appears to be various and sundry plans for the government to hand out free stuff.
+++
This is what you do when the so-called bourgeoisie decided that things made cheaply, and sold cheaply are of more value than people. Now, we gots to pay.
Booker appears to be a lobbyist for big pharma, big real estate, and big education. Government subsidies just enables profiteering and corruption.
That's not to say government has no role in housing. But you need to root out the contractor abuse first, transparency second, maintenance, third, all around a real design plan. Neither government bureaucracy nor unfettered developers are going to fix the problem. Only design can.
In short: create a Department of Design! Which candidate wants my vote (and probably the vote of most sensible Americans)?
The entire system of government needs to be redesigned.
This will raise rents.
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