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(CBN)—Housing costs in America have skyrocketed, leaving many families struggling to keep up. The shortage of affordable housing has created a crisis, forcing people to choose between basic needs and a place to live.
While many high-end houses are being built at a steady pace, millions of Americans are struggling. Many low-income families spend more than half of their paycheck on rent, leaving them barely able to afford even the most basic housing.
“This rent is ridiculous, I don’t know what’s going on in the world,” said one renter in Norfolk, Virginia.
Experts blame a number of reasons behind this and expect it to get worse.
“We are in a housing crisis,” said Will Fish with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who have no home at all.”
He went on to say a record 653,000 Americans experience homelessness any given night – a stark reminder of people living on the margins.
“There are many more millions who are paying very high shares to their income for rent, and are often, you know, just one step back away from being evicted and losing their home,” Fish said.
For others like Cherise Ryan, a student juggling school and a part-time job, the burden of rising rent is a bit overwhelming.
“It’s affecting me because I’m in school right now and I’m not working,” said Ryan. “So, you know, (I’m) trying to be in school and doing a little Ubering to pay the bills.”
Vanessa Brown Calder from the CATO Institute highlights how the transformation of many cities into luxury hubs – where the average home now costs $1 million or more – is driving rent prices to outpace income growth. For instance, studies indicate that since 2000, rents have surged by over 50%, while average incomes have only increased by about a third of that rate.
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She also notes construction costs and zoning restrictions complicate the affordable housing puzzle.
“What’s happening here is we are just not able to build enough housing, even with higher construction levels, we are not able to build enough housing to make up for the big hole that we are in,” Calder said.
That hole she references is a shortage of nearly 20 million homes, widening the gap between available homes and potential buyers.
“I do think that the private market is the solution to housing affordability issues,” said Calder. “The private market can only be unleashed to solve those problems if the government gets out of the way and removes some of this unnecessary red tape and restrictive regulation. We need policymakers leading the charge to reform government regulations.”
Certain states are taking the lead, making significant changes in reforming housing policies. Legislators in both red and blue states have moved to modernize zoning laws, streamline the residential planning process, and update standards for home building and design.
Progress is being made in Virginia Beach, with a move toward ‘workforce housing’ designed to help blue-collar families, including police officers and firefighters, afford a place to live in this competitive market. Despite criticism, this approach exceeds city zoning regulations and removes land once zoned for farming.
There are also private efforts like the Kingdom Builder Group in Phoenix, stepping up in faith to help.
“We want people to know that we’re different,” said Patrick Smythe, President of Kingdom Builder Group. “We’re trying to build the kingdom through providing housing – and really just showing people the love of Christ in all that we do; how we treat our customers, how we treat our subcontractor partners.”
Partnering with Boxabl, a group designing prefabricated homes, the group focuses on affordable construction for low-income families and veterans. They also collaborate with churches and veteran organizations to create sustainable projects that support the city’s spiritual and social needs.
“The current zoning ordinances in all municipalities across the country are kind of antiquated,” Smythe said. “You know, I could build 20 units in six months, if the government would do the zoning and get out of the way.”
As housing costs likely continue to rise, so will the need for affordable, working-class housing. The hope is reforms will expand beyond the state-level and private market to bring Americans-in-need closer to the dream of stable, affordable homes.
Diddy Charges and Arrest Beg the Question: What Other Elite Hollywood Celebs Knew About ‘Freak Offs?’
by Outkick
Puff Daddy is finally facing the mother of all karma for his alleged sick and twisted behavior spanning a decade or more. At yesterday’s press conference, reporters asked the attorney why it took so long to get these charges and that’s a great question. Fs Sot 3 (5) Here’s another…
Is This Kamala’s Biggest Lie About Her Family Yet?
by Natural News
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has falsely claimed that her grandfather was a freedom fighter in the Indian independence movement. The Democratic presidential nominee shared on Sept. 8 a picture of herself in India with her maternal grandfather P.V. Gopalan. She described him as a “retired civil servant who had…
What Did John Brennan Know?
by Frontpage Mag
In the wake of the second attempt on his life, Donald Trump flagged the “highly inflammatory language” Democrats have deployed against him, such as the charges of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that the former president is a threat to democracy and so forth. When it comes to inflammatory language…
Are the White House and Pentagon Controlled by a Shadowy Few?
by Zero Hedge
As we approach the 2024 election, many Americans are disillusioned by the notion that their votes truly matter. Why? Because there’s a growing belief that a hidden force – often referred to as the Deep or Administrative State – wields disproportionate power behind the scenes. Despite our democratic process, can…
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Do We Have Another Instance Where the Secret Service Can’t Get Its Story Right?
by Townhall
Former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated on September 15 while golfing in West Palm Beach. The former president’s trip to Trump International Golf Club was not planned, but would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh was waiting on the course, hiding in a shrubbery for 12 hours with a rifle and…
City Demands Pastor Take Down ‘Jesus’ Sign in Front of Church, Gets Epic Response From Him During Sermon
by Western Journal
Freedom-loving Americans cannot help but bemoan the mounting authoritarianism of both federal and state officials. As we discovered during the COVID era, however, sometimes Satan infects even our neighbors with the spirit of petty tyranny. In a clip posted Tuesday to the social media platform X, Pastor Mark Driscoll of…
Leftists Deserve the J6 Treatment
by J.B. Shurk
Remember: illegally appointed special counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting President Trump in D.C. for exercising his constitutional right to free speech after the 2020 election. Smith’s case essentially claims that Trump was not entitled to question the legitimacy of the mail-in ballot–tainted election and that his refusal to concede to Joe Biden…
Professor Teaches Students About Evil by Having Them Read Writings of Hitler’s Chief Propagandist
by Red State
A professor at the University of Austin ingeniously teaches students about “good and evil” by having them read the writings of some of the 20th century’s most evil people, including Adolf Hitler’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Spoiler: I think it’s absolutely brilliant. Professor Marietta, who says Goebbels used “emotional appeal”…
Bombshell Lab Findings: Covid Jab Spike Proteins Likely Accelerate Cancer, Neurological Disorders, Dementia, Crohn’s, Lyme and More
by S.D. Wells, Natural News
(Natural News)—Back in February, U.S. Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin held a roundtable discussion titled ‘Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?’. In attendance at that forum was an internal medicine specialist and medical doctor named Sabine Hazan, who conducts and supervises clinical trials for cutting-edge…
Fan in MAGA Hat Denied Entry at Arizona Cardinals’ Home Stadium Unless She Threw It Away, Prompting Apology From Team
by The Blaze
The Arizona Cardinals organization has issued an apology after a fan was initially denied entry to the team’s home opener because she was wearing a Make America Great Again hat in support of the presidential candidacy of former President Donald Trump. On Sunday, thousands of football fans flocked to State…
New Report: State Department Funded Fact-Checkers to Censor ‘Lawful Speech’
by Michael Nevradakis Ph.D., The Defender
(The Defender)—The U.S. Department of State-funded domestic and international fact-checking entities that censored American independent media outlets and social media users who questioned the Biden administration’s COVID-19 and other policies, according to a congressional report. The report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business stated: “The Federal…
Springfield City Manager Admitted in March He’d ‘Heard’ About Haitian Migrants Eating ‘Domesticated Animals’
by The Post Millennial
A video from the Springfield City Commission meeting in March has resurfaced on Twitter, showing the Springfield, Ohio, City Manager Bryan Heck admitting that he had heard stories about Haitian immigrants to the town consuming “domesticated animals.” A resident of Springfield spoke to at the meeting and the City Manager,…
Did the Government Shield Diddy Like Epstein?
by Daily Wire
Some of the most revealing moments from the sordid saga of Jeffrey Epstein came when government officials were asked direct questions, then ducked them without any real explanation. Case in point: Five years ago, the Labor Secretary at the time, Alex Acosta, was speaking to reporters about his handling of…
Saudi Arabia Won’t Recognize Israel Without Palestinian State, Says Crown Prince
by End Times Headlines
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday said the kingdom would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people. “The kingdom will not stop its tireless work towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East…
Retired Border Patrol Chief Accuses Joe Biden, Kamala Harris of Attempting to Hide Mass Release of Migrants Into U.S.
by Breitbart
Retired Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke, who left his position at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in early 2023, says President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s administration has worked to hide the mass release of migrants into American communities. During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on…
Less Than 50 Days Until Life in America Changes Forever, and Our Nation Is Primed for Massive Civil Unrest
by Michael Snyder
(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Years of extremely inflammatory rhetoric from the mainstream media and from many of our leaders have brought us to the brink of a societal nightmare. The numbers that I am about to share with you are horrifying, but it is so important for us to understand what…