The American housing crisis is not a glitch; it is an inherent feature of capitalism.
Too often, housing is treated as a way to make money instead of a place for people to live. That drives up prices, pushes out longtime residents, and leaves many with nowhere they can afford.
The problem, in plain terms
More than 50%
of Manhattan renters spend over a third of their income just to keep a roof over their head.
Then vs. now
In 1985 a family earning about $23,600 could buy a typical $82,800 home. Today that home costs $417,000, and a family would need to earn roughly $139,000 to afford it. Most earn about $83,000.
$20.87 an hour
is what a Kansas worker must earn to afford a modest two-bedroom. The state minimum wage is still $7.25.
Take it or leave it
With rentals nearly full and tenants desperate, many landlords let repairs slide in order to increase their profit. About half of Manhattan's homes were built before 1980, and renters often live with disrepair because there is nowhere else to go.
Nowhere in America
can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. Not one state, metro, or county.
~60% of Manhattan households rent
yet Kansas gives tenants some of the weakest legal protections in the country.
How we got here
The housing crisis grew out of a widening gap between what people earn and what housing costs. Since 1980, home prices have climbed 551% while household incomes rose just 373%. A typical American home now costs about five times the median household income, up from three and a half times in the mid-1980s. Paychecks have stayed largely flat in real terms even as rent, groceries, healthcare, and childcare have all gotten more expensive, so families have less left over each month for housing.
Other pressures pile on. Roughly 43 million Americans carry a combined $1.78 trillion in student loan debt, which drags down credit and keeps would-be buyers from qualifying for a mortgage. Building a home has gotten far more expensive too, with construction material costs up nearly 40% since 2020, which discourages new construction and keeps supply tight. Fewer affordable homes get built, competition for what exists intensifies, and prices climb further.
A crisis with a cause
None of this is inevitable. High rents and easy evictions are the product of specific choices about how housing gets built, owned, and governed. Naming those choices is the first step to changing them.
- Rents are climbing far faster than local paychecks. The Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom in the Manhattan area jumped 7.3% in a single year, while local incomes have risen only about 8% in the past nine years.
- Kansas gives renters some of the weakest protections in the country. There is no rent control, no just-cause eviction, and only a three-day window to cure missed rent. State law even bans Manhattan from adopting local rent protections of its own.
- A shortage of affordable units lets landlords set the terms. Fewer than half of Manhattan's homes are affordable to lower-income households, and rentals sit about 94% full, so tenants have nowhere to go and little leverage.
- When one tenant is pushed out, the next often pays more, and the cycle repeats. Kansas keeps no public record of evictions, so much of this displacement stays invisible.
Alone we're a complaint. Together we're a force.
The way out of this crisis is informed and organized tenants who know their rights and have each other's backs. That's exactly what we're building.