[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 16, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E839-E840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ``THE ENDANGERED LAND OF RENTER-WORLD''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 16, 2006

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the most effective 
advocates for housing for people of moderate and low income to have 
served recently in our federal government is Nicolas P. Retsinas. Mr. 
Retsinas now directs the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard 
University, and he recently published an extremely important and cogent 
article in the Boston Globe, on May 5. One of the great mistakes that 
is made by people who talk about housing policy is to talk as if we are 
concerned only with promoting homeownership. Homeownership is a very 
important thing, and increasing the number of people who enjoy it is a 
desirable goal. But it is also the case that tens of millions of 
Americans for a variety of reasons, primarily economic, are unlikely 
ever to be homeowners, and if we do not pay attention to the need for a 
good stock of affordable rental housing, we will be condemning large 
numbers of our fellow citizens to substandard lives in many ways. Under 
the current Administration, as Mr. Retsinas points out, Federal policy 
badly neglects the needs of those who must rent.
  It is true that a bias in public policy against renters unfortunately 
predates the Bush Administration, but it is this Administration that 
has greatly exacerbated it by its assault on the various programs by 
which we provide rental housing at affordable levels for moderate and 
low-income people. Using his literary device of talking of ``Owner-
World,'' and ``Renter-World,'' Mr. Retsinas notes that, ``Today parts 
of Renter-World constitute a desperation sector of America. Poor 
people, crammed into too-small apartments, struggle to pay for food, 
rent, transportation, and medical care.''
  Mr. Speaker, given Mr. Retsinas' experience in administering housing 
problems, his great scholarly expertise in this subject, and most of 
all his compassion and understanding of the needs for rental housing as 
part of a comprehensive national housing policy, I ask that his 
important article from the May 5 Boston Globe be printed here.

                  [From the BOSTON GLOBE, May 5, 2006]

                  The Endangered Land of Renter-World

                       (By Nicholas P. Retsinas)

       Welcome to Renter-World, home to more than 34 million 
     households. Renter-World denizens, aka tenants, comprise all 
     ages. Eighty percent of all twentysomething households rent; 
     so do 4 million senior households. Tenants come in all 
     socioeconomic strata: Twenty percent of renters earn more 
     than $60,000 a year; another 20 percent earn less than 
     $10,000.
       Yet a myopic Uncle Sam barely sees Renter-World.
       Instead, Uncle Sam focuses on Owner-World. Owner-World 
     captures the federal tax breaks: The homeownership tax 
     deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes top $100 
     billion a year and are rising rapidly.
       Owner-World also captures the federal attention: For almost 
     100 years, starting with a 1918 Department of Labor campaign 
     and continuing through Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, 
     Bill Clinton's National Homeownership Partnership, and George 
     Bush's Ownership Society, the federal government has been 
     promoting homeownership. Today 69 percent of households own a 
     home--an all-time high.
       From Uncle Sam's vantage, that statistic marks success. 
     Homeownership is the American ``dream;'' the crucial first 
     step on a family's pathway to the middle class. A homeowner 
     amasses equity, so that one day he can own a piece of 
     America. That vested interest spurs involvement in schools, 
     in neighborhoods, in political life. Just as important, the 
     home gives the owner a financial cushion. Even if owners do 
     not reap the windfall of a superheated market, the home can 
     still be a hedge against inflation.
       Indeed, we are a nation of immigrants who have marked the 
     exodus with a series of papers: green cards, citizenship, and 
     mortgages. The ``American dream'' may be a three-bedroom Cape 
     on a tiny lot, but immigrants have come here for that dream.
       So Uncle Sam's myopia is understandable. He expects renters 
     to move on--to become owners. That is what they too expect.
       Renter-World, however, is in trouble.
       Even though we are building new rental units, we are not 
     adding to the net ``affordable'' (a euphemism for cheap) 
     units. That supply is shrinking. Between 1993 and 2003, we 
     lost 2 million low-rent units from the rental inventory. At 
     the same time, rents are rising, especially for newly 
     constructed units.
       Consider the plight of the lowest income renters: 70 
     percent pay-more than half of their income for housing. The 
     National Low Income Coalition could not find one county

[[Page E840]]

     in the United States where a minimum wage worker, paying 30 
     percent of his or her income for housing, could afford a one-
     bedroom apartment.
  As for the government rent subsidies aimed at alleviating the 
hardship of low-income tenants, those too have shrunk.
       The war on terror and the war in Iraq have pushed them off 
     the agenda.
       Today parts of Renter-World constitute a desperation sector 
     of America. Poor people, crammed into too-small apartments, 
     struggle to pay for food, rent, transportation, and medical 
     care.
       To paraphrase Linda Loman, lamenting the plight of her 
     husband, Willy, in ``Death of a Salesman'': ``Attention must 
     be paid'' to these renters.
       The reason is pragmatic.
       In the past, Renter-World has been a gateway to Owner-
     World. Low-income workers, renting for a few years, have 
     saved up enough for the downpayment on a house, and, with 
     scrimping, have kept up with mortgage payments. But today's 
     renters cannot so easily make that leap. The Big Box shelver, 
     married to the fast food waitress, may want the American 
     dream. They may have left family thousands of miles away to 
     seize the dream. But without some housing relief, they will 
     never leave Renter-World.
       And the promise of America, the dream for millions of 
     Americans, is to leave Renter-World. That first mortgage--
     often the first mortgage for a family--constitutes step one 
     in the economic mobility we value. High rents trap families, 
     anchoring them on the bottom rung of the ladder that we want 
     them to climb.
       For the sake of the renters, and of the nation as a whole, 
     Uncle Sam must pay attention to Renter-World.

                          ____________________