Unfortunately, we do. Housing is not a Constitutional right. We cannot concede this issue to the Left because it'll have unintended consequences, like Obama and his Affirmative Living plan where he wanted to ghettoize the suburbs.
If rental units are high, why are there not developers trying to get into that market? Like SF, there should be developers lining up to build units. But they're not because of the zoning laws and other bone-headed decisions by city councils.
Housing is a Constitutional right. Freedom of private contract is an expression. Of free speech. It also runs afoul of the takings clause. Also, the Constitution is one of enumerated rights and states what powers the federal government has with all other power and rights remaining eight the people of states. States must also live within the US Constitution. I do not see rent control of private property as a permitted constitutional activity.
Leftists claim that "health care" - sometimes framed as "access to health care" ("access to" = "free") - is a "right."
I can go several weeks, maybe even months or years, without health care, but wouldn't last one week in wintery N. Dakota without housing.
Ergo (Leftist reasoning): "Housing" must be even more a "right."
Seriously: We Conservatives ought to insist that the "right to housing" be reformulated as the "right to force other people to purchase materials and build dwellings for ne'er-do-wells."
The "right to health care" could analogously be described as the "right to compel other people to undergo years of expensive training in order to provide unpaid services to ne'er-do-wells."
Regards,
Very insightful.
You have a lot more facts than I to back you up.
When I said “no one needs to debate this” I should have said “AOC,Pelosi,Schumer and Bernie will not permit us to debate this.” Racist sounding debate, you know.