The endangered land of the Renter

The Boston Globe reports:

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 their income for housing. The National Low Income Coalition could not find one county 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.

Just think how many communities have zoned out apartment buildings in the last 15 years.That's what happens when property rights are no longer respected.