Priceless Housing

This chapter appraises the practical delivery of housing for need through its removal from the circuits of commodity exchange. It explores the direct social provision of forms of cost-rental, municipal housing and socialised homeownership around the world. Charting the shift from need to affordability in the decimation of decommodified housing, it investigates the subsequent escalation of housing costs and resulting crisis of inequality, not affordability. The chapter critically examines the strategies of affordable housing provision that maintain demand without reducing prices. Just like any other commodity, so-called affordable housing creates value and surplus value in production to realise value as money in exchange. It is a regressive strategy, benefiting first those with ability to pay, and channelling subsidies to profit landlords, landowners, developers, and real estate commercial interests.