Platform - Green Party US
II. Social Justice
J. Housing and Homelessness
People have a right to a home and to be secure in their tenancy.
However the supply of affordable housing is not meeting the need, while in an era of increasing deregulation, many tenants are losing important legal protections.
Instead of enacting zoning laws to increase affordable housing, the trend has too often been to increase the proportion of land zoned for commercial property at the expense of residential property.
Instead of providing funding to increase affordable housing, amount of funds dedicated to this purpose is decreasing.
At the same time, rent control and tenant eviction protections do not exist in most jurisdictions, and where they do, they are often inadequate and under attack.
State governments continue to weaken or preempt local rent control laws, while landlords who violate housing code requirements by failing to keep their property in habitable condition, are often tolerated or given lenient penalties.
Housing discrimination also remains rampant against people of color, immigrants, disabled, single people, gays and lesbians, and families with children.
Compounding these concerns is the long-term stagnation of workers' real wages, which further exacerbates the housing availability and affordability crisis.
At the same time those who are not housed — for example, the homeless — are often hounded, threatened, and often cannot obtain badly needed services.
While increased affordable housing can help alleviate the problem of homelessness, the homeless have additional needs that go far beyond housing.