The Center for American Progress just published an article, The New Housing Normal for Low-Income Families, that cogently makes the case for why it’s not okay for families to “double up.” The article has also been posted here. Read it for the typical social policy response to sharing housing.
According to the author the problems with sharing housing are threefold: crowding, mobility and safety. Of course these are issues. Crowding and mobility show up when sharing housing is a temporary solution to an emergency situation. Safety is an issue regardless of sharing housing. It is not doubling up that is the issue, it’s the lack of options that create the problem.
I understand that the article is making a case for funding the The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, H.R. 4213, but I wish it didn’t do so by attacking the notion of doubling up. It’s enough to know that 16% of households are experiencing severe housing burden as I wrote about in my last post. I also wish that there were a way to write housing policy to encourage people to share housing or at least not discourage it.
