Draft:Universal basic housing

For lack of better words, we call this idea Universal Basic Housing, or UBH for short:

• A decent standard of living, available to everyone, rent-free.
• If you want something more luxurious, you still gotta pay.

This system will of course be funded by tax money. The trick is to make it cost as little as possible, while still meeting people's needs.

What standard of living is viable

• 1 studio apartment per person (for those who want to live alone), or
• 1 room per person, in a bigger place (for multiple people living together).

That includes utilities like water, electricity, internet, etc.: Some basic level of consumption will be covered, but people who use ridiculous amounts will still have to pay.

Housing has to be maintained, of course. There will be subsidies to cover basic repairs(...)( which in most cases, are needed only occasionally. So the cost should be pretty low for taxpayers and for the environment ) to keep the place liveable. But not for replacing things unnecessarily.

Where will the housing come from

Most people will continue living where they are, but rent-free.

We'll also need more housing for:

• People who are currently unhoused (homeless)
• People who are currently under-housed, i.e. living with other people and would like to live alone but currently can't afford to. 💬 discussion underhoused also includes living in extremely low-quality housing that's in such disrepair that it would need to be demolished soon. Btw, should we add an FAQ about what would happen to rich and poor neighborhoods, drugs and crime, etc?

Ways to get more housing:

• Seize vacant property from the rich, and repurpose it
  • Read more: What we can do with empty houses and office buildings
• Build new homes and neighborhoods
  • Read more: Open-source designs (low-cost, walkable, and more) 💬 discussion should i also add in parentheses: "a good balance of private and public space"? i wanna concisely convey that if you live in these designs, you'll have your privacy of your own home but also not be isolated from the community 💬 discussion where to also mention: don't demolish existing housing (except in extreme cases where it's condemned). Waste of resources, people tend to underestimate the environmental footprint, and there are better ways to densify. I know what you're thinking, the alternative is sprawl, right? Well first of all, the land use aspect of sprawl is not that significant compared to agriculture (the latter we can deal with via reducing food waste and eating more plant-based). Sprawl's main environmental impact is in the amount of driving people need to do (which we're mitigating by making things walkable from the get-go).

Economics of how it could work

Note: For this next explanation, assume that we the people manage to seize the large corporations, take democratic control of them, and force them to operate in a way that serves society instead of just shareholders. 💬 discussion Maybe we should say, they become "crown corporations" run by government? If so, then we need to assume a good government (not necessarily an ideal one, but either way, we can make some more wiki pages describing what we mean by good and ideal)

Player	Status	Policy
Real estate companies	Seized!✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿	Threshold pricing for renters Increase the housing supply: Repurpose vacant properties Build new low-cost walkable neighborhoods Keep maintenance costs low: No cosmetic renovations, only essential stuff
Utility companies	Seized!✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿	Threshold pricing for renters & homeowners Decarbonize the energy supply 💬 discussion wait, if that involves rooftop solar, we need to also figure out the economic incentives for Homeowners to participate. Same for real estate companies (although that'll be easier since they're Seized; so then should rooftop solar be mentioned in the "real estate companies" row of this table? idk maybe).
Banks	Seized!✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿	Business as usual for mortgages
Government		A reimbursement system (welfare or negative income tax) for renters who are paying rent to homeowners Tribunal for housing: Make it hard to evict tenants without a solid reason
Homeowners	Left alone	Continue paying expenses as usual, except for utilities (which now have Threshold Pricing) Free to default on a mortgage and become a zero-rent Renter in the same house, but the house will (in most cases) get subdivided so more people can live there too.
Renters	Left alone	If currently paying rent to a Real Estate Company, will now have Threshold Pricing (zero rent in most cases) If currently paying rent to a Homeowner, rent will be reimbursed by the government (full or partial, based on a similar Threshold Pricing model)

Remaining discussions

• Where to draw the line between "homeowners" and "real-estate companies"?
  • For now let's say:
    • You're allowed to own up to 2 houses and 2 cottages. Everything more gets seized.
    • If you own an apartment building that's over 9000 sq ft and worth more than $3 million💬 discussion todo: need an objective valuation scheme that accounts for fluctuations, then you can't count it as a "second house", it's just seized.
    • More discussion needed here...
• How much should renters pay if they live above the baseline living standard?
  • For now let's say:
    • Median market value per "extra" bedroom (in excess of 1 bedroom per {person aged 10 or older}) 💬 discussion and something regarding non-bedroom rooms too i guess? maybe?
    • More discussion needed here...
• How much electricity/heating/water/etc should be covered, how much should it cost for those who go over, and how does this relate to green energy?
  • For now let's say:
    • Flat zero price, up to double the median per-capita usage 💬 discussion FIXME: maybe we should set a different threshold based on whats actually sustainable and reasonable, instead of status-quo-level consumption
    • Anything in excess of that, will be priced at 1.5x the utility company's raw marginal costs of producing the extra electricity or water etc. (...)( Since the utility company is government-owned, this kinda serves as a pigouvian tax, which may or may not balance the budget. ) 💬 discussion TODO: make the hockey-stick-shaped graph of "what you'd pay under UBH" vs "what you pay under capitalism"
    • More discussion needed here...
• For people moving to a different home: Who decides who gets to live where?
  • For now let's say:
    • First come, first serve(...)( and since we're also generating an abundance of housing, the lines shouldn't be long ), but with priority given to people who are homeless or fleeing abusive homes.
    • More discussion needed here...