The following is a transcript of the video above, from NPQ’s joint webinar with Shelterforce: “Housing as a Public Good: The State of Social Housing Today.” View the full webinar and read the full webinar transcript here.

Jonathan Tarleton: This is about building the world we want to live in. And we have existing models that do function in the states already. We’ve seen broad interest and growth in community land trusts as well. One thing I would say is that we live in a world in which housing is supposed to serve many, many different purposes.

Without [a] broader ecosystem of support, it is actually quite difficult to maintain these [social housing] models, especially when they are not the norm.

Homeownership in particular has been propped up as a substitute for an actual social safety net and so people are forced in many cases to try to instrumentalize their homes for profit or to borrow against or to risk in order to pay for other social needs.

So, this is actually something I see happening in these privatization debates in Mitchell-Lama co-ops (an affordable housing program based in New York). Folks say, “Well, how do I pay for elder care? How do I pay for this emergent health care need?” And without that broader ecosystem of support, it is actually quite difficult to maintain these models, especially when they are not the norm.

So, this gets easier as you scale it. It becomes more common. Folks become less attached to the idea of homeownership, building wealth through appreciation of an asset, and more [attached to the idea of] home as a way to build wealth through stability and savings, through low housing costs, and ability to pay for other needs and other dreams.

And so, I think that’s a key takeaway from some of the work in New York City and state is over time, as the pressures, the profit motives, that could come from privatizing existing social housing or commodifying it—as that grows, we need to have a reaction from the state, from residents, from our nonprofit partners.

There are folks on this call who do incredible advocacy work to maintain this social housing. That sort of social maintenance is really key. We need to reaffirm the purpose of this housing again and again over time.