When was the last presidential election in which the candidates had a real debate about housing? In most elections, housing isn’t an issue at all, though it touches every American’s life. Even when millions of Americans lost their homes during the Great Recession, discussion of the issue was relatively muted. Few voters know who the secretary of Housing and Urban Development is (if you recognize the name Adrianne Todman, pat yourself on the back), and most campaigns feature little or no discussion of how we might make finding a place to live more affordable.
But this year, it’s finally becoming an issue, thanks in part to Kamala Harris. The vice president could be the first YIMBY (“yes, in my backyard”) president, and it could be her secret weapon for energizing young voters.
In a new NBC News poll, 31% of voters under 30 listed inflation and the cost of living as their top issue. “About 7 in 10 young voters said that debt has caused them to delay at least one major life milestone,” reports NBC News, with homeownership the most commonly delayed milestone. When asked whether they thought owning a home would be easier or harder for their generation than for that of their parents, 84% said it would be harder, and 64% said much harder.
Eventual home ownership is only part of the story; for most young people, the cost of rent is what matters today. Both home prices and rents have grown faster than incomes across the country in recent years. A recent Harvard University study found that half of all renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.
There are many reasons why rents and home prices are high, but most of them come down to a housing shortage: We simply don’t have enough homes, and we aren’t building them fast enough. Estimates of the size of the shortage vary, but they fall between 3 million and 7 million homes. As this problem has become more acute, some have pointed the finger at “not in my backyard” sentiment: those Americans, in both liberal and conservative areas, who express support for affordable housing, zoning and land use reform and other policy improvements — so long as it’s not where they live.
As the country’s housing shortage has worsened, those who say “yes in my backyard,” especially to multifamily, affordable housing have been steadily gaining strength. Among YIMBYs’ targets are zoning rules prohibiting multifamily dwellings, laws banning accessory dwelling units, and lengthy permitting processes that slow down construction. While the YIMBY movement is more typically liberal than conservative, it has opponents on the left, including environmentalist groups who are wary of developers. Of the 54 House and Senate co-sponsors of the “Yes In My Backyard Act” currently in Congress, one-third are Republicans, and the House Financial Services Committee approved that chamber’s version of the bill unanimously.
Policies that would spur the building of more homes poll incredibly well, garnering the support of as many as 4 in 5 respondents. So the issue of housing affordability was just waiting for a candidate to pick it up and run — especially one who was worried about mobilizing young voters.
That’s what Harris has tried to do with her recently announced housing plan, which sets a goal of building 3 million more homes in the next four years. She would provide tax credits and incentives for builders and local governments to accelerate the construction of new homes, including multifamily homes.
The push to increase supply is particularly important because Harris also proposes $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers. That part of her plan could increase demand for homes — and therefore push prices higher — precisely when there is broad agreement that supply and prices are the biggest problems. But she also backs two bills from Senate Democrats that would attack the pricing issue. One would deter corporations that buy large numbers of homes and jack up rents. The other would prohibit the use of price-setting software that lets landlords inflate rents dramatically. All of which has led YIMBY advocates to claim Harris as one of their own, even if she hasn’t yet embraced the term. Her running mate, Tim Walz, also has a record as Minnesota governor of backing policies the movement supports. And the broader party seems to be coming around to YIMBYism. As former President Barack Obama said at this year’s Democratic convention, “if we want to make it easier for more young people to buy a home, we need to build more units and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people in this country. That is a priority. And she’s put out a bold new plan to do just that.” On the other side, Donald Trump has a history of opposing any effort to make housing more affordable. As his re-election campaign struggled in 2020, the former president began railing against the very idea of building affordable housing, especially where single-family zoning prevails. Democrats, he said, “will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs … People who have worked all their lives to get into a community and now they’re going to watch it go to hell.” The racial subtext was not remotely subtle. Today, Trump’s “plan” to bring down housing prices is to deport millions of immigrants, which would supposedly reduce demand enough that prices would come down. His running mate, JD Vance, says that the reason prices are high is that “illegal aliens … are competing with Americans for scarce homes.” That explanation is nonsense on every level; if the problem were simply “there are too many people in the country,” you could just as easily blame the problem on Americans having too many children who eventually need homes of their own, yet the Ohio senator is eager for parents to have more kids. The truth is the Republican ticket doesn’t have a housing policy at all, and their hope is that the mass deportation they’ve been promising will somehow solve the problem. Whatever you think of Harris’ proposal, at least it has substance, unlike Trump’s wishcasting. Her plan would have to get through Congress, which is never a sure thing. And even if it doesn’t, putting housing on the national agenda means state and local officials — who have authority over factors like zoning rules — will feel more pressure to address the problem. So regardless of what happens on Election Day, the chances that we’ll address this long-standing crisis have increased — all thanks to Harris.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
