May 12, 1880 -- Remembering Arctic adventurer Lincoln Ellsworth, on his birth anniversary. Ellsworth spent his formative years in Ohio. Lincoln Ellsworth was an American polar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and writer. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings. Linn Ellsworth was born in Chicago, Ellsworth and his sister moved to Hudson, Ohio, to live with their grandmother. He attended the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson. Didja know? The former Antarctic base Ellsworth Station was named after him. Ellsworth Land, Mount Ellsworth, and Lake Ellsworth, all in Antarctica, are all named for Lincoln Ellsworth. The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor in 1988. Lincoln Ellsworth is the only Hudsonite on a U.S. postage stamp. In 1919, the high school athletic teams of Hudson High School were nicknamed "The Explorers" after Ellsworth.
20-26 Vision: Where from here
Here's where US Housing Policy is stuck.
Both parties seem unable to walk or chew gum when it comes to adopting a national housing policy.
That same Congress is oblivious to the impact of the costs of war and tax cuts have had on the National Debt.
Desperate for local solutions, local governments are throwing plates of spaghetti on the wall to see what might stick...or might at least make citizens think these strands of pasta will solve the affordability crisis.
deregulate housing quality (health and safety requirements)?
zone for more density?
hold citizen forums to come up with innovative solutions?
Here's the problem: Corporatization of the Housing Industries. Since with the 2008 Housing Crisis, the housing market works more like oil market. Global markets, not local markets, control supply and price.
The 20th century adage about real estate value was "location, location, location" but in the 21st century housing has gone national and global. Consider these factors
1. Home financing (mortgages and construction loans) are coming from national corporations, not local savings and loans with depositors in the communities they serve. Think: Wall Street Landlords vs. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
2. Cost of building materials are increasingly standardized across the country (Home Depot and Lowes) and international supply chains.
3. Construction costs are getting national scale wages for two reasons: shortage of immigration labor and lack of productivity. Why developers can’t afford to build affordable housing Building more affordable housing means first addressing the labor problem causing it. "If the United States wants to get serious about this problem, it must confront two related issues: the role of labor costs and the failure to improve construction productivity."
Three examples
There is a national developer producting housing units at a ratio of 100+ units in a planned development. There's more: A 22,000-Home Community Is Being Built in a 5,000-Person Town
Chatham Park, a master-planned community in Pittsboro, N.C., is expected to expand the town to 60,000 people when completed offers this vision: "As the nation faces a growing shortage of housing, master-planned communities have been popping up all over the country as a potential solution. These neighborhoods are more like sprawling towns, where a single company builds the homes, streets, shopping centers, offices and other structures. But the towns typically come together so quickly that the people living nearby are left grappling with the implications of that growth."
May 5, 2026 Marketplace. Remodeling industry faces headwinds as contractors struggle with inflation and hiring "A new Harvard study shows that remodeling permit applications are flat, while sales of supplies like faucets and windows are down. One major issue is finding workers during an immigration crackdown." A bigger issue? Remodeling is local and has not become nationalized or corporatized.
Rebalancing the Housing playing field. While innovations in housing finance, construction, and development (the housing industry) are the wave of the future, empowering tenants with legal protections and direct subsidies will keep homebuyers and renters afloat.
May 1, 2026 Conversation. England’s ‘once in a generation’ housing law takes effect as US housing legislation sits in congressional purgatory "While housing reforms in the U.S. remain gridlocked, the U.K. has been dealing with its own housing problems: 70% of Britons say housing unaffordability has become a national crisis. Across England, rents have spiraled, homelessness has risen and deteriorating and dangerous housing conditions have threatened the health of tenants. In response, the U.K. Parliament passed the Renters’ Rights Act, a major housing law that officials described as a “once in a generation” set of reforms. Tenant groups and trade unions from across England marched through central London on April 18, 2026, to bring attention to the country’s housing crisis. The bill became law after receiving Royal Assent and took effect in England on May 1, 2026. Its signature reform is to eliminate no-fault eviction, also known as Section 21 eviction. Under a Section 21 eviction, landlords were able to terminate a month-to-month or fixed-term tenancy without fault, even if tenants paid rent on time and complied with the lease. The only stipulation was they had to provide two months’ notice."
Decommodification and Its Role in Advancing Housing Justice. "A housing system that leaves millions of families homeless or housing insecure is in many ways an inevitable consequence of conditioning access to housing on ability to pay. The acceleration of the commodification of housing—driven in large part by the promotion of individual homeownership, disinvestment in public and subsidized housing, and the subsequent rise in speculative activity—has led to unprecedented levels of housing insecurity. Advocates are increasingly calling for decommodifying housing, such as by investing in public and social housing and supporting community- and tenant-owned models, as one way to ensure that safe, affordable housing is available to all who need it."
Local leaders must prepare for this new housing system pave a way for owner/renter justice instead of stirring up futile resident resistance.
Housing activists and advocates need to add housing justice to their bucket list of demands.
Too often tenants and their supporters are fighting for handicapped parking spaces while the building burns down. Organizers and activistss need to develop a portfolio of issues that address immediate needs and long term issues. Shelterforce offers a range of policy options that can build towards a new housing system Shelter in a Federal Storm: State and Local Housing Solutions for a Time of Federal Hostility.
Local elected officials provide leadership (not just vote harvesting or demagoguery) toward acceptance of new ways of thinking about housing and community.
Local housing codes need to promote energy savings, energy production and climate resilience. There are some examples from the past that can prepare leaders for the future.
In the 1970s, local governments in Florida enacted resilience housing code to address hurricanes. Housing codes became accepted.
Remember back in the day when AC was a luxury in Ohio. Markets will make AC mandatory unless local codes are ready to level the playing field of "affordable" housing.
Incentives for wind, solar and geothermal heating sources will reduce residents "total cost of operation." Reducing energy costs is a kind of market based "rent control".
What are the best ways to tax properties to support education and physical infrastructure? Wealth taxes v. wage tax? Reconsider single tax approches to supplement or replace property taxes.
Welcome to the future. Utopia is here...if you want it.
20-25 vision. Four thoughts on inequality
September 11, 2025. Ohio Capital Journal. Ohio economic policies the last 25 years have favored the top at the expense of workers, report says "Ohio’s workers have seen a lot of changes in the last 25 years, according to a recent report by a state policy think tank, but those changes haven’t always been good for them. Policies have favored “loopholes for the wealthiest and corporations, instead of policies that build the economy from the middle-out and bottom-up,” Policy Matters Ohio Researcher Heather Smith wrote in this year’s analysis. In Policy Matters Ohio’s latest State of Working Ohio report, researchers review the last quarter-century in honor of the think tank’s founding. The first State of Working Ohio report in 1999 showed a falling median wage, and workers who were producing more but being paid less than their parents in the previous 20 years. Since 1999, the economy for workers in Ohio has shown disparities for men and women, people of color, and people of different education levels."
Why won't Democrats challenge inequality? They are part of the problem. "The entrenched powerful, who pretty much do as they please with impunity, cannot allow voters to interfere with a good thing, so they erect gratuitous roadblocks to suppress voting in the state. Ohio Republican legislators, occasionally joined by equally self-serving Democrats, have been on a tear to impose new impediments to voting since the GOP decided to exploit Donald Trump’s Big Lie — about massive voting fraud rigging the 2020 election — to enact all manner of obstructive voting laws under the guise of “election integrity.” Ohio lawmakers keep attacking the power of voters not to protect elections but to protect themselves
3. will economic inequality end the American Dream? The State of the American Middle Class Who is in it and key trends from 1970 to 2023 h/t: Olivera Perkins
"....for a better future to begin, the oligarchy needs to be met with a confrontational politics of a scale and persistence unknown to our political present. But the future is one thing the oligarchy does not yet own." Trevor Jackson (Paywalled)
20-25 vision--Health and safety organizing
Why are health and safety the best messages for tenant organizers? That's what home is all about! Don't think of health and safety as issues...think of them as themes (or memes if you are younger) think of them as the metadata that underlie every campaign.
Longevity: September 9, 2025. NextCity. America’s Longevity Boom Depends on Healthy Homes. "Op-ed: Our cultural fixation on longevity often centers on diets, gyms and labs. But safe, affordable, healthy housing may be the most powerful — and overlooked — driver of healthspan."
Sept. 11, 2025. NYT Gift article. Would You Trade Your Safety for Homeownership? "But even if a fifth of buyers said they were willing to overlook it, safety still topped the list of new home must-haves, the survey found, with 78 percent of respondents saying it was nonnegotiable, and 74 percent saying that buying in a low-crime area was nonnegotiable. Living in an area with low risk for natural disaster was the third most popular must-have, though about a third of respondents said they were willing to compromise on that, too. Coming in fourth, with 67 percent of respondents unwilling to sacrifice it: access to grocery stores." The headline is a little misleading. To be clear--80% of homeseekers require "safety".
Fear and the House-as-Haven in the Lower Class. Lee Rainwater's classic 1966 study of renters and safety.
20-25 vision--New Housing Options, the new American Dream
September 18, 2025. Next City. When Neighbors Take Ownership of Their Housing Future "In Washington, D.C., the Douglass Community Land Trust is creating permanent affordability and 'pay-it-forward' homeownership to protect longtime residents east of the Anacostia.