Can the Next President Solve the Housing Crisis?
Access to housing has become a major election issue this year. Home prices are up a whopping 60% over the past decade, even after accounting for inflation. Additionally, millions of renters spend about half their income on rent.
The two major party candidates for president have released policy ideas on tackling the high costs of housing. Vice President Kamala Harris wants to give first-time home buyers $25,000 for down payments and build more housing on federally owned land.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trumpโs idea is to deport undocumented immigrants and to lower interest ratesโwhich the Federal Reserve has already announced it will be doing and which presidents have no control over.
Francisco Dueรฑas, executive director of Housing Now!, a coalition made up of more than 150 organizations in California focused on housing rights, analyzed the proposed solutions with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.
CORRECTION:ย Dueรฑas misstated the size of Californiaโs homeless population during the interview. There are currently 185,000 people experiencing homelessness in California and more than 250,000 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the U.S.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator ofย YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Instituteโs Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author ofย Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justiceย (2023) andย Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silenceย (2005). Her forthcoming book is calledย Talking About Abolitionย (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Womenโs Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Masterโs in Astronomy from the University of Hawaiโi, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on โMy Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Hostโ in her 2014ย TEDx talkย of the same name.
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