05/21/2026
The Heartland Institute (www.Heartland.org) just released an innovative policy paper that identifies THE REAL CAUSES OF AFFORTABILITY CRISIS and identifies the solutions. It is making a difference already!
Heartland has always stood out from the crowd as an energetic free-market organization that sees through the false narratives of the day to pe*****te right to the truth. That’s what we’ve done with our work on housing affordability, through a series of articles, media appearances, podcasts, media outreach, videos, social media, and now our new paper titled Housing Affordability: America’s Short-Term Crisis and Long-Term Problem, written by Senior Fellow S. T. Karnick.
Though it has become a contentious issue only in the past two years, housing affordability has been a problem in the United States for decades. And no, the cause is not alleged capitalist greed and insufficient government spending! It is government itself. The affordability crisis is a product of government overreach, not greedy landlords, institutional investors, or so-called market failure.
A rapidly expanding American population has been forced into a tight housing supply that has been stagnant since the Great Recession of 2008-2009. A temporary but vicious bout of inflation caused by excessive government spending during and after the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the problem into a crisis.
The crisis is having the worst effects on young people in the early years of their careers. Young Americans are turning toward socialism and ever-more government as the answer. Even self-described conservatives are calling for more government action, an influential poll by The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports recently found!
That is a tragic mistake. Absurdly high government spending and excessive regulation at all levels of government created this problem, as Heartland’s paper demonstrates in easily understandable terms and illuminating charts. Karnick explains why the crisis has hit Americans under the age of 40 particularly hard, what will stop that economic damage and reverse it, and how to achieve a long-term solution to America’s housing affordability problem: increasing the nation’s stagnant supply of housing.
While more housing is the answer, Congress and state and local governments are doubling down on what caused the problem: considering further restrictions on investment in housing, expanding government programs, and injecting more taxpayer money into the market. Cities across the country are imposing tighter zoning, higher taxes, overregulation, rent control, urban-growth boundaries, excessive building code requirements, and a myriad of other obstacles to housing construction and sales.
This week, the House of Representatives is considering a housing bill the Senate passed with an investment-killing restriction on homeownership. Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii called the provision “bananas” and “positively Soviet.” Thankfully, the House stripped out the provision, but a conference committee could put it right back in. Heartland released an op-ed by Karnick warning about the dire consequences of the provision.
We’re following up on the paper with a full-court press. In addition to further articles, media appearances, podcasts, and the like, we’re reaching young people by hitting social media with concise, smartly designed individual posts featuring charts that explain how government is making housing unaffordable. We’re also creating an exciting series of short videos that show how we can solve the crisis and make housing affordable again.
America’s affordability crisis is a major symptom of the nation’s decades-long drift away from its core principles of individual liberty and market freedom, into socialism and authoritarianism. Free markets did not create this affordability crisis. Far from it. Today’s housing market is anything but free.
The same is true of the nation’s economy. Free markets are not the problem. They are the solution!
Heartland tells young people that there is hope. Restoring a true, free market will expand access to the American Dream, and it is the only way to do so. The way to renew the American Dream is for government to get out of the way and let Americans do things the American Way. The affordability crisis demonstrates the truth of that, as Housing Affordability: America’s Short-Term Crisis and Long-Term Problem shows by exposing how governments at all levels created, sustained, and exacerbated the nation’s housing problem.
Thanks to your loyal support, Heartland is known worldwide for this type of innovative thinking and sound solutions. Our Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center serves as the “tip of the spear” in identifying and confronting the underreported and/or misreported challenges that undermine American sovereignty, individual liberty, and market freedom. The EIC brings these emerging threats to the forefront of public and political awareness, empowering citizens and policymakers alike to act in defense of freedom and a thriving free-market society, just as our new paper on the affordability crisis shows.
🫱 https://heartland.org/topics/emerging-issues-center/
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