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Javona Brownlee knows a thing or two about struggling to get by in today’s America. Currently living in a homeless shelter in Virginia with her three young children, the 31-year-old single parent has been repeatedly caught in the headwinds of an unprecedented housing crisis coupled with unaffordable childcare topped off by a high cost of living.
“Sometimes it feels like a trap,” she explains of the cycle of poverty and housing problems that prevents her from putting “strong foundations” beneath her family’s feet.
“I’ve had decent jobs – I’ve worked in banks, in credit unions – but lots of times I couldn’t afford to pay for housing as well as all the other bills.”
Securing a good credit rating – essential for obtaining rental accommodation – has been beyond Brownlee’s reach due to her precarious circumstances, compounding the family’s financial and housing insecurity. “I have overcome a lot,” she says, “But it’s a crazy cycle. And housing is a major issue.”
As the election approaches, Brownlee is fearful that a victory for Republicans and Donald Trump would see policies such as rolling back social programmes, including Medicaid, become reality, making the lives of people like her even harder.
I’m afraid. I’m scared. The rug is already half pulled out from under me
Javona Brownlee, mother-of-three
Brownlee’s struggles are far from atypical. Despite the surge in federal public investment under the Biden administration ranging from clean energy to child care, alongside a booming economy, tens of millions of Americans face economic hardship and serious challenges finding and affording housing.
Just under 40 million currently live below the poverty line, and 47% live with food insecurity. In September, the US Census Bureau reported that while household incomes adjusted for inflation rose in 2023 – up by 4% from 2022 – it barely dented the overall level of poverty.
Even with higher than expected economic growth in 2023 and the recent easing of record-high levels of inflation that disproportionately impacted lower income households, plus 16 million new jobs created since Biden took office (outstripping any previous four-year presidential term), millions are struggling.
Low-income households, which tend to spend a much higher proportion of their income on basic essentials such as groceries and utilities, continue to reel from skyrocketing food prices despite downward inflation.
Food costs are much higher than when Joe Biden entered the White House. Between February 2020 when the pandemic hit and July 2024, grocery prices surged by 25.6% hitting the poorest hardest.
Accusations of corporate price-gouging keeping the cost of basics artificially high have further stoked woes, prompting a pledge from Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris to crackdown on the practice on day one if elected.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that the economy is by far the most important issue for voters. Four out of five (81%) in Pew’s September survey cited it as “very important” in the vote for President. However, with days left before the election, persuading some voters that the economy can work for everyone remains an uphill task.
Democratic Party attempts to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s economic and legislative successes – vital if Harris’s presidential campaign is to win over crucial independent voters – is made all the more tough when a sizeable number of people don’t recognise what the administration’s flagship policies have achieved.
Many Americans are not objectively better off – or don’t feel better off – than they were before the pandemic. One poll from Gallup published three weeks before election day, found that more than half of Americans (52%) say they feel worse off than four years ago. As with many aspects of the 2024 election, it’s an indication of how much perception matters.
In principle, Harris has a good policy story to tell around the economy. As Vice President, she was an integral part of the Biden administration’s ambitious economic agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act for example, has already created an estimated 170,000 new clean energy jobs since it was signed in 2022, with another 1.5 million forecast.
However, as Shailly Gupta Barnes, Policy Director for the Kairos Center and the Poor People’s Campaign says, multiple things can be true at once. While topline data tells one story of an unprecedented economic turnaround since the pandemic, good news on the wider economy passes many people by.
“This is where the mismatch is,” Gupta Barnes says.
You can’t keep telling people that we’re doing okay because too many people are not doing okay. Forty percent of the nation is poor or low income, that includes a third of the electorate. That’s 80 million eligible voters whose needs are not being represented right now
Shailly Gupta Barnes, Policy Director for the Kairos Center
Issues around availability and affordability of housing in particular belies the broader pattern of a strong economy and are exacerbating financial pressures on low-to-middle income families. In more ways than one, ‘the market’ isn’t working in a way that ensures affordable rents. Frequently, Gupta Barnes points out, huge housing costs are pushing people into poverty, “who wouldn’t be there otherwise”.
The latest data on average rental prices published by the US Census Bureau in September showed a 3.8% average rise in 2023 for “the real median gross cost” of renting adjusted for inflation (which includes utilities), representing the largest single year “real increase” since 2011.
Meanwhile, the proportion of households forking out more than 50% of their income on rent rose by 12.6% between 2015 and 2022, making it even harder for many to keep their heads above financial water.
And it isn’t just the poorest for whom housing costs are a burden. For people looking to buy a home, long-awaited cuts in mortgage rates by the Federal Reserve may be promising but house prices remain at record highs. (The average house price jumped another 5% between May and July according to the latest three-month average S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index).
For those like Brownlee who are without a home, the most recent figures on homelessness (2023) paint a worrying yet recognisable picture. Along a number of measures, homelessness has worsened nationally, according to the National Campaign to End Homelessness (NCEH).
In 2023, a record 653,104 individuals experienced homelessness on a single night – up 12.1% on the previous year. Between 2019 and 2023, the organisation reports, the number of people who entered emergency shelter for the first time shot up by more than 23%.
Harris has made housing a key part of her economic platform. One of the campaign’s core proposals is a goal to build three million new housing units, leveraging tax credits to address the supply-side issue of the problem.
However, whether promises for new construction in the future resonate with voters going to the polls is another issue. For those currently homeless or unable to afford their rent, the immediate reality is a bitter pill to swallow.
There is also the thorny issue of who is setting rents. When the Department of Justice (along with eight states) announced it was taking action on algorithmic pricing software by suing the platform RealPage alleging anti-competitive practices in the rental market it put a spotlight on a practice that contributes to the rising cost of housing.
“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said, when announcing the legal action.
Less than three weeks prior to election day, the non-partisan Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) launched a report jointly published with Popular Democracy examining another major factor distorting the housing market and detrimentally impacting affordability.
‘Billionaire Blowback on Housing’, lays out the degree to which “predatory billionaire investors have bought up an unprecedented share of single family homes, apartment buildings and mobile home parks to extract more rent from already economically squeezed residents.” It also dissects how corporate landlords and their wealthy investors target communities of colour in particular through rent hikes and evictions.
According to the report’s authors, strategies being deployed by the billionaire housing investors include buying properties then “holding them vacant” to benefit from real estate appreciation.
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They’re also increasingly active in the short term rental arena thereby “removing a substantial portion of rental housing from the market”. According to IPS calculations, there are 16 million vacant properties nationwide – “that’s 28 homes for every unhoused person.”
Another feature the analysis sheds light on is private equity firms entering the government-subsidised housing market, incentivised by tax breaks. Rent increases, the report points out, “are a primary driver of homelessness”.
For Brownlee and her three children the distortions of the housing market are intimately connected to whether they can get their lives on a firmer course for the future. Poverty is life-limiting, she says. “It takes away hope.”
Brownlee has a simple message for whoever wins the election: “We need affordable childcare and we need affordable housing. That’s very important. Just fix everything.”