Key points:
- American housing crisis sparks bold policy solutions.
- Corporate consolidation intensifies in mobile home parks.
- Nationwide rent control could stabilize 31.5 million renter households.
WASHINGTON — As the American housing crisis escalates, some policymakers, advocates, and residents are floating bold solutions once considered politically unthinkable. Proposals like public ownership, rent control, and social housing are gaining attention—not necessarily as radical experiments, but as responses to the growing failures of the private housing market to deliver affordability and stability.
The affordability crunch is visible across housing types and regions. In mobile home parks, which house more than 21 million people in the U.S., corporate consolidation has intensified. According to Next City, private equity firms now control at least 1,200 parks nationwide. In Michigan, the problem is especially acute, where one in six mobile home parks is owned by private equity, AP News reported.
“These firms seem to have one goal: to return the absolute highest return to their investors even if that means providing inadequate service or engaging in exploitative practices, or unsafe practices for the residents,” said Michigan state Sen. John Cherry.
In Flint’s North Morris Estates, residents experienced years of water issues and dangerous infrastructure until regulators intervened. After resident Theo Gantos persistently raised concerns, the park’s license was revoked.
According to AP News, it was the first time Michigan enforced its 1987 mobile-home law to this extent—underscoring just how rarely regulation has kept pace with investor behavior.
Even manufactured homes, long seen as a reliable source of unsubsidized affordability, are being swept into the profit-making model. “Demand is through the roof,” Business Insider noted in an April report, but it’s being met not with stability, but with speculative flipping. While demand has soared—shipments rose more than 60 percent over the last decade—lot rents have followed suit, putting pressure on low-income families.
In cities, similar dynamics are playing out. The decline of public housing, rising rents, and displacement have sparked growing interest in policy alternatives. In New York City, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s victory in a recent Democratic primary captured this shift.
As The Wall Street Journal reported, Mamdani’s campaign “has focused on rent freezes and subsidized housing”—positions that once carried little political weight, but now resonate deeply with renters in crisis.
His win prompted concern from developers. According to the Journal, some in the real estate industry fear that policies like rent caps could discourage investment or halt construction. At the same time, others, including nonprofit housing developers, argue that the existing model is failing to meet demand or deliver deeply affordable units.
Mayor Eric Adams of New York has responded with his own slate of housing initiatives. As reported by the New York Post, Adams announced that more affordable housing units would be reserved for veterans and city workers. His administration also plans to develop 3,000 new homes at the site of the former Flushing Airport in Queens, with construction set to begin in 2028. Adams is also backing a broad zoning reform proposal known as the “City of Yes,” which his office projects could add 80,000 homes over 15 years.
But with rents still outpacing wages in many markets and homelessness rising, more advocates are questioning whether private development alone can fix what has become a structural problem. Some are calling for a revival of public housing and more robust rent regulation—ideas that, while still politically contentious in many circles, are no longer limited to the ideological fringe.
In Jacobin, housing organizer Cea Weaver argued, “Social housing must be publicly owned or under democratic community control. It must be permanently affordable and can never be resold for profit.” The magazine notes that the U.S. loses an estimated 15,000 public housing units annually due to deterioration or privatization, while the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)—the country’s main tool for subsidizing private affordable housing—often comes with time-limited affordability requirements.
Likewise, a Common Dreams op-ed described the shift toward recognizing housing as infrastructure and a public good. “We don’t ask whether roads or schools should be profitable. We must stop asking that of housing,” wrote community organizer Negin Owliaei.
While not all elected officials agree on what the solution should be, there is growing bipartisan consensus that the housing market—especially at the low-income end—is broken. The proposed ROAD to Housing Act of 2025, a bipartisan bill in Congress, would streamline zoning regulations and promote modular housing production. But it stops short of addressing speculative ownership or investor profit models, choosing instead to focus on increasing supply through deregulation.
According to PolicyLink, a nonprofit equity-focused research group, nationwide rent control could stabilize 31.5 million renter households—more than 60 percent of them low-income and nearly half people of color. Whether or not such a policy is politically viable, the data reflect how severe the affordability crisis has become for many Americans.
In Tacoma, Washington, more than 9,000 households are on affordable housing waitlists. “We need more rental housing, particularly affordable housing,” said Liz Mills, CEO of the Tacoma Housing Authority, in a July interview with The News Tribune.
Public ownership, cooperative housing, community land trusts, and expanded tenant protections are all part of the conversation in ways they were not a decade ago. Even if these solutions face resistance, their reemergence suggests that the traditional tools—tax credits, developer incentives, and voluntary affordability—are not delivering the results communities need.
Still, it would be premature to declare a political consensus around these ideas. Rent control remains hotly debated, and federal investment in public housing has yet to rebound to pre-Reagan levels. But the mere fact that these options are being floated seriously reflects how urgent the housing crisis has become.
The U.S. housing system, once governed primarily by the idea that supply will solve demand, is showing its limits. When manufactured home residents organize rent strikes against private equity, when rent freeze candidates win in major cities, and when policymakers explore public housing renewal—it’s not ideology driving these shifts, but necessity.
This is not to say public ownership or rent control is a panacea. Each carries tradeoffs and implementation challenges. But the conversation is changing. What was once considered politically impossible is now on the table—not because it’s popular, but because the existing system is failing too many people.
In a country where housing instability and eviction are increasingly linked to health outcomes, economic mobility, and community safety, the stakes could not be higher. As affordability erodes and speculative ownership expands, new ideas—however controversial—are bound to rise.
The question is no longer whether to rethink housing policy. It’s how far we’re willing to go.
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Affordable Housing Affordable Units Housing Crisis Mayor Eric Adams mobile home parks Next City Private equity firms Zohran Mamdani