We can solve our housing crisis with care

“Home sweet home” is not that easy in times of polycrisis – economic, political, ecological. Far from the propaganda of previous eras, we must reimagine how we live and who we live with, embracing the wisdom of limitations and sustainability, interdependence and intergenerational flourishing, closeness and tenderness. It is time to meet this precarious moment with a shelter that honors it so that we can live the life of care, dignity and beauty that we all deserve.

The Democrats seemed to understand this. From the moment vice presidential candidate Tim Walz entered the public spotlight, he emphasized the importance of policies that take care into account. It was a refreshing twist to hear from a man with the hallmarks of traditional masculinity – football, guns and camouflage – who truly understands why parental leave and childcare are central to a thriving country.

And of course, his candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, put housing at the center of her economic policy, which included detailed plans to encourage new construction and reduce costs for renters and homebuyers, primarily through tax incentives. “We will end America’s housing crisis,” she promised bluntly in her speech at the Democratic National Convention. She also spoke extensively and enthusiastically about her intent to create a Medicare home benefit that would have freed up billions of federal dollars for home health aides and other essential sources of care for our elderly.

In contrast, the Republican agenda, the outline of which has now been confirmed in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” volume, not only calls for but also aims to privatize Medicare and eliminate funding for Medicaid – critical care support for the elderly to gut the Department of Education and gut the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as abandoning fair lending policies and other recent reforms in the real estate industry aimed at curbing racial discrimination.

It’s easy to become discouraged and even downright afraid of these changes. For some of us they are life-threatening. But we must not let our fear stop us from dreaming of longer-term change that would honor the universal work of caring in our lives. For too long we have thought about housing and care in separate circles, when in reality they are overlapping areas. Where and how we live – the structure of our homes, the density of our neighborhoods, the division of public and private spaces – influences everything about how we care for one another in times of need.

Although conservative forces are currently promoting the narrative that all care needs can be met through unpaid work in nuclear families, the reality is far more complex. We start out as largely helpless little creatures in need of around-the-clock care, and although we don’t like to think about it, sometimes we end life that way too. In between there is illness (acute and chronic), disability (which is also inevitable, although many of us have difficulty acknowledging this reality until we are forced to face it personally), and the everyday cooking, cleaning, grooming, calendaring, wiping of the bum, listening over tea, processing feelings and much more along the way.

All that –all of it– happens under the roof of a house – something that too many in this country still find difficult to achieve and capture. How we care for our employees, how we divide the care work, who we even define our People, is included in the subtext of every building plan and spatial planning drawing. Historically, women of color bear the brunt of caregiving in this country, often invisible and underpaid—a fact brought starkly to light in recent years by the dignified movement led by domestic workers and their allies. For the most part, the dynamic between our built environment and our care work is still largely unintentional. But it is becoming increasingly popular among a growing number of wise and thoughtful advocates The Text, not the subtext.

Take, for example, Washington-based Frolic Communities, an innovative new answer to the problem of gentrification. Frolic works with single-family homeowners to develop multifamily homes on their properties where they live with their children and other friends and community members. Homes in these projects—unlike so many co-op models—can be purchased with low down payments, are affordable to middle-income families, and, more importantly, are carefully planned. Multiple generations can live, cook, eat, play and support each other through the typical difficulties of everyday life. More and more urban areas are adapting their development policies to create more density. Co-founder Josh Morrison believes, as he told me, that “the process can be more elegant and friendly” using new funding models and careful design. Frolic already has three major projects under its belt, one of which is fully completed and thriving.

But of course, tackling zoning, financing and creating functioning communities is a difficult and sometimes arduous task. Another example of innovation at the interface between care and living is the ADU, or “Accessory Living Unit”. An ADU is a second residential unit on a single-family home lot, sometimes called a “granny flat.” California, where more than 100,000 ADUs have been approved to date, is pioneering this remarkably flexible and widely accessible solution, and many other states are following developments there.

Casita Coalition, a California-based nonprofit organization, teaches other states how to implement the right reforms to unlock this middle-income solution and create space for adult children to care for their aging parents, Grandparents to care for their grandchildren so many more creative combinations. The magic of ADUs is that they offer both privacy and proximity, often at the right price.

At the interface between care and living, there are currently so many big questions that we have to ask ourselves: What if We had real, scalable housing examples that recognized the centrality of care across the country? We cannot build what we cannot see; So many people in this country long for more care-conscious living options like shared apartments, but they have never been to Denmark to see one.

What if Are we rethinking the financing structures to give people from all economic backgrounds access to care-oriented housing? This could look in a number of ways: from updating valuation practices to finding entirely new sources of housing funding in the healthcare sector. After all, housing has a profound impact on people’s health and well-being.

What if The development policy not only followed the logic of the market, but also the logic of love? This could look like relaxing single-family zoning, minimum lot size, and/or parking requirements to make way for more affordable, dense, and multi-generational properties. We can’t be creative in how we live and what matters to us when so much bureaucracy hinders our imagination.

What if Politicians have not just talked a big game during election season, but are obsessed with governance that actually meets people where they are? So many people are trying to afford homes and meet the diverse needs of their families (of all kinds), their communities, and their futures. What if Did government housing policy support these countless family constellations throughout their lives, with a combination of vulnerability and loving commitment to care?

What if We the people have begun to apply this mindset – that care and housing are linked – to our own lives and choose not to wait for the powerful to catch up with our vision of a more caring future? What if Have we reached out to neighbors and assessed their care needs and capacities, created ad hoc residential communities by tearing down fences, and created more communal rituals—shared meals, cooperative childcare, and other mutual aid efforts—in our communities?

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is actually to understand that it is not a single problem but several Problems intertwined. This is currently the case with care and housing in this country, which is so desperate for new systems and structures that reflect our deep and challenging commitment to our families, both by blood and by choice. We will continue to fight for policies that reflect our intersectional values, and in the meantime, we will live them in creative, collaborative ways.

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