America is facing a housing crisis with a critical shortage of homes. Mortgage financier Freddie Mac says the United States is short around 4 million homes. In particular, people trying to enter the market are increasingly feeling the strain, as the shortage is more pronounced for starter homes.
NTD hears some solutions to the problem from Jim Burling, the vice president of legal affairs at the Pacific Legal Foundation and the author of “Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis.” Burling explains that Democrats’ rent control approach won’t help because it would disincentivize the construction of new homes, and that Republicans are overlooking the root cause of the crisis—a lack of property rights at the local level. He says that to solve the shortage, those rights need to be restored so that more homes can be built where people want to live.