Newsweek: Snitch on Neighbors For Affordable Housing, Ignore Corporate Landlords
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), via Newsweek, floated the idea that reporting undocumented neighbors could free up affordable housing. This suggestion conveniently distracts from the actual drivers of housing scarcity: runaway corporate speculation, stagnant wages, and the chronic underfunding of public housing initiatives. The federal government, which can find billions for wars (like
the $14.5 billion additional aid packaged for Israel in 2023, for HR 815, according to Congressional record), seems to suffer from selective amnesia when it comes to domestic crises. Instead of addressing the profound disparity between what constitutes 'affordable' and what people actually earn, or clamping down on predatory practices by developers and mega-landlords, DHS offers us a
tried-and-true American tradition: blame the most vulnerable. It's a classic maneuver—pit struggling groups against each other while the real architects of the crisis continue to profit. Perhaps if we reported the lobbying firms preventing robust housing legislation, we'd see some actual change.