Housing Quotes

“It was the American middle class. No one's house cost more than two or three year's salary, and I doubt the spread in annual wages (except for the osteopath) exceeded more than five thousand dollars. And other than the doctor (who made house calls), the store managers, the minister, the salesman, and the banker, everyone belonged to a union. That meant they worked a forty-hour week, had the entire weekend off (plus two to four weeks' paid vacation in the summer), comprehensive medical benefits, and job security. In return for all that, the country became the most productive in the world and in our little neighborhood it meant your furnace was always working, your kids could be dropped off at the neighbors without notice, you could run next door anytime to borrow a half-dozen eggs, and the doors to all the homes were never locked -- because who would need to steal anything if they already had all that they needed?”
― Michael Francis Moore, Here Comes Trouble

“A bachelor, a studio, those were the names for that kind of apartment. Separate entrance it would say in the ads, and that meant you could have sex, unobserved.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man — and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages — it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Myth: US housing market is in recovery. Fact: Big banks have been hiding their bloated home inventory, seized by virtue of home foreclosures.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics

“It is time for housing owner associations to move past old prejudices and prioritize making community life fully accessible and inclusive for individuals with disabilities.”
― Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Understanding Accessibility

“In a large townhouse, a family is spread out across its rooms, each living in their own state but under one flag”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“Everyone deserves a place to live--including low-income people and the unhoused. Poverty shouldn't be a crime. I'm tired of watching people of color and queers be driven away from the places they helped to build. We need to change who we think of as a stakeholder.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, Lessons in Magic and Disaster

“The two-story dwellings of this city are, beyond all question, the best, as a system, not only owing to the
single family ideas they represent, but because their cost is within the reach of all who desire to own
their own homes. They have done more to elevate and to make a better home life than any other known
influence. They typify a higher civilization, as well as a truer idea of American home life, and are better,
purer, sweeter than any tenement house systems that ever existed. They are what make Philadelphia
a city of homes, and command the attention of visitors from every quarter of the globe”
― Frank H. Taylor

“The two-story dwellings of this city are, beyond all question, the best, as a system, not only owing to the single family ideas they represent, but because their cost is within the reach of all who desire to own their own homes. They have done more to elevate and to make a better home life than any other known influence. They typify a higher civilization, as well as a truer idea of American home life, and are better, purer, sweeter than any tenement house systems that ever existed. They are what make Philadelphia a city of homes, and command the attention of visitors from every quarter of the globe.”
― Frank H. Taylor

“Accessibility in housing communities is an essential duty, not a negotiable option, for the complete and equitable inclusion of persons with disabilities in all walks of community life.”
― Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Understanding Accessibility

“Housing owners' associations need to ensure that persons with disabilities can join in all social and cultural events in the community, just like everyone else by facilitating accessibility.”
― Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Understanding Accessibility

“Imagine a community where everyone truly belongs. Housing owners' associations can make this a reality by ensuring that people with disabilities have full access to social and cultural activities within their communities.”
― Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Understanding Accessibility

“The call to action for housing owner associations is clear: abandon ingrained discriminatory mindsets and commit to facilitating an environment where people with disabilities can enjoy full and equal participation in community activities.”
― Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Understanding Accessibility

“Every neighborhood must be allowed to grow and change... The reality is that a place that is not changing is dying.”
― Charles Marohn

“Keep the lights off. They live in the dark anyway.”
― Niedria Dionne Kenny

“any house they’d chosen would have become the very thing they sought”
― Kristin Hannah, Magic Hour

“Housing is out of reach to the masses!”
― Steven Magee

“We went from banning certain kinds of people from our communities to banning the kinds of housing in which those people lived - namely, apartment buildings designed for multiple families - achieving the same ends.”
― Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

“Welfare doesn't mean free money, welfare means food, housing, healthcare and education - any government that fails to provide the essentials to its citizens forfeits its right to office. Focus on universal basic essentials, not universal basic income.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Focus on universal basic essentials, not universal basic income.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Welfare doesn't mean free money, welfare means food, housing, healthcare and education - any government that fails to provide the essentials to its citizens forfeits its right to office.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“It was in a street of bitter white
That he made his application.
For Rudolph Reed was oakener
Than others in the nation.

The agent’s steep and steady stare
Corroded to a grin.
Why, you black old, tough old hell of a man,
Move your family in!

Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed,
Nary a curse cursed he,
But moved in his House. With his dark little wife,
And his dark little children three.

A neighbor would look, with a yawning eye
That squeezed into a slit.
But the Rudolph Reeds and the children three
Were too joyous to notice it.

For were they not firm in a home of their own
With windows everywhere
And a beautiful banistered stair
And a front yard for flowers and a back yard for grass?”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters

“If existence is mandatory, access to the space required to live it shouldn’t be optional.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“What would happen if everyone in the world could live in their own home for free? The answer is: no one knows. There are entire worlds of creativity locked inside people who never had the chance to discover them. If a person no longer spent their life paying to stay alive, then invention and art and ideas could take the place of the old pressure to make ends meet. The guarantee of human rights would restore people’s ability and time to think for themselves, choose their contributions, rest, discover their dreams, spend time with their family, and see the world. Mankind would unlock the unknown—a period of history where life becomes about life, and not staying alive. It would be a renaissance of human potential.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“While guaranteed basic needs in the modern age sound extreme, requiring every person to spend the majority of their lives paying for the ability to safely exist is the actual extreme.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“The pillow he presses his cheek against is the same uneven surface designed for tires, footsteps, rain, and trash. While a bedroom holds memories, his identity fits inside as many garbage bags as he can carry on his back. Some people have roommates, but he has insects, filth, fumes, heat, and danger. A lack of shelter is not an abstract phrase. It means a human nervous system remains exposed indefinitely, against its evolution. It means no access to a restroom. It means never receiving eye contact. It means feeling like a ghost among the living.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“Human dignity does not require castles. The standard is far more basic: a room with a door that closes. A place where the public world ends and the private self can be formed. We cannot remain perpetually observed without losing something essential. Identity matters. It structures our psychology. People need a place to think without interruption, to laugh without explanation, and to weep without humiliation. It’s in their own rooms that they choose who enters, what happens to them, and how they develop away from public expectation. Without privacy, it becomes harder to understand ourselves.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“Being paid a wage as an employee is essentially like transferring your boss’s money to your landlord.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“The world stands on an inconsistent position. It says shelter is a human right, but then charges people for it. Yet why is it that “shelter is a human right” sounds palatable, but “give everyone a free place to live” shocks us? They are the same thing. One isn’t more revolutionary than the other. To say humans deserve free shelter is to mean they should all have it.

The phenomenon here is that the phrase “human right” sounds philanthropic and “free homes” just feels reckless. Ensuring every person on the planet has a free place to live sounds like a science-fiction film, but providing material support to human rights we praise in theory is how promises are practically fulfilled. One of the priority pursuits of society is to do what it promises. What possibly could be more necessary, or more interesting?”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human

“Free shelter isn’t impossible. It’s just a choice we haven’t made yet.”
― Kristian Ventura, The Price of Being Human