Social Housing for All!

Rent in Worcester is getting more expensive. We all feel it in our pockets. We hear from friends that their rent increased by a couple of hundred dollars. The feeling that we no longer can afford to live in the places where our community is, is not seldom anymore. But besides the anecdotal evidence, the hard facts also show this: The average rent in Worcester is now $2,200. In Fitchburg it is $1,825. In Southbridge $1,800. These rents are just not affordable! As a consequence, there were over 3,000 people homeless in Worcester county in 2025, which has nearly doubled over the previous two years. But even for those who can still afford a home, it is extremely hard to find one: the vacancy rate, the percentage of rentals on the market, has been constantly way below the typical 5-8% and as low as 1.7%.

All of this is no secret, and politicians are aware. In 2024, The City of Worcester asked two consultancies to produce a housing needs assessment, and put the lengthy document online with critical chapters, such as “Housing Goals and Strategies” left blank with the remark “to be written”. About whom the city really cares is easily visible on the homepage as well: 

“The City of Worcester's Landlord Summit is a great opportunity for landlords” boasts the city about an event they are organizing –– though of a great opportunity for tenants, there is nothing to read there.

The following “housing plan” promotes many different points –– most about rezoning and nearly all read just as new ways to get profits to developers and landlords (with a nod to collaboration with NGOs to help the unhoused). The only program directed to tenants is assistance for first-time homebuyers. This alone speaks about the perspective of the politicians: only homeowners are true subjects, tenants are just objects that help landlords and developers to make profit –– and which should be kept with the promise of homeownership under control. That only a very small minority of tenants will ever be able to own their own home is not the point –– the point is that this works like a carrot on a stick, a disciplining measure to keep people imagining to be part of the “American Dream” instead of revolting against the unjust social conditions.

This is, of course, no accident, but is a consequence of the system in which we are living: capitalism. As long as housing is a commodity to be bought, sold, and rented out for the greatest profit –– a tool for speculation –– it will always be the tenants who will have to pay the price. As socialists we believe this system has to end and we have to build a more just society that works for the people, the workers and tenants, not the landlords and capitalists.

While a socialist society can be built only through revolutionary change, there are first steps that can be taken here. What we need is a system of true social housing, not an enrichment plan for developers. Housing built by communities, through union labor, and available to everybody at affordable prices.

The point is that this is not impossible under capitalism, but rather that it is only possible if there is enough pressure from workers and tenants to make politicians feel the pressure. Currently they are driven only by the financial contributions by the developers and landlords to their election funds. Of course they serve the interests who pay them. The only way to make them abandon these cozy relationships is to exert as much pressure that they fear about their positions and electoral odds. 

To shift the conversation and show that tenants care and are angry, the Central Massachusetts & Worcester chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is running a campaign in select Massachusetts house seats for a ballot measure to instruct representatives to support social housing. The question on the ballot reads:

Shall the Representative for this District be instructed to vote for legislation to create a statewide social housing authority, funded with a tax on vacant properties and wealth and inheritances over $5 million, that eliminates the role of landlords and guarantees all Massachusetts residents a universal right to publicly-owned housing, providing different union-built options for different needs, capping costs at 10% of one’s monthly household income, and placing this housing under tenants' democratic management?

But what does this mean in detail?

What do we want?

We want the right that every person in Massachusetts has the right to live without a landlord. To make this work, the state of Massachusetts should create a statewide social housing authority that, in coordination with the communities, builds new housing as well as takes over and renovates existing housing.

But we do not just want that landlords be replaced by a state authority. Each building or building complex should be managed democratically by the tenants that live in the complex, giving tenants the power how their living space is organized.

All housing should be built in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way, with an aim to be carbon neutral and connected to free and frequent public transport. As long as private capitalist enterprises dominate the construction business, all construction and renovation should be conducted at least fully by unionized labor.

What does this mean for tenants?

We are used to the idea that housing is a commodity. We pay a fixed dollar amount for rent, depending on the type of housing, as mediated by the market –– more if it is larger or in a more sought-after location, less if there are fewer rooms or in a less desirable neighborhood. How much we earn is not taken into account.

While this reflects the basic tenets of capitalism, this is not how we think a society should be run. Housing should not be a commodity, but rather a social good that everybody has a right to, and that should be affordable for everybody. We therefore request that nobody should pay more than 10% of their income for housing.

How can this be funded?

Now this might read for many like a sweet dream and people might say that this sounds good, but where does the money come from? The money is there, we have just to take it where it is: from the rich. First, to start with housing, vacant properties and short term rentals need to be taxed heavily.

Vacant properties are objects of speculation –– they are only vacant since the rent requested for them is not affordable. Landlords just hope that people after some time are pressured to rent at these exaggerated prices. A heavy tax on vacant properties is the best tool to drive prices down while generating additional income to fund social housing.

Short term rentals are a tool for landlords to circumvent some of the regulations that exist for regular rentals. Switching regular housing stock to short term rentals decreases the available space for tenants even more. Therefore also short term rentals should be taxed (and controlled) heavily to avoid that tenants are driven out and to provide support for social housing.

Is this even possible?

While the idea might sound nice, many people might be skeptical. But can this work? In the US, affordable housing, to the degree it exists, is most of the time a bare-bones sheltering and not a comfortable living space that people deserve. To see that this is not just a utopic vision, but can be a reality, one has to look beyond the confines of our country. Several European countries, e.g., have implemented versions of social housing that provide high quality housing options at a low price.

Maybe the most well known example is Vienna, Austria, where the socialist provincial government managed, even in the misery and despair after World War I, to build a large housing stock that gave tenants by far better housing conditions than what was usual for workers at that time: larger apartments, sanitary facilities, and much more green space in the surroundings, combined with communal facilities such as laundries, libraries, kindergartens, and schools.  

The way this was possible was essentially by heavily taxing the rich. Now one may ask why were the rich at that time comfortable to have high taxes? The answer is that they were not. However they were so scared by the revolutionary workers that they were ready to pay taxes to keep them at bay by financing huge improvements in standards of living.

The lesson from this is not only that it can be done, but that for it to be done we need to have collective power and pose enough of a threat to the landlords and capitalists that they are ready to make concessions. Asking for friendly contributions can only produce breadcrumbs. In this spirit we see the ballot measure not as a magic bullet that will deliver by itself the social housing we want, but as an organizing tool and first step to build up the pressure we need.