According to analysts and advocates of giving incentives to developers (self-described YIMBYs), building more housing should end the housing crisis. Classical supply/demand arguments say that with greater supply, demand falls relatively to it. Lower prices should be the result. And although the research on the renting market is scant, we do have the benefit of a handful of reports and statistics we’ve gathered. Let’s examine the evidence.

BBC Research & Consulting’s 2018 Housing Market report states that there were 19,338 rental units in Lawrence in 2016. According to Lawrence’s arcGIS data, there were 21,228 units in 2023. In other words, there were almost 3,000 more rentals in Lawrence in 2023 than there were in 2016.

During this time, Lawrence’s population had only changed very slightly. Its population counts in 2016 and 2023 were both around 96,000 according to Nielsberg Research, as the city’s size experienced a small decline during the pandemic.

Strictly looking at supply and demand, we should have seen rent fall. Instead, rents have climbed higher and higher: in 2016, median rent was $850 according to BBC. By 2023, median rent had risen to $1,033 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

How analysts study the housing crisis

So why hasn’t rent gone down? Bourgeois analysts might point to a few other factors.

Owner-occupied rates: i.e. the percentage of homeowners vs. renters in the city. In 2016, 45% of all housing units were owner-occupied, according to figures from BBC’s report. In 2023, that share had fallen to 40%, according to figures from the U.S. Census.

This could indicate that the share of Lawrence’s renting population has grown over this period.

Home prices and sales: prices had nearly doubled during this period, while sales have fallen dramatically, especially after the pandemic. For renters, that means it’s getting harder to escape renting. For analysts, this explains the falling owner-occupied rates.

BBC blamed this problem on a lack of supply in potential buyers’ “affordability range.” Though there was increasing interest among renters to buy a home — even back in 2018 — there was a “cumulative gap” between low-income buyers and affordable homes.

“In sum, if every renter who wanted to buy was qualified to buy, the Lawrence market would need to add 1,681 homes for sale to accommodate demand,” BBC said.

Following this reasoning, the problem is that 1,681 homes simply failed to materialize.

Rental “gaps”: i.e. not enough rental units at low prices. Analysts say that although the total number of units is growing, they’re just not in the right “affordability range.” “This leaves a ‘gap,’ or shortage, of 4,000 units for these extremely low income households,” BBC said.

BBC’s data comparing the number of renter households to units from 2000 to 2016 claims to show such a “gap,” visualized below.

This leads us to believe that the rental units just aren’t there, or have disappeared. Maybe some maniac in a bulldozer went on a spree demolishing all the low-income units!

We aren’t saying that the economists, or their supply/demand logic, don’t understand the real problem. Rather, they can’t name the real source of the problem, landlordism, because to do so would be to mount an opposition to capital.

This leads analysts like BBC to give absurd explanations about “cumulative gaps” due to a “shift in the number of units priced at less than $500.” Underneath all that jargon is a nothing statement — it’s like answering the question “Why aren’t there enough units?” by saying “because there aren’t enough units!”

Renters have no time or energy for empty phrases. Rent is being squeezed out of us at home while profit is squeezed out of us at work. Meanwhile, there’s more than enough housing already in existence to put a roof over everyone’s heads.

Workers in Lawrence — those of us who are actually paying the rent — know exactly what is causing the crisis, or these so-called “gaps.”

Why rents actually go up

The cause of the housing crisis is that landlords are raising the rent. They raise rents because their sole source of income is to extract a surplus from the economy, by taking a cut of our wages.

This is why, despite the fact that demand apparently shrank, prices went up. When the economy shrank, like it did during the pandemic, landlords had to choose: demand higher rents to keep their profits up, or make do with smaller profits. They chose profits, and workers worked harder to keep up.

Mortgage payments, property taxes and inflation are common arguments made by landlords as reasons to raise rent. This could well be the case — local property taxes have risen nearly 400% in the last 30 years, while local inflation rates have increased 80%, according to OpenGov.

But this argument can go both ways. Many renters make ends meet with credit cards. Credit card interests, a.k.a interest paid on personal spending, have doubled in just the last two years!

We could say to landlords, “It’s too hard for us renters to pay double interest and pay rent at full price. We have to keep our lenders happy, so we hope you can get by on half rent until our interest rates fall.” Would the landlords stand for that? No, they’d evict you faster than the judge could drop the gavel!

But this is exactly the choice landlords make when they raise the rent, and they don’t have to worry about their tenants standing up to them — yet.

What would our lives look like if we could wield our collective power? What peace of mind could we have when renters can exert power over landlords, and workers over capital?

Let’s find out together. Contact Tenants United!