We have a homelessness problem because we’ve started using houses as a place to store wealth like a giant battery, instead of as actual homes.
The paper challenges the idea of a 'housing shortage' by showing that millions of square feet sit empty because scarcity is a rational requirement for housing to work as a financial instrument. It proposes treating a 'night's sleep' as a consumable utility—like water or electricity—to bypass the incentive to keep buildings empty.
Material Dignity Infrastructure: Structural Misalignment and the Activation of Surplus Shelter Capacity
SSRN · 6211658
The housing crisis persists not because the United States lacks buildings, materials, or technical capacity, but because the purpose of shelter has been structurally transformed. Housing has shifted from a basic human necessity to a financial instrument optimized for wealth storage, making scarcity a rational outcome and leaving millions of square feet in office towers, malls, hotels, and manufactured units idle. The disappearance of low-friction rooming options has created a gap that existing p