Help Wanted: Mounting Autograph Requests Call For Expansion

 April 17, 2024|Authors, DSP Articles

Autograph requests in the Western genre are becoming more popular, and Charles Ray recently shared a very pleasant request he received from a reader who had recently finished a collaboration Charles had written with Harvey Wood called “Hell’s Fury.”

More of these requests have become commonplace as more and more readers turn to Western authors for their entertainment. This has occurred to the point that DSP has considered hiring a new assistant just to deal with this ever-increasing stack of reader requests.

If there’s an indication of popularity in a genre, then autograph requests and personal correspondence with readers are that indication. Judging by the time that is now spent corresponding with readers, Westerns are working their way back into the public’s heart. 

I Am Weasel

Trump team CRASHES AND BURNS in disastrous clash with judge

Transactional relationships

 

🚨 MAJOR update in Trump's New York trial

Let's make room for everyone

 

Diversity under seige

 

The US Africa Leadership Summit: Engagement with the African Diaspora

🚨 Fed up judge WARNS Trump at trial in stunning rebuke

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination

My second day back in the United States, after finally reviving the dead batteries in my cars and enjoying a sumptuous Korean dinner with my daughter and her husband, I had a great night’s sleep.  I slept late the second day, a Saturday, and during a late breakfast of pancakes, bacon, hash browns, and coffee, I discovered that my driver’s license had expired two months ago.  Fortunately, I hadn’t been stopped the previous day, and I was having breakfast at a restaurant located only a few miles from the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which I remembered stayed open until on Saturday.

I got to the DMV at 11 am, an hour before closing, and got in a line of nearly a hundred people, all waiting to get new or renewed licenses, voter registration cards, or new tags for their cars.  I got my new license, but at the same time, I received an insight; standing in that line at DMV, I was reminded of what America is and who we are, and surprisingly, I learned that bureaucracies sometimes do work.

First, what is an American?  Well, in line with me were people speaking Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Malay, Thai, and Korean – oh yes, and English too, in a variety of accents from the nasal mispronunciations of New York to the slow drawl of the deep south.  Old, young, and all the years in between, we resembled a small United Nations, but in fact, were just a representative sampling of this country; people of all races, religions, and creeds who are in fact just American. A gentleman from Peru stopped speaking Spanish with his wife long enough to commiserate with me about having to stand in such a long line on a Saturday morning instead of being at National Stadium watching a baseball game.  The young Malaysian woman behind me agreed, but said she’d rather be attending a concert at Kennedy Center.  A middle-aged woman farther along in the line, in a distinctly German accent, said she was going to be late for her community picnic and yard sale, and her husband would be upset at having to tend their sales booth all by himself.  We all came from different places, but on this day, standing in this line; we were all one – Americans dealing with the bureaucracy.

We all learned something standing in that line, too.  When the clock struck twelve, we were sure we’d be told to come back later, and were surprised when a voice came over the PA system informing us that everyone in line would be served.  The doors to the DMV were closed, and over the next hour, the staff did just that; with smiles and efficiency, they worked their way through more than a hundred people until everyone was taken care of.  Just when you thought the bureaucracy was a faceless monolith that didn’t care about the individuals it is supposed to serve, it surprises you and puts on a human face.

AIA Publishing Name Change

 On the 25^th of April 2024, the hybrid publisher AIA Publishing (AIAP) is changing its name to Alkira Publishing because an American business is using the name AIA Publishing and has not stopped despite several requests to do so. Unfortunately, the other business using the name lacks integrity to the point that some are calling them a scam, and that’s not good for a business if people can’t differentiate them. Many emails from their clients and even a poor review on Google Business from someone AIAP never worked with indicate that there is confusion and that it’s beginning to affect AIAP’s reputation.

Added to that, the AI in AIA Publishing could be seen as being related to Artificial Intelligence, and that's not at all relevant to a brand that prides itself on their real human care for their authors.

The word Alkira in the new name, Alkira Publishing, is an Australian Aboriginal word that means bright, sunny or happy place, and that describes Alkira Publishing well. The managing editor, Tahlia Newland, says that she thinks of their business as a happy refuge for authors trying to navigate the sometimes shark-infested waters of independent publishing.

India's Influence in Africa

Dealing with prickly personalities

 

Y'all Listen - Interview with Author Charles Ray

 

A new Viewbug badge - Viewbug Photo contests.

 

It's silly season

 

Fed up Jack Smith SMACKS DOWN Trump in court

The Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline At a Crossroads

Buttigieg leaves rightwing host SILENCED on his OWN show

Get your graduate degree on line

 

Zoom bombing

 

WOW: Trump ally CRASHES AND BURNS on national TV

My lifetime achievement award arrived.

 This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes to one of our oldest and most successful authors, Charles Ray. Charles was one of the first signings with DSP, and we are proud to give him this award in recognition of all the work he has done with our company, all of the books he has written for the company, and for all of his many achievements with DSP.

Thank you so much, Charles Ray! From Dusty Saddle Publishing.

Scam Alert

 

Social media chat boxes

 

As Black History Month ends, consider that Black History is also American history.

American historian Carter G. Woodson fought hard for the creation of a celebration of Black history in the 1920s, launching the celebration of ‘Negro History Week’ in February 1926, half a century before the establishment of the month of February as Black History Month in 1976. Since then, every U.S. President has designated February as Black History Month, a time when African American contributions to the development of this country are highlighted in media and in many classrooms around the country. It is seen as a time when we pay homage to Black achievements and contributions not just to this nation, but to the entire world.

While this is a welcome acknowledgement of Black excellence, it is not nearly enough. Black history, which has been intimately intertwined with the events of this nation since the 1600s and before, is an integral component of American history. As such, it should be taught in every classroom, every day throughout the year as a part of the history curriculum and reflected in popular media and advertising. The world we live in is multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic, and the United States is no exception. Limiting attention to Black achievements and contributions to one month out of the year, especially when it is not mandated that Black history courses be taught in all schools across the country, reinforces the unfortunately stereotype that Blacks, and other minorities and women, really didn’t play that significant a role in the country’s development. This is harmful to Black students, who don’t see enough ‘people who look like them’ in positions of importance, and to White students who in many cases have been exposed to stereotypes of minorities as somehow less than them.

Black History Month, an annual repetition of stories about a select few notable Blacks, such as Harriet Tubman and Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr., actually does more harm than good, in my humble opinion. Twenty-eight days of celebrating the achievements of a few individuals obscures the achievements of so many others and reinforces the view that people of color are somehow limited. The people who are celebrated were great, without doubt, but they were far from outliers—an impression created by this limited and repetitive celebration. Ignored is the fact that after the Civil War and into the early twentieth century, as the United States expanded its borders west to the Pacific Ocean, ten percent of the soldiers protecting wagon trains and settlements, building roads, and protecting our new national parks, were Black. The men of the four all-Black regiments of the U.S. Army were often the only federal presence in many areas of the frontier, a fact that won’t be gleaned from watching old western movies of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Black inventors contributed to technological development from the rotary-blade lawn mower by John Albert Burr to the pROSHI neurofeedback device by Chuck Davis.

Including the broad range of Black achievements in school curricula year-round rather than for just 28-days or as an elective Black History course that is subject to manipulation by state boards of education opens the door to more equitable treatment of the achievements of other minorities and women.

As we come to the close of another Black History Month, we should give serious thought to a nationwide review of how we teach history and what we teach, and establish a national requirement that all students should be exposed to a comprehensive history of the nation before graduating from high school. We, as consumers, should demand that corporations and media be more inclusive—and accurate—in the portrayal of the country and its people.

If everyone, regardless of race or gender, is exposed throughout the year to the truth about our nation’s history, we take another step toward creating ‘a more perfect union’ as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and we create a better country for all of us.

🚨 Republican Senator SCREWS himself with MASSIVE mistake

DSP lifetime achievement award

We have some breaking news to bring you this evening, and cause for celebration for one of our fan-favorite authors!

Can you join us in congratulating Charles Ray who will be the first recipient of the DSP Lifetime Achievement Award in May.

It’s easy to see why when he’s one of our most prolific authors. A consistent number-one bestseller—a feat he’s managed in multiple genres, too. There’s more to him than a Western, he’s found success with Science Fiction and Horror titles as well.

Ray has been at the heart of some of our most prestigious titles and co-writes. He’s been part of the DSP family for a long time, and throughout he’s been nothing short of a highly talented and versatile storyteller.

It’s an honor for us to bestow the first DSP Lifetime Achievement Award upon him, and we wish him continued success.

 

Some things don't translate well

 

The BRICS Expansion: What Are the Implications?

On Network 2020 program on the situation in South Africa

 

2024 - A Wakeup Call for the Sahel: US Capitol, Feb. 2, 2024

 

In cooperation with:

NEWSLETTER    "2024 - A Wakeup Call for the Sahel" panel discussion

United States Capitol - February 2, 2024 L-R: Dr. Sasha Toperich, Executive Vice President, TLN Maria Nicoletta Gaida, President, Ara Pacis Initiative for Peace & Pax Humana Foundation (Italy) Amb. Ret. Charles Ray, Trustee, FPRI Prof. Dr. Saleem Ali, University of Delaware General Ret. Didier Castres, Former Deputy Chief for Operations, French Army, President of GEOS ADIT Group

Welcome remarks by Carol Rollie Flynn, FPRI President

Maria Nicoletta Gaida: The Sahel serves as a vital bridge between civilizations and seas, deserving attention and necessitating dialogue. Western values have been undermined by inconsistency, neglect, and double standards, while unkept promises have generated disenchantment and distrust. The crises in the Sahel transcend existing boundaries, requiring solutions based on geographical and human realities rather than established colonial borders. A new approach to the Sahel must be dignity-centered and involve all stakeholders, including rebels, armed groups, civil society, traditional, and religious leaders. Relying solely on strongmen and military solutions to address complex societal problems has proven ineffective. Coordination between top-down and bottom-up diplomacy is essential, and a global plan must prioritize social services, administrative autonomy, and inclusion to counter terrorism and instability.

General Didier Castres: The Sahel is currently undergoing major upheavals, whether political, climatic, security-related, or demographic. Without energetic action, it will become a grey zone where warlords, armed groups, jihadists, and traffickers vie for space and resources. Doing nothing is not an option, but the solutions brought to the Sahelian crises have failed. Between the transplantation of Western models, exclusively security-focused approaches, incapacity to grasp the complexity and entirety of the crises, media obsession, and inconsistent management of different timelines, the gap widens between the expectations of the populations and the proposed solutions. It is imperative for us to fundamentally change our crisis resolution approach.

Amb. Ret. Charles Ray: The situation in the Sahel is a wakeup call for the people of the region, for they must assume the principal responsibility. But it is also a wakeup call for the rest of the world. By 2050, 25 percent of the world’s population will be in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a large percentage of them will be in the Sahel. They can either be a positive force in the global community, or they can be our worst nightmare. The decision is up to us—all of us.

Prof. Dr. Saleem Ali: The Sahel is a region of immense natural resource wealth but also extreme poverty. This paradox has bedevilled academic researchers and policy-makers for decades but has now reached a critical juncture as conflicts across the region are exacerbated by heightened global tensions between major powers. In this context we need an urgent conflict resolution strategy for the region that considers past mistakes of colonial policies as well as the neglectful ability to bring all parties into a bigger tent of inclusion. The United Nations estimates that more than 200 tons of gold is produced annually in the Sahel region, and with impaired governance this could fuel further civil strife and terror.

Dr. Sasha Toperich: Relying solely on Western governance solutions for African crises is no longer viable. It's time to support Africans in devising their own solutions, which may differ from Western models. We cannot address these crises solely with a rational Western approach.

You can watch the entire panel at TLN's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SevMMTQBok

The proliferation of disinformation

 

Visit to Tennessee World Affairs Council - Nashville

 On Thursday, January 23, 2024, I spent the day in Nashville, TN with the Tennessee World Affairs Council (TNWAC) on a program that included visits to a local high school, a meeting with business executives, and a town hall meeting with the TNWAC and students at Belmont University.

With students and faculty at Battleground Academy, an elite college preparatory school in Nashville, TN.

Speaking to business executives at Pinnacle Bank in Nashville, TN.

  Town hall meeting with TNWAC and students at Belmont University, moderated by retired ambassador Charles Bowers, a member of the TNWAC Advisory Board.

Dog people, cat people

 

2024 - A Wakeup Call for the Sahel: Panel discussion at the United State...

Trump now poised for FATAL blow in new ruling

🔥 Taylor Swift sends Fox hosts into MELTDOWN

Voices of the West: Malcolm Hotzman

The Security Situation in Chad

You can't cure stupid

 

BREAKING: Trump storms out of court, judge threatens Trump attorney with...

A matter of personal choice

 

Prosecuting Donald Trump: Damned if we do, more damned if we don’t

It’s hard, almost impossible, to open a newspaper or log onto an online news site these days without running into a story about the legal issues former president Donald Trump is facing. With over 90 indictments, with criminal and civil liability, this man who loves to brag about his ‘perfect’ this and ‘outstanding’ that, usually in ALL-CAPS, has set an unenviable record for former heads of state, and has provoked a contentious dialogue—that sounds like a monologue or harangue from some corners of the political space—that makes the post-Watergate trauma of Richard Nixon seem picayune by comparison.

     One camp believes that prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of Trump for any of his many alleged crimes would lead to widespread violence and the end of American democracy. Another camp believes just the opposite. The sad thing is that both are probably not too far wrong.

     Hard-core supporters of Donald Trump believe that he’s being persecuted for political purposes—which he loudly and incessantly proclaims—and wouldn’t support holding him accountable despite overwhelming evidence of some of his crimes and the lame excuses he and his lawyers give when confronted with this evidence. It is highly likely, then, that some of them will set up a loud online cry if he’s convicted, let alone incarcerated. They already mistrust the government and will only mistrust it more in such a case. It’s also likely that some of these people will take their proclivity for violence beyond the rhetorical.

     On the other side, there are those who will lose faith in the government if he is not held accountable, and who have already convicted him in their minds—which is the wrong thing to do under our Constitution, despite his own blabbering admissions. Some of the more rabid of these will be upset if a jury, after having heard all evidence presented by the various prosecutors, finds him not guilty. While less likely to be violent than their far right counterparts, it can’t be entirely ruled out.

     There is left, then, those in the middle, some tepid Trump supporters, some fervently opposed to the man, who see the murky middle ground. Whatever happens, there will be trouble.

     What, therefore, is the nation to do. When the choice is between two bad outcomes, one must assess the situation to determine which is the least desirable outcome, and then go with the other.

     I just happen to be one who believes that failure to hold Trump accountable for his transgressions, despite the problems that will be generated by doing so, is far worse than the alternative.

     Fordham and Boston University law professor Jed Shugerman wrote in a New York Times April 9, 2023, editorial that the case against Trump by New York DA Alvin Bragg was not only weak but ‘damaged the rule of law and set a troubling precedent.’  While he made a few compelling arguments, he trod lightly on the many other things that Trump had been accused of at the time. Other pundits speculated that the specter of a former president possible going to jail damaged the American image internationally.

     Now, a lot of this hand wringing happened before the Georgia election interference indictment, the NY AG’s case on business fraud (which is civil, not criminal), and the two DOJ indictments for unauthorized retention of classified documents and inciting the January 6 Capitol incursion. I’ve seen less of this breast beating since those came out, but on the far right, many who initially were tepid in support of Trump, or who condemned the Capitol riots, have shifted back behind the Trump bandwagon, some even hinting at violence unless the cases are dropped.

     That, as far as I’m concerned, shows the danger of not holding the man accountable for his crimes. Let a jury decide his guilt or lack of guilt after evidence has been presented, and let a judge decide appropriate punishment, to include time behind bars. To do less is to make a complete mockery of the  American system of justice that claims that the law applies equally to everyone and that no one is above the law.

     We have systems to deal with those who resort to violence if Trump is convicted. They can be housed in the same penal facility. Four years of his administration eroded trust in this country globally, inflicting a wound on American prestige and influence that will take decades to heal. Let’s not make that wound worse by demonstrating hypocrisy and letting him skate. Let him be convicted by his own words. For example, his recent announcement that a president must be immune from punishment even if he ‘goes over the line of legality’ in order to do his (or her one day?) job. I’ve always thought that the president’s job was to faithfully execute the laws and to defend the Constitution. His view seems to be the president’s duty is to do what’s best for him without accountability.

     Let’s show the world that our pious words were sincere, that when we said that we believed in liberty and justice for all, it wasn’t just an empty phrase. Let the justice system that our Founding Fathers (as imperfect as they were) built in order to form ‘a more perfect union’ work the way it was meant to work. As the late John Lewis always said, ‘let’s make some good trouble’ for a change.

How Do We Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis?

Published originally on 'Divided We Fall; at How Do We Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis? — Divided We Fall

Housing Must Be Made Affordable and Available for All Income Levels...

By Randal O’Toole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, and Charles Ray, Former U.S. Ambassador; Chair of the Africa Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute

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Eliminate Affordable Housing Subsidies for Developers

By Randal O’Toole – Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

Since 1987, the federal, state, and local governments have given billions of dollars per year to developers to build affordable housing for people who earn less than 60 percent of a region’s median income. Since that time, numerous economic studies have concluded that this is a highly inefficient way of helping low-income people and that the programs should be eliminated in favor of rent vouchers.

Developers, not low-income tenants, get most of the benefits of affordable housing subsidies. Many new developments get 90+ percent of their funding from various affordable housing funds, out of which developers collect “fees” per project, and then collect rents on the projects after putting up very little of their own money.

There is perhaps no clearer data point against affordable housing subsidies than this: Given regions have a fixed amount of labor and resources for building homes, the construction of five units of affordable housing has been found to be offset by four fewer units of unsubsidized housing. Thus, it costs more than a million dollars to net one new housing unit for the region.

The High Cost of Affordable Housing

Early studies found that subsidized affordable housing costs about 20 percent more per square foot than unsubsidized housing, partly due to developers collecting high fees and government inefficiency. This disparity has increased as affordable housing subsidies grow, while the number of units built has declined. Another drawback of affordable housing subsidies is that most require developers to rent housing at below-market rates for only 30 years. After this period, the owners of those units are released from obligations to rent to low-income tenants, and many, if not most, greatly increase rents.

The real reason housing has become unaffordable for many people is that some states and regions have adopted urban growth boundaries and similar policies that artificially restrict the supply of new homes. Politicians then propose to make up for housing’s high cost by spending more money on affordable housing. Yet affordable housing doesn’t make overall housing markets more affordable and may actually make them less affordable.

A better policy would be to make housing more affordable for everyone by abolishing urban growth boundaries and other land-use restrictions that have made housing expensive. Meanwhile, help for those who truly can’t afford housing should come in the form of rent vouchers, not subsidies that primarily enrich developers.

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Rather Than Subsidies or Vouchers, Why Not Cash?

By Charles Ray – Former U.S. Ambassador; Chair of the Africa Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute

The housing crisis is not new. It began during the Great Recession that was precipitated by the 2007–08 U.S. financial crisis. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2021, 49 percent of Americans list the availability of affordable housing in their community as a major problem. This represents a 10 percent increase from just three years earlier.

The current problem of affordable housing is the lack of supply. The U.S. needs 3.8 to 5.5 million housing units, and the lack of available housing is most acute for low- and moderate-income renters, first-time homebuyers, and people of color. The per-capita rate of production of new single-family homes dropped drastically and even though the construction rate has gone up, increased construction costs of 14.1 percent year over year still limit the availability of affordable housing for the aforementioned groups.

Rental Vouchers Are not the Solution

While Mr. O’Toole’s criticisms of the housing subsidy program are perfectly valid, simply replacing them with rental vouchers is not likely to solve the problem. Attention should be on increasing the availability of affordable housing for all Americans at all income levels. If developers rather than low-income tenants are reaping most of the benefits of affordable housing subsidies, how will that situation change if low-income people are given rental vouchers?

While the rental voucher program sounds good at first glance, a closer look at how it actually works (or fails to work) gives cause for concern. One of the key problems is that even with a rental voucher, there are not enough rental units to accommodate those needing housing, and the program is so complicated and cumbersome it helps only a quarter of those who need assistance. The Housing Choice Voucher program in 2021 provided 2.3 million households with vouchers to offset the rent on private units, but only one in four people who qualified for the assistance actually received it. The average wait before receiving a voucher was 2.5 years.

Even after families receive the vouchers, their troubles don’t end. They then must jump other hurdles to find landlords willing to accept the vouchers, units with long-term leases, or housing that is habitable. Sky-high rents that force voucher holders to live in the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods, resistance from landlords and neighbors, and scarcity of vouchers due to bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency combine to leave eighty percent of those qualified for federal assistance homeless.

Affordable Housing for All

While it’s important to enforce discipline and fairness in the system, the main goal should be to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing for all. This means looking at local zoning laws, leveraging public-private partnerships, and making a long-term commitment to solving the problem. There are no quick fixes. Maybe rental vouchers will work in some areas and not in others. Maybe more oversight is needed to ensure that affordable housing subsidy programs don’t become just another way for developers to make bigger profits.

One promising proposal involves giving cash to low-income tenants for their rent payments. A program like this was successfully tested on 14,000 families across 12 cities in the early 1970s but was largely forgotten about in the following decades. Such a program would eliminate much of the red tape associated with the voucher program, as well as the pocket lining of property developers. In addition, it would eliminate the stigma currently associated with voucher programs or designated low-income housing. It’s something worth considering.

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Affordable Housing Has Been Captured by “Densification” Ideologues

By Randal O’Toole – Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

Mr. Ray is correct that housing affordability is a problem. However, it is essential to distinguish housing affordability, meaning the general price level of homes relative to income, from affordable housing, meaning subsidized housing for people who can’t afford market-rate housing.

Decreasing housing affordability may increase the number of people who need affordable housing, but building more affordable housing won’t increase overall housing affordability. Unfortunately, many politicians respond to declining housing affordability by spending more tax dollars on affordable housing, which is a waste and potentially counterproductive.

Land-Use Restrictions Must End

It is essential to understand why housing has become less affordable. In 1970, housing was affordable to almost everyone in every part of the country because homebuilders had lots of land on which they could plan and build whole new communities of homes. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, states on the Pacific Coast, the north Atlantic Coast, and Florida began using urban-growth boundaries to restrict the amount of land available for new housing. This drove up housing prices in those states, which is why people today are migrating from states like California to states like Texas, which never imposed such land-use restrictions.

To make housing more affordable, the solution has nothing to do with affordable housing programs, vouchers, or (as Mr. Ray suggests) giving low-income people cash to pay their rent. Instead, the only solution is to eliminate the growth boundaries and other rural land-use restrictions that prevent home builders from meeting the demand for single-family homes.

Mr. Ray may be correct that vouchers are not perfect. Giving cash to low-income people also has its drawbacks unless it is accompanied by some training in basic household finance. Yet my argument is that affordable housing programs are the most wasteful of all responses to high housing prices.

Build Single-Family Homes, Not Apartments

Surveys consistently show that 80 percent of Americans prefer or aspire to live in single-family homes. The same planners who have made housing unaffordable by restricting new housing developments have proposed to build more units by abolishing single-family zoning. But building more apartments that people don’t want won’t housing more affordable, especially if building new multifamily housing requires the destruction of existing single-family homes.

This is important for affordable housing because, in recent years, most affordable housing funds have been spent building four- and five-story apartments with the goal of increasing urban densities. The fact that many such apartments require subsidies shows that most Americans really don’t want to live in such housing.

This is particularly wasteful because four- and five-story buildings are much more expensive per square foot than single-family homes, due to the need for more steel and concrete and elevators to reach the upper floors. This is the main reason why the cost of new affordable housing has more than doubled since 2004. The fact that affordable housing programs have been captured by ideologues who want to force more Americans to live in apartments when they would rather live in more affordable single-family homes is one more reason to object to today’s affordable housing programs.

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Housing Availability Is the Key

By Charles Ray – Former U.S. Ambassador; Chair of the Africa Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute

It appears that Mr. O’Toole and I are arguing past each other and that we’re more in agreement than disagreement. Perhaps I need to clarify my position a bit more. The key word in my statement regarding what people see as a problem is “availability.” Whether we call it housing affordability or affordable housing, if it’s not “available,” therein lies the problem.

Addressing the Housing Shortage

According to a 2019 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, the key factor affecting availability was high home prices driven by the skyrocketing cost of land. In Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which primarily consists of the city of Boston, single-family land prices rose from $1.7 million per acre to $2.8 million. Since land represents a large share of the value of homes, rising land values, along with labor constraints, cost of building materials, and regulatory burdens, are key to home price increases and consequently, availability. Land prices are, though, the most significant factor in the cost of a home.

Eliminating growth boundaries and land-use restrictions sounds good—on paper—but the devil’s in the details. Replacing multi-family dwellings with single-family housing in major metropolitan areas is impractical and would result in massive dislocation of current residents. Changing land-use restrictions in rural areas is one possibility, but it would have to be informed by environmental factors and the strength of the agriculture lobby in our legislature. Another factor that Mr. O’Toole fails to mention is that current homeowners will oppose any action that decreases the current value of their properties.

Closing the Housing Gap

I do not disagree with Mr. O’Toole that most government programs have been wasteful and ineffective, but eliminating them is probably not the answer until we’ve determined how to replace them. The factors involved in land-use restrictions are many and complex—partly political, partly cultural, and they will not be solved by fiat. The answer probably lies somewhere in between: open more land for single-family housing construction, while, at the same time, taking action to lower the cost of land. Until we determine how best to do this, we need to find some middle ground that provides adequate housing for all.

Whether we’re talking about housing affordability or affordable housing, the key is to work on housing availability. The United States is simply not building enough homes to accommodate the number of people setting up households. The housing gap from 2012 to 2022 was 6.5 million homes. In late 2021, there was a fast pace of single-family home construction, but midway through 2022, the housing market felt the impact of rising mortgage rates and buyer demand, and builders started to decrease single-family home starts. In the current situation, even if construction of single-family housing increased by 50 percent over the 2022 rate, it would take two to three years to close the housing gap. It is doubtful that ending the affordable housing programs and ending land-use restrictions alone would do anything to achieve this outcome.

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Additional Reading:

• The Cost of Affordable Housing: Does it Pencil Out?
• The Federal Government’s Support for Low-Income Housing Expanded During the Pandemic
• How Is Affordable Housing Funded?
• U.S. Housing Shortage: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

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If you enjoyed this article, please make sure to like, comment, and share below. You can also read more of our Political Pen Pals debates here.

Randal O'Toole

Website

Randal O’Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.

Charles Ray

Former U.S. Ambassador; Chair of the Africa Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute | Website

Charles Ray retired from the US Foreign Service in 2012 after a 30-year career. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he spent 20 years in the US Army. During his 30 years in the Foreign Service, he was posted to China, Thailand, Sierra Leona, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Zimbabwe. He served as deputy chief of mission in Sierra Leone, was the first US consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and served as ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Since his retirement from public service in 2012, he has been a full-time freelance writer, lecturer, and consultant, and has done research on leadership and ethics. He is the author of more than 200 books of fiction and nonfiction. Ray is a trustee and chair of the Africa Program of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.