In the US today, the number of households who are renting is near postwar highs. Since the 2008 recession, home ownership has dropped by 6%. While 17% of households pay over half their income in rent, another fifth pay over a third. 

This housing crisis has been further exposed during the current coronavirus pandemic.  With record rates of unemployment, and 30 million workers collecting jobless benefits, the tenuous precarity of America’s housing market is on full display. But how did it get to this point? 

In the first part of our two-part documentary podcast on the US housing crisis, we dig deeper into the history of US housing policy, and place the negligence of Trump’s tenure in the context of decades of disinvestment and privatization by successive administrations. 

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