• Advance policy solutions that reverse the decades-long trend toward privatization and private-market dependance in our national housing policy;

• Educate the public about social housing as a means to solve the affordable housing crisis and create housing as a human right;

• Advocate for investment in social housing systems at both the national and local levels to give renters a “public option”, allowing them to access deeply affordable mixed-income rental housing available to all.

• Promote social housing as part of a broader New Deal infrastructure program to provide jobs and green our aging housing infrastructure.

• Advance/promote policies that direct public resources to build strong public institutions which lay the foundation for thriving and healthy communities.

• Housing policy in the United States is deeply influenced by corporate developers and their investors.

• The investors that fund the production of rental housing are increasingly “institutional investors”. Common institutional investors are Wall Street banks, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and Real Estate Investment Trusts.

• Each year institutional investors pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the global real estate market with the goal of maximizing their profit to the greatest extent possible.

• As such, these investors have created a highly financialized and speculative housing system. The result has been exploding housing costs and the displacement of millions of people around the country through evictions and foreclosure.

CSHPI promotes social housing models that are sustainable, mixed income, publicly-owned, and deeply affordable. Here’s how these models work.

• Housing as Infrastructure: Social housing promotes public investment in the production of deeply affordable mixed-income rental housing.

• A Public Option for Housing: Social housing acts as a “public option”, offering an affordable, vibrant, and diverse housing option for renters at a variety of income levels.

• The elimination of the profit motive: Social housing is publicly owned so it does not need to generate profits for corporations or shareholders. This allows social housing to be self- sustaining and operate with maximum efficiency. Social housing models operate to make Housing a Human Right by using public resources to promote the common good.