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There is a commercial that keeps airing on one of the streaming services that shows a man standing teary-eyed in a house, and the voice-over talks about how he thought he would never be able to afford a home, but a loan from X place made his dream possible. It’s not that I don’t want the nice actor to have a house; of course, I do. It’s the point that housing, food, water, utilities, health care: These necessities should be affordable. Having a place to live is a basic human need.
Of course, it doesn’t have to mean home ownership. It could be affordable rent with a fair lease and stability.
If you don’t know the musician Erin McKeown, you’re missing out. She is a hugely talented singer and songwriter, but she’s also just a great writer.
In her recent Substack, she talks about losing her home for the last 20 years, a cabin that has featured as a character in her casual YouTube videos. She tells the story about how this cabin became her home, and then how it came not to be her home. She writes about trying to buy a house a few years ago (in lowercase):
the last few years, approaching age 50, i made a decision to change my priorities. reading our current cultural landscape, looking at my shifting physical and mental health, i decided to try to buy a house. to spare you a long and humiliating story, its not in the cards for me. … in this moment, i viscerally get why the mirage of homeownership is so potent. why people do crazy things to achieve it or keep it.
She ends with important questions: “what does it mean to say goodbye to a house? was it ever mine? what does a place mean to creativity? what happens to your art practice when you change your home?”
I think about this a lot. A friend of mine moved recently, and while the act was hard, the end result was freeing. She no longer has moving anxiety, even though the idea of saying goodbye to her space felt enormous.
Deep questions.
5 comments
I get Erin’s McKeown’s post, and the questions you’ve posed. My parents didn’t own a home until I was in high school; we moved around a lot and rented. The house my parents bought was the house we were living in, which was “the bank manager’s house.” It was common, years ago (less so today), for Canadian banks to provide (rental) housing for their branch managers, particularly in remote/rural communities where there are often fewer housing options available. Many of my friends’ dads were in the military and in a similar situation; my high school best friend’s parents didn’t buy a home until she was in high school either.
So I never grew up thinking that owning a home was the be all and end all. Then I came to Toronto, where my husband’s family were real estate obsessed — and that was BEFORE the housing market took off like a rocket. They were horrified that we were actually RENTING AN APARTMENT at first, instead of buying a house (with what?? — we were two broke students only recently…!) or living with his dad (ummm, I loved the man, but no thank you….!).
Anyway, I’ve said goodbye to many homes in my lifetime, owned & rented. It’s always hard, especially when you’ve lived there many years. As I’ve vented on my blog, our last move (9 years ago) was particularly difficult, especially since we’d been there 26 years, and were doing some significant downsizing as well as moving. (t was my husband’s idea, and I’ve often said I was dragged here kicking and screaming.)
But yeah — getting rid of all that stuff (in a very short timeframe!) was HARD, but ultimately freeing. There’s not a lot that I can say I truly miss, and while I sometimes still miss the community where we lived, I love our condo and don’t miss the house itself very much at all, although I do remember it fondly.
I get Erin’s McKeown’s post, and the questions you’ve posed. My parents didn’t own a home until I was in high school; we moved around a lot and rented. The house my parents bought was the house we were living in, which was “the bank manager’s house.” It was common, years ago (less so today), for Canadian banks to provide (rental) housing for their branch managers, particularly in remote/rural communities where there are often fewer housing options available. Many of my friends’ dads were in the military and in a similar situation; my high school best friend’s parents didn’t buy a home until she was in high school either.
So I never grew up thinking that owning a home was the be all and end all. Then I came to Toronto, where my husband’s family were real estate obsessed — and that was BEFORE the housing market took off like a rocket. They were horrified that we were actually RENTING AN APARTMENT at first, instead of buying a house (with what?? — we were two broke students only recently…!) or living with his dad (ummm, I loved the man, but no thank you….!).
Anyway, I’ve said goodbye to many homes in my lifetime, owned & rented. It’s always hard, especially when you’ve lived there many years. As I’ve vented on my blog, our last move (9 years ago) was particularly difficult, especially since we’d been there 26 years, and were doing some significant downsizing as well as moving. (t was my husband’s idea, and I’ve often said I was dragged here kicking and screaming.)
But yeah — getting rid of all that stuff (in a very short timeframe!) was HARD, but ultimately freeing. There’s not a lot that I can say I truly miss, and while I sometimes still miss the community where we lived, I love our condo and don’t miss the house itself very much at all, although I do remember it fondly.
I bought my first place 28 years ago. I had to save for 6 months for the 3% down I needed, and then was able to get a government sponsored loan. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely achievable. If you tried that 10 years after I bought my place…after the housing crash…you were out of luck and it has only gotten worse.
(The one commercial I can’t stand is a stupid truck commercial that says “There is one thing Americans can’t do…they just can’t stop being American.” What kind of nonsense is that? But also, maybe if they could, we’d see some f*cking improvements around here.)
Well, living in California we weren’t able to (barely) buy a house until the recession in 2008. And our house is pretty small by most non-California standards. We couldn’t afford to buy today, despite having a much more comfortable income than back then. And rents are ridiculously high in our area right now -part of the problem is people buying second homes and either leaving them vacant or using them as short term rentals.
Housing is an issue all around the world. We don’t have the same stable renting culture here that you seem to have. A dear friend of mine lost her contracts with USAID, and at the same time then lost her apartment she’s been renting for 22 years. She’s now living overseas, because it is cheaper (and for other reasons you can guess).
The dream of the 50s and 60s was to own a house on a 1/4 acre section (before we went metric! lol), and it was affordable to most. But no longer. In recent decades house prices have soared and in parts of NZ it is completely unaffordable – for much the same reasons as Working Mom mentioned. I know people with three properties – only one is a rental. But don’t get me started on that! Housing should be affordable, and so should other necessities. I don’t get people who don’t care about that. (I’ve just had some staying with me! Argh!)