Food and shelter are probably the most basic human needs.
Affordable housing is a hot topic right now in many communities. It’s not new, it’s a problem that communities have always had to deal with, to a greater or lesser degree; lack of suitable housing is a problem that will likely always be with us.
What exactly we define as shelter varies. It might be a tent pitched in the woods or a multi-million dollar mansion. The key, though, is suitable housing. Living in the woods might be a lifestyle choice for a very few, but everyone should have access to shelter that provides more of the other necessities of life, like protection of the elements.
The availability of suitable housing drifts over time. Developers are business people, and there is little profit in building housing to accommodate the poorest members of our society. Building units with high-end prices is usually accompanied by high-end profits.
As developers drift towards building fewer, higher-profit units, the market becomes concentrated at that end of the spectrum, lowering the availability of middle income units, which means fewer units aging into lower income levels.
This is where governments need to step in and use both carrot and stick, incentives and penalties, to encourage building of more affordable living units.
The speculation tax is one of those penalties, not directed at developers per se, but at the people that would buy homes and leave them empty, removing those housing units from the market.
The stick needs to be accompanied by a carrot, though. Perhaps by offering those same homeowners an equivalent incentive to rent those homes out while they are gambling on home prices rising.
Similar concepts need to be applied to encourage developers to start building more affordable homes again. Governments of all levels need to focus on people’s most basic needs first.