Housing policy causes poverty, reduces quality of life, and endangers people's lives

The Socialist Party of Iceland (Sósíalistaflokkur Íslands) places all responsibility for people's residence in industrial areas and other inadequate housing on the government. This situation is a result of the abysmal housing policy of all governments in this century, a policy that pushes tenants into poverty, prevents low-income individuals from establishing a home, drains the wages of workers, reduces their purchasing power, and forces people to live in poor, cramped, unhealthy, and life-threatening housing.In a short period, four individuals have lost their lives in fires in houses rented out as a type of barracks. These are so-called slums, the shantytowns of modern times. They are run by so-called slum-lords, people who rent out inadequate housing at outrageously high prices. Those forced to rent rooms or beds in these barracks often pay the highest rent per square meter. This is a sick market where the most avaricious people are allowed to prey on the poorest and most helpless. And with the government's blessing.In the Socialist Party's (Sósíalistaflokkurinn) address,The Great Housing Revolution, it states, among other things:"According to official surveys, more than a third of families in Iceland struggle to make ends meet. The most significant reason for this is high housing costs. A solution to the ongoing housing crisis is therefore the most important step to improve general living standards.The historical reason for the housing crisis is, on the one hand, that Icelandic authorities did not take comparable steps to neighboring countries in the last century in building a social housing system, and on the other hand, the complete commodification of residential housing during the neoliberal years. The destruction of workers' housing and the drastic weakening of social rental housing was probably the most serious attack on the living standards of the general public during this tragic period.But the commodification of other parts of the housing system also had serious effects on the income and security of the general public. With the auctioning of plots and the takeover of housing construction by contractors, which was previously largely under public control, either directly or indirectly through housing cooperatives, housing prices rose far beyond construction costs. Oligopolistic companies managed to maintain scarcity to maximize their usury, thereby doubling the housing costs of the general public in just a few decades. The entry of large investors into the rental market then undermined the living standards of tenants.The result of the neoliberal years was an overly expensive housing market that relentlessly siphoned money from the masses and transferred it to the few, rich, and powerful, while tens of thousands of households were kept in poverty and gnawing insecurity.The social housing system accounts for a third to half of residential housing in our neighboring countries. Here, it is well under 10 percent. The main reason for worse living standards here than in neighboring countries is that a larger proportion of households in Iceland try to survive in an unregulated housing market; at the mercy of land speculators, contractors, and landlords, and significant fluctuations in housing prices and interest rates in the financial market."The outcome of the government's housing policy is scarcity and usury. Housing costs for the general public have risen far beyond prices and wages. Governments that pursue a policy with such an outcome are not serving the public but rather contractors, land speculators, landlords, and usurers.The government has paid no heed to the warnings of tenants, disabled people and the elderly, workers, and their advocacy groups. It has ignored all public demands but has built a system that serves only the rich. The result is a broken housing system that increases housing costs, undermines housing security, causes tenant poverty, increases overcrowding, and deprives many people of the self-evident right to be able to provide a home for themselves and their families. And the policy endangers people's lives.Drafted and approved at a joint meeting of the Executive Board (Framkvæmdastjórn) and the Policy Board (Málefnastjórn) of the Socialist Party.