Everybody. Deserves. Housing.

By Guest Contributor:  Olivia Blocker

I don’t care if you’re unemployed, or sober, or willfully unemployed, or formerly incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated for violent crimes, or if you smoke weed everyday, or shoot heroin, or if you have 12 children, or if you’re a legally emancipated minor, or if you’re queer, or if you’re trans, or if you’ve been dishonorably discharged from the military, or if you can’t use stairs, or if you occasionally have a friends couch to crash on, or if you do sex work, or if you have your high school diploma, or if you have a f*cking dog. None of it matters.

Housing should be physically accessible, and lead-free with functioning appliances, and located in neighborhoods with jobs and accessible public transportation, and free parking spaces, and city bicycle rental options.

We all deserve homes with multiple grocery stores near by with fresh fruits and vegetables that all take LINK. Housing with free heat and electricity, and windows that open, and responsive property management to fix leaks and floods and clogged sinks. There should be clear accountability processes for housing discrimination, and physical/economic/sexual abuse from landlords and property management. There should be clear accountability processes for discrimination from your neighbors. You should be able to paint your walls and your front door whatever color you want, and be free to stylize your home to make it your own. There should be a range of housing choices for people based on room number, neighborhood, pet eligibility, and proximity to public transit, work, schools, and daycares.

Everybody deserves housing, and the government should have pay for every single penny of it.