Empty Homes? Tax ‘em for the Homeless

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(Photo Source: https://www.oregonbusiness.com/article/real-estate/item/18431-estimates-point-to-thousands-of-vacant-apartments )


Every day a student passes through downtown Portland, they will come across a vast homeless population struggling to keep themselves warm. Towering above Their head in the beautiful Portland skyline is plenty of unoccupied apartments, too high price for the average American earning minimum wage to rent.  How do we provide the homeless population with space, if there are no affordable apartments they can occupy? How can we guarantee that pricing does not force more people onto the streets? A solution is needed, and researchers in London are proposing perhaps taxing is the first step. 


In 2018 there were a total of 6,000-17,000 vacant units in downtown Portland. With on average 4000 individuals a year suffering from various states of homelessness. To get them off the street, we need to incentivize Mainstreet to meet these individuals halfway.  By investing in a vacant unit tax we could use the earnings to build a program to support getting these individuals off the street while encouraging the prevention of home loss by greedy landlords overpricing their units.  This could also apply to our current housing shortage, where charging for unoccupied units could generate that landowners compete for tenants to rent their space. 


Homelessness is caused by a variety of factors - but a lack of rental space is not one of them. As a community, we need to invest in finding solutions to this problem, and a progressive tax on empty apartments is a first step.


By Cal Scott

Baker, L. (2018, August 05). Census estimates point to thousands of vacant apartments. Retrieved December 09, 2020, from https://www.oregonbusiness.com/article/real-estate/item/18431-estimates-point-to-thousands-of-vacant-apartments

Peters, A. (2019, February 13). Taxing empty apartments could ease the housing crisis.     Retrieved December 09, 2020, from https://www.fastcompany.com/90305242/taxing-empty-apartments-could-ease-the-housing-crisis

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