British Parliament in 1774 retaliated against American colonists with a series of laws we call the Intolerable Acts. The Quartering Act expanded the power of royal governors to house troops wherever they wanted.
Even King George III, though, didn’t think he could force homeowners to house strangers — this imposition was generally made on inns and public accommodations.
From the London School of Economics comes a much more intrusive idea: Instead of building new homes to address a housing shortage, the United Kingdom should “redistribute our existing housing stock” in the name of saving the environment and reducing inequality. Specifically, they want to go after folks who have an extra bedroom or “excessive” square footage.
Professor Ian Gough and research assistant Charlotte Rogers lay out the case for “Solving the housing crisis without building new houses,” at the politics and policy blog of the London School of Economics.
“We … need a more efficient use of the existing housing stock,” the authors write. Their idea of “efficiency” is a bit terrifying.
What is inefficient today, in their view, is that some people’s homes have unused bedrooms. Seriously.
“Over one third of households possess two or more bedrooms above the national bedroom standard and that one quarter enjoy more than double the national space standard,” they write. “This means that households and individuals enjoying excess housing are more numerous that the numbers in deprived housing.”
These researchers have, in a recent paper, declared some houses to be “excessive” for the family size, based on either the number of bedrooms or the square footage. A couple with two children, the authors have determined, have excessive space if their home is 1,600 square feet or larger. Three roommates have excessive housing if they live in a four-bedroom place — that is, if they have an office space.
To address excess housing, they call for a tax surcharge on excess housing. Alongside more normal-sounding ideas — change regulations to make social housing more feasible — the authors also want “greater democratic control over the use of housing space.”
That is, landlords and homeowners should have less say over who lives in their home, and buyers and sellers should have less say over who owns what.
This sounds a bit weird, but here’s an endorsement by an architecture professor.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
And here’s another by a political scientist at the London School of Economics.
The authors stop short of saying the government should force you to take on a roommate, but they are clearly trying to pull every lever possible to bring about that effect.