The income floor of a household (or, the minimum rent for a tenant) is mortgage + property taxes. You can get away without having utilities, even though life wouldn’t be very comfortable; but you would get kicked out of the house if you don’t pay your mortgage and I am sure they would come after you if you didn’t pay your property taxes.
“Housing inequality” is the idea that houses are not available for the poorest. That is because property taxes represent an ever increasing waterline. Even a fixed rate mortgage can be outpaced by assessed value property taxes, since property taxes only go up, because our administrators view it as a bag of infinite money.
If you want to see housing costs go down overnight, and you want to see more creative solutions to “housing inequality”, then abolish the assessed-value property tax.
(Yes, there would be other consequences and other effects, it’s a complicated topic. Don’t craft policy based on a blogger’s quick-take. Fortunately I don’t think any policy-makers read this blog.)
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 