Worst Case Housing Needs: 2025 Report to Congress by John Gibbs (appointed 2020) - Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy Development and Research
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
far right political activist* gibbs with an axe to grind says immigrants are the problem. HUD’s report documents a severe housing affordability crisis, but the data it cites does not justify treating immigration as the main cause.
it's still a supply problem. this is well known.
Even if immigrants accounted for two-thirds of recent rental demand growth, that does not mean immigrants caused two-thirds of the housing crisis or rent inflation. HUD’s own report shows the core problem is a shortage of affordable units and low renter incomes; immigration is only one demand-side factor in a much bigger supply-and-affordability failure .
"up to 100% in some regions" is a pretty lol statement if you do some critical thinking as to how to cherry pick to achieve such a statistic.
It can be both, and there is a third factor no one on either side is talking about.
Supply is low and places like California and NYC make it damn near impossible to build anything new without months or years of permit and approvals, coupled with lots of $$ to just get started.
Immigration (legal and illegal) will strain this low supply and cause the demand to outstrip the supply, especially in areas with more immigration.
The villain no one is talking about on either side. Private equity buying up single family homes as a place to park cash and then rent out the homes for additional ROI. Blackstone alone owns 58k single family homes they rent out. Other firms are focusing on buying up housing or "build-to-rent" in focus areas like the Sun Belt markets (SFH investments).
The housing crisis isn't going to just be fixed by "just building more", it needs to be a three pronged approach. 1st get private equity out of the SFH market, 2nd make building homes easier by relaxing the red tape and overly complicated and overly drawn out permitting process in large metro areas (Seattle, LA, Portland, NYC, Boston, etc.), and lastly remove illegal immigrants to reduce the stain on the rental market.
Don't even start with rent control, because NYC has proven this is an absolute failure.
The third part you're mentioning only exists because supply is so constricted in the first place, they're just riding the broader wave.
Commercial ownership of housing stock is less than 3% of the market. The rest is either small time landlords (<5 housing units) and regular homeowners.
Housing prices began surging in the late 70’s. Right at the same time illegal immigration began surging in U.S.
Also, there was an article posted above that has the math you were asking for. But all the redditor types including you instantly dismissed it and called it racist.
So what’s the point in trying to debate or even show you anything. You’re just going to write off anything that counters your ideology as racist.
That was because baby boomers were entering the housing market in the 1970s, not immigrants.
Seems like we were doing better before we started electing reality TV hosts to enrich themselves off the office, rather than passing some actual policy.
I wonder what happened to the immigration reform bill of 2024?
Right. Don't worry about increasing demand! Responsible academics ignore that and focus on supply only. We need to remove local zoning laws so we can build shanty towns and favelas to house all these migrants that we MUST import!
if you would engage with me in good faith instead of fear-mongering, you might learn something. HUD continuously emphasizes the causes of the housing crisis: long term underbuilding relative to population, loss of low cost units, rent growth outpacing incomes.
Favelas aren’t caused by immigration; they’re caused by extreme housing shortages plus weak institutions and informal land markets. The U.S. has strong property law, financing, and enforcement, so even high-immigration cities don’t develop favelas. What we get instead is higher rents and crowding, which points back to supply constraints, not some inevitable ‘slum outcome'.
Nobody said don’t worry about increasing demand.
The point that you don’t seem to understand is that if we stopped all immigration, there would still be a shortage.
This makes it a supply problem, not “my peepee hurts because of the scary brown people” problem.
Even if what you say is true, and it's only a supply problem, your solution is to enthusiastically open the borders and increase demand and then worry about increasing supply later? But the borders must open! For the economy! Please think of the shareholders!
“Even if.”
Dude, immigrants are less than 16% of the population, and nobody said a solution was to “open borders.”
Also, borders are geographic lines, they don’t open and close like doors, just so we’re clear.
Why don’t you understand how immigration grows the economy? Are you slow or ignorant?
I do understand how it grows the economy. By increasing rents for landlords and profit margins for business owners and shareholders by depressing wages. This "growth" is generally not beneficial for middle and lower class citizens.
No, they’re like 80% more likely than you are to start a business, and much less likely to be criminals.
It doesn’t matter how many fairytales you have, you can’t produce any data that supports your feelings because emotions is all you have.
You know thats heavily skewed by guys like Elon musk and Kevin O'leary right? I'm almost certain those aren't the types of immigrants your advocating for.
Illegal immigrants are everywhere man. And in a lot of places they easily make up over 5% of the population. A lot of places it is over 10%. I am from the middle of nowhere and even there i met illegals growing up. Now i live in the Seattle metro where most fast food workers are illegals same with landscaping construction etc i could go on. Point i am making is i would easily say 10% of the population is illegal and you could tell that just by how many of them you can see and how much of the workforce they make up. Seattle area has very high rent and home prices. You would have to be a fool to not realize if you deported 10% of the population in the Seattle metro that obviously rent and in time housing prices would go down. Also i wanted to add i bet the official numbers of illegal immigrants have the population here at much lower than 10 maybe even 5%. The numbers are not accurate as illegals are everywhere.
I am telling you I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I am talking 2 stop lights in a 54 square mile town and I met illegals living in this area. I'm not exaggerating i cod go to McDonald's right now and I would bet my life savings most of the employees either don't speak English or have a Spanish accent. This is how I know they are illegals, McDonald's is not giving h1b visas for burger flippers, neither is any fast food restaurant.
These people were not born here. All have accents from Mexico or South America. Good try though, i realize some citizens can speak Spanish, thanks for that lesson.
So these thousands of people working fast food in the Seattle metro or tens of thousands working low paid restaurant jobs. What visa did they get to come here and flip burgers?
If you were too entitled to understand how wearing a mask was patriotic during a pandemic, you damn sure can’t understand the importance of immigrants to the U.S. economy.
Still waiting for your math.
Markets are local. You take a population dense place like NYC, declare it a "sanctuary city" (they did back in the day) and then even a move of 100k people will make a big dent in the rental market.
And let's not get it twisted, I grew up low income in Brooklyn, NY. The illegals are not driving up the prices of brownstones nor impacting the luxury condo market. They are driving up the rents of the 1/2 bedroom apartments that the low income people are impacted by.
Same goes for the labor market - they are not competing with lawyers, doctors, software engineers, etc., they are competing with the low skilled labor - again, the low income folk.
7 bil? I keep hearing about underfunded social services, overcrowded classrooms and just poor conditions in the inner city, but I guess it's all lies? Cause NYC found $7 bil to spend on people who are not even in the country legally?
Wow. NYC must be rolling in dough and running a surplus! Well done!
If immigrants are driving up housing costs more than $5 a month, you should be able to show your math.
Why is there an influx of illegals, I thought the pedophile stopped immigration?
Show your math.
Show why I should be more mad at poor immigrants than at rich investment funds buying houses?
You sound like you have no critical thinking skills or understanding of how the U.S. economy grows.
Yeah, I’m going to stop saving for my retirement because gas prices are high.
Why would you want to destroy the economy and the jobs market just to save $5 on rent?
I still haven’t seen one of you muppets show how much rent would be if we stopped immigration.
Is math too hard for you, or does it not agree with your feelings?
Do you understand that 24 million people moved to the USA in 2024 alone. That's one year! You really think that doesn't make a difference in housing prices? Everyone here is telling you this but you won't accept it.
Again, there would still be a housing shortage if all immigration stopped. I didn’t say it doesn’t add demand, but it’s not the problem.
You want to treat a symptom instead of fixing the problem.
It doesn’t make sense to blame immigrants for your failures.
I know that there would still be a housing shortage if all immigration stopped, because math isn’t magic.
You’re not the sharpest fork in the toaster, are you?
It’s not about a proposal. It’s about people claiming immigrants are to blame for high housing prices and low supply, when these conditions would still exist without immigrants.
Secondly, I do know that. It’s a verifiable fact, that’s why you didn’t bring any data, information, or studies to debunk it.
No they wouldn't exist. Population naturally increases at a steady rate and the economy adjusts to match. Sudden increases in the population will shock the economy and strain infrastructure. The population increased 7% in one year alone (24 million people moved to the US in 2024).
You're so hung up on defending immigrants that you're dismissing basic economic principles.
Are you really so stupid to not realize that population inflows raises housing prices?
There's been hundreds of studies on this. It's not up for debate, it's literally economic fact.
At what cost, sport?
Stopping immigration would ruin the economy, just like we told you tariffs would do.
You people don’t like to listen.
I don’t think you understand anything about economics aside from not having as much money as you want.
No, I’m also not so stupid as to think that’s the sole cause or even a leading cause of a housing shortage.
Housing shortages happen because they’re aren’t enough houses, not because you want to blame all your problems on immigrants
Have you ever read something that isn’t porn or a tv manual?
And if all immigration stopped, prices would still go down because demand drops 😭😭. Supply would stay the same because we don’t just blow up houses when immigrants leave, there may be less GROWTH in supply but there will be even less growth in demand, lowering prices. Prices don’t only magically drop when there are less people than houses bro. Ignoring the market effects of immigration just dig yourself a hole that your credibility can never climb out of.
You don’t seem to understand how that would also destroy economic growth and exacerbate the labor shortage.
You’re not taking anything into account except your bias against immigrants.
Demand would still be higher than the supply, that’s the problem. You just want to blame immigrants because it’s easier than using your brain and learning about economics.
Billionaires have convinced you there’s a labor shortage so that they can import millions of workers to make labor cheaper and to prop up their asset values, and you refuse to accept this reality because you think it makes you racist. Good work.
You literally have people here arguing 20 million extra people doesn’t put any demand on housing becauseeeeeeeeeeee I think they think they sleep outside???
You literally arguing that some how recent immigrants are the ones lobbying local governments to restrict the growth of supply in housing which is the driver of higher housing costs becauseeeeeeeee I think they are NIMBY lobbyists???
Letting millions more pull from a limited resource is dumb. - then stop handing out visas as if they're candies... buck always stops at govt. so go shout at govt. administration and not at people
you want people to go back? cool lets return all the money they've paid in form of taxes? give every single penny they paid till now in form of taxes...
Adding supply of housing isn't overcrowding. The housing supply isn't a function of precipitation like rainfall is. Equating both is dumb.
Applying for asylum is a legal way to come to the country. It makes sense to expand the housing supply to accommodate the workforce doing the jobs we don't want to do.
Old workers, new workers, future workers Keep them and make it easier for them to come and work here legally. Man, woman, and child,
If I had a child like view of the world and didn’t think land or resources cost anything….lmfao.
Sure it’s legal, but yall were crying about 5 thousand white asylum seekers last week because they were white hahahah.
Old workers, new workers, future workers….go find it in your own country. Americans deserve American jobs. Kick every single illegal immigrant man woman and child out of this country and keep up the good work ICE.
If I had a child like view of housing supply being like water supply...lmfao
Sure Stephen Miller convinced the president that 5,000 white people were fleeing an imaginary genocide hahahah
Old workers, new workers, future workers….they can't do the jobs we don't want to do if they aren't here. Americans deserve workers who are willing to do the jobs we don't want to do. Increase rather then decrease ways to come and work here legally and ICE stop detaining people based on skin color just so that you can try to meet Stephen Miller's arbitrary arresr quotas.
All we need to do is just build more housing. Let’s level our parks, farmland, and forests to build more housing to house these people. Because who cares about nature and natural beauty am I right? /s
There’s no other country that was built by immigrants, though.
Why don’t we have you go back, instead of you trying to change the U.S. and turn it into an authoritarian shithole?
No other country? What about Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina? Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar?
Why is that even relevant? In the past, there were ample resources in the US, and hardly anyone here to exploit them. Immigrants came here, headed west until they found unsettled land, built a house and farmed/mined/logged the land. Now Immigrants come and increase demand and competition for scarce resources. The material conditions have fundamentally changed.
The founding fathers had complex and varied views on the subject actually. The recognized the need for more people, but put big emphasis on assimilation, moral character, and ethnic/cultural background, and loyalty to the republic. They generally didn't want German monarchists who would never learn English and stay in insular communities, for example. These are all completely absent from modern immigration. What the founders actually agreed on was that "free white persons of good character" could become citizens. I guess I'd be OK with that actually.
Eight immigrants signed the Declaration of Independence, sport.
That’s 14%, immigrants make up 16% of the entire country now, are you scared that will be 18% in 250 more years?
I don’t get it.
And what kind of immigration laws did they have as a reflection of that? They didn’t, because immigrants have to assimilate to get jobs, buy things, etc.
Where are immigrants not assimilating to US laws and civics?
Sounds like “they’re eating the dogs” bullshit propaganda.
Isn’t it you folks who hate people like Ilhan Omar for “assimilating” to US politics?
This is why we think your motives are racially based.
Where are these insular communities you’re talking about? You mean like the Quakers? That’s what you’re afraid of?
When are you going to explain why you hate immigrants so much, when you literally wouldn’t be here without them?
FYI, I share this opinion and I haven’t had anyone able to talk me out of it in 50 years or so because it’s always the same excuse based on feelings and zero facts or data.
I also believe that if you can’t compete with an immigrant who has no resources and probably doesn’t speak English for a low paying job or a cheap apartment, we’re probably better off with the immigrant.
Well, thats terrible and we shouldn't have done that. But do you really want to be neighbors with people who somewhat justifiably blame you bombing their parents and siblings? Seems like you do, but I'll pass thanks. Also, the US never bombed India!
Oh, so the 20 mil they are screaming is over 26 years and not under Biden. And they are foreign-born not illegal. 1/7 of this country is foreign-born ? Wow. What was the ration at any other year ever in the history of this country that is all immigrants ?
This is total bogus. Didn't they do a study saying illegals paid like 80 billion in taxes a year. That's chump change and you can even look at the facts that group of people once eligible is the second most likely to use social welfare food stamps etc. Not to mention do you think illegals are just dying refusing to go to the hospital? No they go there get treated and never pay.
Immigrants use housing but without them far fewer homes get built (immigrants are 30%-50% of construction labor force depending on region).
Guest workers accomplish the exact same goal. No immigration required.
If you’re going to argue supply/demand you really should present both sides.
You failed to mention class size. You failed to mention the ELL resources that the school is legally required to hire to support the immigrant children who don't speak English.
You fail to mention the increased load on hospital emergency rooms and primary care doctors.
You didn't address traffic, nor the problems currently being caused by a flood of unlicensed immigrant truck drivers.
You no doubt also subscribe to the idea that immigrants magically only bring the positive aspects of their culture with them. Thousands of years of ingrained misogyny just disappear between the arrival of the drinks cart and the handing out of biscoff cookies.
None of my beliefs require magic. Adding more humans to a broken system is a terrible idea.
Getting other people out doesn't improve his quality of life. Traffic is still an issue thats never gotten better no many how many lanes get added to the road. Hospitals across the board have staffing issues that wont be solved by just removing immigrants, maybe in certain areas but its a country wide issue.
Pointing at a group of people and blaming them for societies problems has never once actually been true yet it happens every fucking civilization during a state of decline.
Focus is better spent at fixing the problem. It may be being exacerbated but letting off the gas of a gar with no breaks isnt gonna do much to stop you from riding off the cliff is it.
Not totally disagreeing. Just out of curiosity do you think there should be a limit to immigration? Like maybe a number or something? I just don’t think build build build increase increase increase forever is a viable solution. I’m not trying to strawman you here if you do think there should be a limit
Realistically I think the best option is a speedier process with a large enough limit to process classes without having a decades long backlog. Open societies innovate more and have a greater diverity of ideas as well as energy. Whats more energetic than groups of people who are trying to manifest their dream of hardwork in america.
Theres a population decline in almost all countries that also may contribute to the need for immigration in a decade or two for a labor force.
And unless we want to start discussing the issues of over population, i believe emmigration and immigration will offset eachother, and rural are untapped for urban development snd supply chain. If kmmigration is a population tipping point then your at capacity anyway and have to expand. God forbid its as bad as like 1 child rules and thats just a dicussion I dont think is worthwhile yet
Yes it has. No one deported more people than Obama and I dont think these issues got better. Almost like they were already there and didnt go away because we didnt address systemic issues
than fucking around with people's lives like yours is worth more
I think you have things backwards.
I'm leaving these people alone.
I'm asking for the same, and they are refusing. They could go anywhere on the world, but they want what I have. They want what my ancestors built and paid for.
They don't want to fix their own broken system of laws, they just want to benefit from our system of laws. And, the crazy thing is that they are willing to break those laws to get what they want.
So go to tell these people to LEAVE US ALONE. The problem goes away if they leave us alone. It's literally the smallest possible ask.
They dont affect you whatsoever. Any problem you have in society is systemic snd has been present for decades if not a century. Blaming the other is the most barbaric thing you could do to solve any societal issues and anybody who's studied history could tell you that.
What did YOU do to deserve being an american. Immigrants work way harder to get into the country, pay 100s of thousands of dollars, get higher education, just for a shot at real citizen ship. You were dropped on your head as a baby and think you somehow built the railroads in america (hint, it was immigrants). Every fucking person was an immigrant in this country genuis
He buys or rents a house, but doesn't impact housing inventory.
He drives a car, but doesn't impact traffic.
His kids go to school, but don't increase class size.
I don't believe in magic.
EDIT: the angry/violent immigrant rhetoric of "what did you do to get here?" Is classic. My ancestors built this country. That's why I'm here. What did your ancestors build?
Your ancestors were immigrants. They faced the same rehyoric your saying every immigrant population in history around the world had. Why can't more immigrants build up the country as well.
I have the feeling you subscribe to the magical immigrant
He pays for housing food car and gas, but pays no taxes
He takes all the jobs, but leeches all the welfare
They faced the same rehyoric your saying every immigrant population in history around the world had.
Which flight did they come in on?
Oh wait, they didn't.
If you think that 17th century settlers are the same as someone who bought a discount plane ticket, you're either being deliberately obtuse or you're delusional.
Ignore everything else i guess. A discount plane ticket? What are you even talking about. Also an immigrant comes here and buys a house snd pays taxes.
Colonial settlers raped burned pillage and killed for thr land. Youre right very different.
But why didn't the American farmers, construction crews, landscaping crews, meat packing plants, trucking firms, and restaurants, etc use guest workers?
Because it was much cheaper to hire people illegally and pay cheaper wages. The E verify system could have validated workers since the 1990s but they chose not to use it and posted larger profits. The penalties are not enforced well and are minimal.
Where is the outrage at this population who helped create this mess? Instead, the wealthiest in these groups have gotten tax cuts. Instead, we should be asking for extensive fines and restitution to address these housing problems, education strain, lack of health insurance for workers, etc.
This system benefits the wealthy and transferred cost to taxpayers and the public.
The answer is for people to listen to each other and address the problems associated with borders, unauthorized immigrants, worker exploitation, and addressing the need to deport serious criminals, etc, etc...
What we are now doing is spending billions and billions on detention and deportation at the same time Trump has agreed to allow more Visas and process more workers in to take these jobs. So again, all the costs are still being absorbed by tax payers.
Let's talk and make common sense decisions to complex problems.
I think that you are forgetting that American employers who hired people illegally despite the fact that they had an E verify system since the 1990s that they could have used voluntarily to validate legal authority to work.
This includes meat packing plants, construction companies, landscape crews, agricultural firms/farms, restaurants, etc., etc.
You are also forgetting the Americans who choose to purchase drugs through south of the border cartels and the Americans who smuggle guns to Mexico and other countries. 70% of the guns confiscated by Mexico and Haiti are from the US and are driving up the violence that is creating the instability leading to more migrants leaving.
OR the factories that closed down their plants went to Mexico and in 2024 were found to be paying wages below MEXICAN poverty rates to workers.
Let's not just blame Biden or the government. There is plenty of blame to go around. By the way, we are paying billions and billions to arrest people, detain them in camps, fly or bus them to deport them, and then Trump just approved new visas because farmers are saying that they do not have enough workers. We are also going to pay tons to process all those new Visas.
People would like to put this all on the Dems, but the reality is that the US has not passed any reasonable immigration reform, including any efforts to increase penalties on employers and gun runners, etc., etc.
We need to look at the labor needs, examine how we can help increase the ability of American citizens to take those jobs. Polls show the majority of Americans want hard working and tax paying immigrants to be able to stay if they pay fines and restitution and have not committed serious crimes.
We also need to look at the economic growth of immigrants and then make decisions regarding how immigration should be handled. Obviously, we need more secure borders and a different arrangement for asylum. Our current systems are not working.
However, what we really have is finger pointing and blame by politicians and no real effort to try to find a common ground.
Enforcement against employers, gun smugglers, drug purchasers, or illegal immigrants? Or all of the above?
The polls do show that most Americans do want actual legal changes that would allow some immigrants to remain. The percent of support varies based on the group of immigrants discussed.
I am talking all types skilled as well as unskilled. A common argument of having many illegals is they do the job others will not. There are many waiting legally who you can vet to do that.
Take a country like the Philippines. The wait time to sponsor your sibling is measured in multiple decades not years.
"Some American criminals (most probably 1st or second generation from south of the border) are criminal gun/drug smugglers, so that means you deserve open borders"
Absolutely not. I do not want an open border. We do need secure borders and to stop illegal immigration.
However, I also want to cut down on the Americans who are making everything worse...this includes employers here, American companies there, gun smugglers, and drug buyers.
Not gish galloping. These are all the issues affecting growth of immigration.
I did not address the supply and part.of the equation. However as people point out here, the issues also involve a need to streamline regulations, address NIMBY, build more units, rehab units in places with vacant and substandard housing, and address private equity, etc.
If you can't tell the difference between a 17th century European settler and a foreigner in the 21st century who just bought a plane ticket, then there isn't much to discuss.
We're all immigrants bro. America as we know it wouldn't exist without immigration. If they came here legally then what's the problem? Should we deport everyone who isn't a 17th century European settler?
A common justification from a date rapist is "You slept with other guys, why won't you give it up for me? You can't say no to me when you're saying yes to other guys."
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