We should be hard on systems and soft on people.
I heard this saying on an episode of Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen. It’s exactly what we need right now.
On Christmas Day, like millions of other people, I visited family. It was a few hours of eating too much, wearing paper crowns, helping dad with his new BritBox subscription and being somewhat mindful of the words that came out of my mouth. I have a tendency towards being controversial at times so at Christmas I give my family the gift of me being quiet for a while.
My parents have always been conservative in their beliefs and politics and most of my siblings and their families have followed suit. On the other hand, my older sister and I are not so much the black sheep- we’re more like two mad ewes who went over the fence and lived life on our own terms in the forest.
I congratulated myself when I managed to keep my opinion largely to myself when my brother asked dad if he had set up the Sky News subscription he got him. Dad didn’t really respond. Despite his conservatism, he’s very well read and highly educated. I simply can’t imagine him watching Sky, the Australian equivalent of Fox in the US. My brother is a good, kind man. If he can get sucked in by right-wing media anyone can.
During lunch, the conversation turned to the housing crisis. My family lives 2 hrs drive away from me. It’s a rural area but still within an easy commute to the capital city. While buying and renting is more expensive than it used to be out there, it’s still cheaper than the beach city I live in.
I was sad to hear numerous older family members agree that young people could buy a property if they ‘stopped buying smoothies’ or were prepared to buy an older house. My sister piped up with ‘and stop eating smashed avo’ and yes she was being ironic.
Now I’m no property expert but in our city the old houses get snapped up by developers and replaced with luxury unit towers or renovated to flip or bought by cashed up investors. AirBnB is out of control here and has decimated the long-term rental market.
Young people would probably love to buy an older house to do up, but these business models have pushed them out of the market. The small number of affordable homes and units on the market are fought over by dozens of interested parties, pushing prices up even more.
I know plenty of young people still living at home well into their late twenties and it’s got nothing to do with smashed avo. Young people with well-paying jobs and a good deposit can’t find a place to buy.
Not once did anyone say that government intervention into the real estate industry might be prudent or that affordable housing is a human right or ‘did you hear about the new affordable rentals in Sydney’ or offer anything else even vaguely positive.
Apparently if my brothers were able to buy houses thirty years ago then you should be able to. Apparently it’s on you if you can’t find a rental or a house to buy but maybe if you stop having brunch…
One sister-in-law did say that the media needed to stop normalising the ‘bank of mum and dad.’ I do agree that putting the onus on the family absolves the government from having to actually do anything and can put unsustainable financial pressure on families. So rather than bashing young people, the older generations who already own their homes need to stop voting for governments who keep perpetuating a system designed to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer.
Be hard on the system! It needs to be changed! Be soft on the people. They’re doing their best.
What ever happened to kindness? Empathy? Reality? The housing crisis is a reality no matter what Sky News says.
