Topline
The DSA platform states that “comfortable housing is a human right.” This pleasant-sounding slogan disguises a militant and insidious plan to incrementally erode property rights, seize land, and make good on the organization’s assertion that it isn’t enough “to simply make housing available and affordable…[The government] must expropriate property from capitalists and deliver it to the working class.”
Author:
Preston Brashers, Research Fellow
TOPLINE: The DSA platform states that “comfortable housing is a human right.” This pleasant-sounding slogan disguises a militant and insidious plan to incrementally erode property rights, seize land, and make good on the organization’s assertion that it isn’t enough “to simply make housing available and affordable…[The government] must expropriate property from capitalists and deliver it to the working class.”
Public Housing Has an Appalling Record
- Public housing projects (“the projects”) are known for persistent poverty and crime.
- William Pauley, a Senior U.S. District Judge, described in 2018 how scores of public housing tenants “rendered harrowing accounts of the squalid conditions in their apartments and the indifference of [housing authority] management.”
- Out of about 175,000 New York City apartments, about 51,000 had lead paint.
- Between 2011 and 2016, there were about: 825,000 complaints about insufficient heating, 260,000 work orders for roaches, 90,000 work orders for mice and 36,000 for rats.
More Public Housing Isn’t the Answer to Affordability
- As of 2025, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) manages about 18% of U.S. public housing units and 10 times as many public housing units as its nearest U.S. peer (excluding U.S. territories).
- This hasn’t made other housing more affordable:
- The median listing price in the New York City metro area is $490 per square foot, about 2.2 times the national average and higher than every other large or medium metro area east of the Rockies.
The DSA’s Ultimate Goal for Housing Is More Extreme Than USSR or North Korea
- The DSA calls for the “end of commodified housing.”
- At the end of the Soviet Union, about 83% of Soviet Russia’s urban housing stock was under state control (and significantly less in rural areas).
- While North Korea’s government owns almost all housing, North Koreans still buy and sell residency rights.
Socialist Housing Fosters Dependency and is Contrary to the American Dream
- In Venezuela, government housing projects helped entrench socialist power by creating dependency, especially in electorally important areas.
- 83% of U.S. adults see homeownership as an important part of the American Dream.
BOTTOMLINE: The DSA denounces landlords, but if the DSA has its way, Americans would be stuck with the ultimate slum lord—the government.
