The “Housing Supply Crisis”

Near the end of the 12 News report on a family’s fight against a vicious eviction by the City, there’s a curious point. The family’s story started with a devastating fire at their apartment. With much destroyed, including their basic shelter, the property managers handed them the keys to the only available unit, an apartment in disrepair. After the initial shock, a stream of complaints, and a change in property management, the new managers left them an eviction notice charging them with over $5,000 worth of repairs. They fought it to leave on a timeline they chose, ensuring they’d avoid an eviction record or debt for repairs the City left unfinished.

The reporter turns to interpretation. “Now with the settlement agreement, the Handeland family is searching for someplace affordable amidst a 270,000 housing unit shortage, according to an ASU research report. That shortage leaves housing expensive not just for the Handelands but for many.”

The explanation might appear mundane, but it’s loaded. Where does the 270,000 shortage come from? The ASU research report from the Morrison Institute cites a 2022 prediction from the Arizona Department of Housing under the direction of Tom Simplot. How did he get that number? There’s merely an uncited claim that the housing supply “by our analysis, has Arizona nearly 270,000 housing units short of current demand.” I haven’t found any actual analysis that led to this number.

Readers of our Police Protect Property, Not Tenants zine will recognize Simplot’s name: as city councilor, he allegedly protected the Red Squad pig who took advantage of teenagers as the cop liaison to queer community events (another reason to keep cops far from them). He went on to head the Arizona Multihousing Association (AMA), our premiere landlord lobby, before Doug Ducey appointed him to lead the Department of Housing.

Let's put aside his well-connected history and his Department’s suspect claims for a moment. He’s not the only mouthpiece for landlord interests pushing for more development. The AMA launched an official campaign to tackle the “housing supply crisis” titled “AZ Housing for All” citing their former CEO’s prediction. A year earlier, “Arizona’s top economists, business leaders, policy experts, and developers” formed a “pro-housing advocacy group” called HomeAZ to specifically address the housing supply question. 

At the same time, we’re hearing some mixed messages. Landlord advisors in John Burns Research & Consulting noted that “Phoenix is experiencing an unprecedented increase in apartments” and “the rapid increase in supply has outpaced apartment demand, resulting in rent losses and rising concessions across the metro”. In a late 2023 AZ Family report, Rent.com data analyst Jon Leckie described how demand is relatively low, but prices are still “soaring” and evictions are hitting record highs. Even in the year the 270,000 number dropped, the business and real estate rag AZ Big Media described “staggering” increases in apartment construction. Other recent articles flag signs of overbuilding and lament the “issue” of falling rents from oversupply. All this despite the failure of many “pro-housing” bills to “legalize housing”!

How could this be possible at the same time we face so many evictions? It’s simple: landlords seek profit, not “Housing for All” even if they name a campaign that way. Hence the vast majority of new supply is luxury apartments (a mere 85% in Phoenix, but 100% in Gilbert, 99% in Chandler, and 98% in Scottsdale). It’s why tenants at Weldon Court Mobile Home Park had to fight the demolition of their actually affordable housing, soon to be replaced with luxury apartments. The RealPage scheme is another perfect example: landlords (represented prominently in the AMA) pool together data to fix their prices as high as possible, even if that means more vacancies. We shouldn’t see this ploy as a handful of bad apples we can slap on the wrist, but as the basic profit engine accelerating with new technology. 

These points skirt around answering why reporters and even the prestigious Morrison Institute at ASU would carelessly toss around 2 year old estimates from a landlord mouthpiece. At its core, this is about power. As we discussed in the first week of the School of Tenant Power, it’s partially about “the ability to define phenomena” or spread what’s considered common sense. Of course landlords will serve themselves with claims that deregulation is the best solution to the so-called housing supply crisis. Their power reveals itself in this ideology’s ambient acceptance as it spills from the lips of respected researchers, journalists, and politricks. We must exorcize these confusions and give a firm voice to our own perspective if we want tenant power.