The city of Ottawa and I are going through a situation that underscores a longstanding intuitive observation that was confirmed in my history of housing class. First the situation, then the observation, then some questions, and then, as always, some music:
Because I’m a musical artist, I need a bit of space to be able to make noise, so I live a bit outside of the core and rent a house in a neighborhood that was built for World War II veterans, some of whom still live there. Young musicians and old retirees get along much better than you might think, but obviously we differ on a few things. During the summer I tend to let the grass grow. If someone complains though, I always cut it. That having been said however, somehow the city sent my landlord a bill for an undisclosed amount saying that they had to come and cut the lawn.
Now both my landlord and I are sure that the city either cut the wrong lawn, or got the wrong address but it’s not the bill or their mistake that I’m observing in this situation – it’s the fact that they won’t discuss it with me because I’m not the property owner. As a renter, I don’t have any say in the matter as far as the city is concerned – they need to talk to the owner, even if he doesn’t live on site. It goes right back to something that my prof said in my housing class: In North America you’re not considered to be truly participating in society unless you own property. Here, the privilege and promotion of ownership as a goal and ideal is as old as the frontierism that brought Europeans to these shores in the first place. Land ownership is part of the ethos, promise, and policy of both North American nations.
As a renter, I can’t help but have a problem with this notion. And while many owners tend to pat me on the head and give me their best “that’s-the-way-it-is” pout, I still think that it is worth considering; just because an owner has the responsibilities incumbent upon the choice to be rooted, does that mean that their stake/ability to participate in society should be greater than someone who rents? What if renting isn’t simply an intermediary in the quest to own, but is actually its own kind of stake in the community?
This is one of the issues where youth and seniors share a common ground. While as young people we will rent until we own, seniors often want to offload the burden of ownership as they get on in age. For both there is a strange transition – a friction that seems tied to a system rooted in an anachronistic compulsion toward ownership that the current markets can’t even sustain. As young people who – let’s face it – will be renting for at least the first part of our individual domestic careers, what steps do we need to take to change current attitudes about rentership toward attitudes of equal participation?
October 21st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Incredibly insightful: “In North America you’re not considered to be truly participating in society unless you own property.” You’re exactly right. If you rent, it’s like you’re not a worthy member of the community with a voice and concerns and rights. You’re considered someone who doesn’t have it together enough to purchase a property of their own. You’re more focused on other realms of life instead of being a proper “adult” and getting a mortgage.
This being said, I have been a renter and I am a homeowner. And my attitude toward my home is drastically different than the attitude I had to my digs when I was renting. For example, now I don’t let a crumb fall to the floor without picking it up. When renting, sure I vacuumed, but I was less concerned about the ultimate condition of the carpet. The mindset was, “I don’t own the place and I’ll be moving soon anyway, so who cares?” I admit it. I have more pride in my home – I didn’t have that kind of pride in an apartment.
There’s a lot to be said for renting and for owning – I would hope that everyone in life could experience both ways of living at some time to truly understand how people feel from both sides of the debate. So here’s my perspective – I own a home, I used to rent, and in about three days I’m going to become a landlord. I’ll KYP on how I REALLY feel about renters then…
October 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
In the early U.S., some states had landownership requirements for voting. Kept the riff-raff from messing things up. Along with race and gender restrictions, these have been dropped but as with the others, the vestiges remain. There are also economic assumptions –
my guess is if you were renting a $10,000/month downtown luxury flat, the city would probably be willing to talk to you.
Elizabeth, I like the old Joan Rivers quote “I hate housework. You wash the dishes, you make the beds — and six months later you have to start all over again.” She was probably renting.
My son-in-law is a drummer and they live in a townhouse. He rented a unit in a U-store facility where he goes to practice.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
uOttawa had a classic showdown of this attitude at a community meeting a few years ago. Action Sandy Hill is a municipal group with some tiny slice of power. It mostly is run by home owners, in spite of the fact that Sandy Hill is predominantly a student neighbourhood.
At the airing of grievances (the annual general meeting),after the police reported on the amount of noise complaints (and the amount of unfounded phone calls) some students demanded more fairness on sound tolerance given that this was a student neighbourhood.
To which one older gent replied, “but whereas you guys are students and you only live here for a few years, we are home owners.”
And so I replied, “over there is a university, to which you are only buying cheap property around, but the university wont go away any time soon.”
Suffice to say they were non-plussed at this response.
But it was exactly that legitimacy conferred on homeowners that reflected in the entitled attitudes of these folks. Surely that and ageism. Yet the rules are also landscaped around the 9 to 5ers; sound, activity, community is legally structured around their watch.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 am
You can be a homeowner and still make lots of noise, or work night shifts, or not be so houseproud… we’re kind of moving away from the article.
a) are you all revealing your own prejudices (and by extension, your guilt) against renters by raising these issues?
b) Renters, as you all admit, come and go. The owner-occupiers in my street recognise one another and chat in the street and over their garden fences. The renters are gone before you’ve realised they’ve moved in. Maybe that has something to do with the lack of respect you’re complaining about.
c) A lot of student renters have parents who have a home somewhere else, where the students bugger off to at weekends and summer holidays to get their washing done. In other words, they have two homes, which takes a perfectly decent home away from someone else, pushing prices up. Maybe that has something to do with the lack of respect you’re complaining about.
d) Renter lifestyle has a lot in common with single lifestyle where people are probably too selfish and caught with their heads up their own a*******s to care about other people enough to have a relationship and share some collateral, or even (god forbid) do something sociable like raise children. Again, maybe this has something to do with the lack of respect you’re complaining about.
e) A lot of landlords don’t give a stuff. They just want the rent. They let their tenants rot away in crappy housing, and the tenants do nothing about it – in fact, they even lap up the lower rents (and then whinge about the quality of rented accommodation). The result is more crappy housing (which affects the value of the nearby owner-occupiers investments). Again, you can see the pattern here.
f) Private rented housing has a role to play in the housing market. The security of private tenants probably needs to be protected more. Leasehold interests should probably be promoted more. However, the problem has a cultural/racial angle – try finding 2nd or 3rd generation south asians in Britain who rent. They don’t. They live with their parents until they marry, and then move into an owned house because rent to them is “dead money”. Whilst living with their parents in their early 20s they do all those things such as caring for elderly relatives, looking after younger children in the family, cooking and cleaning for their families… Remember those things? Have the middle class become so pre-occupied with their own enjoyment and whim that they can abandon family responsibilities for the sake of living in a flea-infested s*** hole?
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
I think we can see some of this anti-renter bias coming right through here.
b> This seems to be a stereotype
d> I don’t even know where to start with this one – but because people rent then don’t care?
e> A lot of home owners don’t care too
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Daniel Carins, I like that you’re acting as devil’s advocate, but I agree with Dave Reid. There are a lot of straw men in there.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 am
@Fin oh maybe I took that the wrong way or missed the devil’s advocate role Daniel Carins was playing. But I see this anti-renter bias so often that I feel it needs to be dispelled.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Kwende is right. Homeowners do not think of renters as equal citizens. They are too young, too poor, or too transient to be taken seriously. Daniel Cairns is right. Neighbors who rent can feel free to be bad neighbors because they are students (not yet acting like adults), belong to the disrespected poor (let’s pass that disrespect around!), don’t want to put down any roots (so why should they care about their neighbors?).
My town is beginning to wise up to the benefits of building ties between renters and owners. Just this fall the local government organized a program to visit students living among/near homeowning residents. The purpose of the visit is twofold. On the one hand you explain to renters how to be good neighbors (lots of students have never thought about it). On the other hand, you explain renters’ rights and offer to help them with problematic landlords. There is lots to build upon here. Students make great volunteers. You can ask for their help to clean up a local park, canvas for a political candidate, mentor a troubled kid… Students also need mentors, references for job applications, part-time jobs,…
Do you think students really don’t care how their behavior affects others? I have introduced some of my neighbors to my homely-lovable dog who will eat ANYTHING. When I tell them how Ronan came home from a walk and threw up a C-shaped portion of the neck of a beer bottle (after I had been CAREFUL not to let him graze), they tend to understand why they should clean up after a party.
Speaking of parties, I am thinking of organizing a block party this year. Even we ‘permanent’ residents need a little help renewing ties with each other. I am wondering if my student neighbors can help with the sound system…
Richard Florida has talked about how a place that wants to attract the creative class needs to welcome young people as residents. Developing some bonds with my younger neighbors seems a good place to begin.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Lots of great discussion here! And of course, Mr. Carins, stirring the pot. Let’s just hope he didn’t put anything in there!
Elizabeth: Do keep us posted! You’re going through the final stages of the full cycle – from tenant to owner to leaser. Your insights on this whole issue of renting are pretty valuable!
I do agree with you that as a renter, you tend to be a bit more slack on upkeep things that as an owner, you can’t help be feel responsible towards. I do feel though, that it depends on where you’re at in the renting cycle. In my case I found that when I came upon the place that fit me, my activities and lifestyle that I valued it very highly and treat it as such. I’ve developed a relationship with my landlord that is more of a partnership than anything (without any delusions about the rights and responsibilities incumbent upon the tenant-renter relationship) and I understand the role that my rent plays in the greater economic system of our two houses and lives.
I think a bit of economic transparency makes a big difference in the attitude of the renter – for the most part we’re quite disembeded from any kind of process, especially as youth. It’s just a blind pay out. In other words, try to let your new tenants understand where how their money is helping you, and you might find them helping you with the place a bit more.
Michael: You’re one hundred percent on point here. I’m not going to hazard any guesses about what side of the Mason-Dixon those states were on, but it’s interesting that it was the enclosure of land in europe that spurred the move to the “new world” in the first place. It seems counter-intuitive to make the similar kinds of demands here in North America, but so it went.
I think that you’re on point about the economic factors too, but that speaks to a further point about age and experience. Nice as it would be, I don’t think that there are too many young people who would be holding that kind of lease. The question is: How do we bring about some kind of standard of community participation that brings the weight of the $10 000/m type of lease that very few are likely to occupy to bear on the $1000/m type of lease that most renters are likely to occupy?
Chelsea: I’m familiar with the Sandy Hill area, and in bringing up your example you illuminate an interesting point – Institutional life vs. Human life. In many ways this is the core of what I’m talking about here. Human life and lifestyles are fluid while the institutions are often not responsive to this fluidity, however they live much longer. This is especially true with respect to housing, where ideas born before our grandparents’ lifestyles were contemporary are upheld as ideals.
Brining the owners in Action Sandy Hill to terms with the fact that no matter how much they flex their institutional power as owners, their lives won’t outlive the institution of the university – the one institution that incubates the fluid human behavior that they are fighting against – must have been an ironic and tart moment for them. Good on you for raising that point!
Daniel: Oh boy…I guess I’ll try to respond to 4 in 1 by saying that the “lack of respect that I’m talking about” is a systemic compulsion towards ownership and a tendency of owners to cite their land ownership as an entitlement to sometimes anachronistic ideas about how different categories of tenancy participate in the social fabric. Chelsea’s example here is a good illustration of that. Just because a group of landholders are in a community, does it mean that they should be able to define that community based on their ownership agreements?
This is a discourse that the increasingly mobile creative class is definitely implicated in. While it’s been well documented by Richard and others that the creative class help generate prosperity in a given region, we also know that not all of them will be interested in investing in real estate right away. Renting is a good way to gauge a neighborhood. Moreover, permanently belonging to a neighborhood via a landhold agreement is not a prerequisite to affecting long-term change in that neighborhood.
And really, who are these “transients” that we’re talking about when we bring them up in the rental discourse? Most renters that I know are looking for places to set down some roots and grow instead of hoping from place to place. A supportive community that one can participate in is a part of that. Nobody likes moving all of the time – it happens when the places available aren’t up to snuff. That says more about the state of the housing/community stock than it does about the renters. Keep in mind that when well maintained, a predominantly rental system can and has worked. Its more about changing attitudes towards that category of tenancy such that we’re not trying to use a standard of numerical equality to measure something much less quantifiable in those terms – entitlement to a community.
Zoe: What’s going on in your community sounds really great re: the student visits. An introduction goes a long way. Where is this goin on?
December 30th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Go to storyofstuff.org if you haven’t already. Go to Rousseau if you haven’t already. Go to this e-book and read pages 3-4 of chapter one.
All empire, all colonialism, all war and the whole of the police state is built upon the foundations of ownership and property of some kind. You who seek after ownership keep the machine of oppression and inequity chucking along. The only real democracy in this world, the only real power all people who are considered people (for their purchasing power only) in this society enjoy is at the cash registers and through their purchases (or more importantly, their non-purchases). The saying should not be, “workers of the world unite” it should be puchasers of the world unite!
So, here’s a surprise fact: we’re all renting. And if we will not unite for the purpose of purchasing peace, I fear our fate in this space we rent.
To those who think they own something I offer this soothing melody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOhvX9JQ_WI
and in conclusion, Nietszche:
http://praxeology.net/zara.htm