Super-Abundance and Want: Confronting Contradictions in US Housing and Food Insecurity

The US has a super-abundant society. And yet in spite of our abundance, we leave people on the margins with a constant struggle. In both housing and food security, our abundance and our neglect create a contradiction in values and in lived experiences.

By the end of 2021, the US population will be approximately 333 million [1]. We also have an estimated 142 million total housing units [2]. Millions of these are not actively occupied - the current total for actual households is 132 million [3]. Assuming the 10 million surplus housing units can be occupied at an average rate (2.53 people for household), that's enough housing for an additional 25 million people. Evaluated another way, if we assume 2.53 people per household for the total 142 million, we should have enough housing for 359 million people - 26 million more than the total US population. Either way we reckon it, we have an abundance of housing units here - in fact, our surplus housing units is over 2/3 the total number of our northern neighbor Canada, which has around 14.6 million housing units [4].

And yet, we have nearly 600,000 people experiencing homelessness in the US [5]. If we described that figure on its own, and described the programs struggling to address homelessness on limited budgets, we might imagine a crisis based in scarcity. This scarcity mindset resonates with most working-class people; overall our wages have been stagnant or worse, as we struggle to pay ever-increasing rent or (if we're fortunate) to pursue ever-more-competitive home-buying opportunities. But the scarcity is not in housing itself - we have an abundance of structures built to house people. We simply don't have an accepted, effective method of dedicating our existing, abundant housing to those experiencing homelessness. The problem is not scarcity, but a contradiction in our economic system and the social values embedded in it. We evidently value building abundance, but not sharing it. We prioritize profiting from structures, not supporting and fostering communities.

The situation with food is even more contradictory. According to the USDA (as cited by Feeding America), 38 million people in the US are food insecure. And yet the US wastes nearly 40 million tons of food every year - estimated to be thirty to forty per cent of the entire US food supply [6]. We not only have abundance visible in our supermarkets but also abundant waste: food sent to landfills or left in the fields unharvested. The contradiction here is systemic, but again it is also a contradiction of values. We emphasize quantitative production and define 'consumption' in terms of purchasing, even if what is purchased is wasted. This is a problem of economic myopia; by defining food solely in these stultified terms we exclude the balance of sustainable production and actual consumption for use (not just purchasing and discarding) that would be optimal utilization of our resources. We also fail to use our superabundant food-production capacity to actually prevent hunger - our system seems to be more tuned to trash what it creates than to share it.

From the tension of this contradiction, we can pivot to a fresh outlook on homelessness and hunger: an outlook rooted in the reality of our abundance, and a determination to make our existing abundant resources available to those who need them most. Many non-profits and government programs have moved in this direction in recent years, focusing attention on redirecting existing resources to those in need. Here are a two that stand out to me:

Urban Gleaners is a Portland non-profit that rescues food from local restaurants and groceries and delivers it to people in need.

Project Turnkey is a project administered by the Oregon Community Foundation using state funds to acquire existing hotels/motels for use as non-congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.

I urge you to visit and support these two projects, and also look for more projects in your community that leverage our existing abundance to support those in need! The idea of 'abundance mindset' gained currency a few years back in management; the same mindset should be part of transforming our society to address hunger and homelessness. After all, as a society we have more than we need already - if we can only overcome the structures that prevent us from sharing that abundance.

Sources:

[1] U.S. Population from Census Population Clock, https://www.census.gov/popclock/

[2] Total housing units in the US https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N

[3] Number of households in the US: https://financesonline.com/number-of-us-households/

[4] Number of housing units in Canada.: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072334/number-of-homes-canada-timeline/

[5] US Homeless population: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2021/

[6] Food waste and food insecurity: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america

Author: Christopher Corbell