The Rental Market, Capitalism-Style

We - my partner and I - are trying to get an apartment.  She currently lives in a two-bedroom, and with her roommate moving out to live with her partner, and me moving down there to live with my partner, it doesn't make economical sense to stay in an $1850 a month two bedroom with an exorbitant amount of space for young professionals.  Especially since I am, as of yet, still facing unemployment once my class ends.

So even though "moving" is probably a lot what hell is like (that, and maybe a never ending visit to the dentist or gynecologist), it is ideal from both an economical and a personal perspective.  My partner has lived with her Stuff for three years in one place, and I have lived with my Stuff for three years in another place, and combining our Stuff (probably more of hers than mine at this point) may necessitate a new stage in our relationship.  One where we are in neither her space nor my space, but a smaller, shared space that belongs to us both.

All that is easily said.  So, as we've recently discovered, is saying "let's move into a one-bedroom!"  How hard could it be to move from a two bedroom unit in one complex to a one bedroom in the same complex, you might wonder?  Surely it's like all other apartment searches we've ever made (between the two of us, we've done this probably four or five times...that's plenty of experience, one would suppose.)  We don't even really want to move anywhere - just to a smaller unit in the same place.

Oh, dear readers, how wrong we were.  Nothing could have ever prepared me for the pure batshit irrationality of the rental market in this greater-DC condominium.  There are many things that fuel this irrationality.  Part of it is because my partner lives in a lovely garden condo complex where each condo is owned by someone different. So there is no overarching condominium office where you can put your name on a list or coordinate multiple showings.  Instead, every negotiation is with a new owner, which means there is no regulation or bench line for pricing.  One 630 square foot unit can be priced at $1450, while another 530 square foot unit with comparable specs can be priced at $1550.  I'm pretty sure they just price it based on their mortgages.  Or malicious whim.  It's hard to say at this point.

Dealing with multiple owners also means there is no standard for each apartment.  Some of them have hardwood, some have carpet.  Some have had their bathrooms redone, some are still in original form.  Some original features have been worn pretty hard, some have been better taken care of.  Some have new cabinets and granite counter tops in the kitchen, some still have the original oven and dishwasher.  Some have new windows, others don't.  Some renovations are professionally executed, others are a little homemade.  With every unit being so variable, you really don't know what you are getting until you see it.

But the point, we've found, is not to see it, not even to care whether it's worth the money or whether the features are ideal or whether we really want to hold out for hardwood or an eat-in kitchen or whatever.  The point is to sign a lease as soon as freaking possible.  It doesn't matter if you really aren't sold on a place - you must convince the owner that you and only you are the destined future tenant for the unit.  Why?  Because there are at least a dozen other winsome and articulate and appallingly rich young professionals just like you trying to do exactly the same thing.

Basically, one of these apartments can be posted on Craigslist at 3 p.m., and if you email them half an hour later, you are number five in line.  That's how high the demand is.  But even your placement in line doesn't matter much - these apartments don't go first come, first serve.  What counts is you making it to the designated showing decided based purely on the convenience of the owner.  That might mean Saturday at 2 (sorry if you had plans this weekend - if you don't make it to the showing, you're utterly SOL).  It might mean tomorrow at 4:30 (oh, is that usually when you're at work?  Guess you'll have to leave early on less than 24 hours notice!).  If you make it to the showing - and you must make it to the showing - you will be obligated to sign an application and authorize a credit check on the spot, plus make out a check for $25-$45 for your own credit to be scoped.  My partner's had hers run through whatever magical system they use upwards of four times in two weeks - it's so great to pay for the privilege of repeatedly being assured that you are a respectable, bill-paying citizen.

Making it through the application stage is nothing.  There are probably still ten other people, maybe more, who have done the same thing.  This whole securing an apartment process might involve four stages where you see the apartment, have a phone interview with the owner, have a personal interview with the owner, fill out a credit check/application, have your references called (and they will call your references), and then possibly still not be offered a lease.

You might get really, really, really close - a verbal agreement on the phone, a written agreement through email, even set up a time to sign on the dotted line - when capitalism body slams you against those sweet hardwood floors.

The problem is, as you might suspect, ka-ching ka-ching, a case of the Benjamins.  Being both desperate and in a high-income tax bracket makes people do strange, strange things.  Such as bidding on rentals.  Yes!  To secure a one bedroom, one must bid on it like it's the Queen Jewels at Christie's Auction House!  And this means, of course, that the most desperate and most wealthy always wins.

Let me tell you, dear readers...I now know there are some very desperate and very wealthy people out there.  One who will, for example, bid on a $1550 apartment for $1800 a month, a full $250 over the listed rent, plus covering painting costs.  Or another who will offer a full 12 months rent upfront, somewhere around a $16,000 one-time payment for one unit.  (Why they don't drop that on a down payment for condo of their own, I have no idea...the market is not logical, only driven by the principle that s/he-with-the-most-cash-wins.)

Desperation for housing inflates these units to obnoxious, impossibly high levels.  There are two sides to this capitalist inflation - one side are us prospective renters who stomp on each other and wave our wallets around to entice future landlords.  The other side are the owners, who take advantage of the irrationality of the market and ride out the capitalism for all its worth.  In our experience, owners may even narrow down their list of applicants to a handful of those who's credit checks have cleared and who made similar bids, and then ask them to name their "best offer," thereby ensuring the price will go up even more than the original bids.  Sometimes I feel like we're trying to get our kid into a NYC nursery school.

Clearly there is no way this can be sustained - at some point (I hope), people are going to realize that $1800 for a one bedroom without a washer and dryer in unit and no covered parking space is absolutely outrageous.  By bidding against each other, we create a ridiculous housing bubble that ensures only semi-wealthy people live in the condos, and pretty soon not even semi-wealthy people will be able to afford to live there.  We are not just pricing ourselves out of the market - we are pricing everyone out of the market.  I'm not sure where the invisible hand is yet, because the market hasn't self-corrected as far as I can tell - even if it all comes crashing down a few years from now, there will still be suckers like us paying inflated prices for months on end.

Capitalism only works because everyone is participating, competitively bidding on a supposedly scare product - myself included.  It also feels like there aren't any other options - surely if we want an apartment under these circumstances, we have to play the capitalism game.  We can't tell the owner, "You know, I think your original rate is already inflated, so I'm going to price you a little lower since it reflects the actual value of the unit," and we can't call a meeting of all the prospective tenants and say, "Alright, y'all - who really needs this place?  And let's agree to cap the bidding, okay?  It's us versus the owning class!  We need to work together in collective solidarity until we all have homes!"  If I thought Marx could really spare us from what we've had to do thus far, I would have tried other tactics.  But resistance doesn't work on an individual level, and this is a clear case in which I'm totally pwned by capitalism.  Part of the sinister logic of capitalism is that it shuts down all other paths, and leaves no option but playing Monopoly.

Consumption

After nearly three years of waiting, waiting, waiting, the end is almost here.  In just under three weeks time, I will be leaving upstate New York and relocate at long last to someplace where somebody loves me and where winter is about four months shorter (like it SHOULD be!).  And that means, of course, just like when I'm raptured into heaven, all my stuff cannot come with me.

Now, I'm not one of those people who is super attached to stuff.  I don't generally keep Things I don't need or use.  I do not hoard.  In fact, I may have a more serious problem of the opposite.  Last year, I read an article about an emerging urban simple living movement - not urban simple living in the sense of inner city poor people who are minimalist by force (bwahaha - who in the world would write an article about folks who have to limit their consumption as experts on limiting consumption?!), but white professionals who independently and of their own free will choose to abscond with Things.  I'm with the latter.  Inspired by such calls for limiting consumption to necessities, I've routinely purged my attic apartment of excess books, clothes, and sundry knickknacks.  The only time I ever feel any guilt is when I pull out something someone I care about gave me, usually my Mom.  Sometimes, dear readers, I am not strong enough to let it go...maternal obligation and projected guilt is an unconquerable force, but I do try.

And I'm not much of a Thing Purchaser, either.  I find the mall horribly depressing.  I get a very powerful urge to go, oh, four times a year, usually when the seasons change.  Suddenly it becomes very important that I get some shorts, or new canvas shoes, or a wool coat.  But then I become incredibly sad on the bus ride home with all of these bags of Things under my seat, over half a day lost to the great mall vortex and a credit card bill to look forward to, and I've maxed out on shopping until the next solstice.

Don't think that my resistance to Things is due to some Gandhian-like qualities.  It's not.  It's more because I am extremely cheap.  Like my mother, I adore a good 'deal.'  I abhor paying full price for anything.  As a rule, I shop sales racks (sometimes I pretend to look at items at the front of the store because zipping back to the sales feels a tad rude...but it's all for show, sales staff, all for show).  A few years ago, I discovered Clothes Mentor and have been a devoted convert ever since.  Basically you bring clothes you don't wear anymore and they maybe buy some of it (I'm generally told my style is "too mature" or the tags are too old) and donate the rest to charity, and then you can get bourgeois brands for cheap, cheap, cheap.  All you need is endurance to look through the crowded racks and a hunger for the unfathomably low prices.  (Although, after you buy high end slacks for $10 a pop, it feels even more criminal to be charged $120 for them in a mall store - hence, beware that Clothes Mentor will rapidly erode your already low tolerance for buying full price items.)

But I digress.  The Things in my apartment are a bit different than clothes or mall shopping or resale stores that only narrowly allow me to opt out of fueling the oppressive sweatshop industry.  (Buying second hand is better, but in no way perfect...cheap Banana Republic is still, sadly, Banana Republic....but seriously, y'all!  Pants for $10!!)

The Things in my apartment are furnishings I've acquired in part to make my home more homely.  They have both a utilitarian value and a chosen aesthetic.  All together, they 'represent' me, or whatever.  And for three years, they've more or less remained constant.  My dresser has dutifully held my clothes.  My bookshelves have lovingly buckled under my books.  My toaster has cheerfully toasted my toast (with the exception of the time I ran the toaster and the microwave at the same time and blew the fuse).

Due to high gas prices and U-haul's low mileage, however, my partner and I have decided it is best to Do Away with the Things.  I am taking this far better than she is - somehow she is more attached to me being attached to my Things than I am actually attached to my Things.  After a moment of, "what?! not my Thiiiiiiings!," I was pretty much over it, taking photos and making a Picasa page to send a mass email to about 120 graduate students advertising my wares.

Surprisingly, demand was high, and now the Things are departing, slowly, a few at a time.  The other day was the first big batch - a toaster, a knife block, a floor lamp, and my laundry hamper.  Even though I rarely used the floor lamp, I keep turning around from my desk and wonder why it is so empty behind me.  In a few hours, my six foot bookcase and rolling kitchen island will be leaving me.  While I know there is probably some part of me somewhere that feels a little sad to let things go - a little pinch as I load them in the back of someone else's trunk - mostly I just feel lighter.  "Good," I think every time something goes, "now I won't have to post that on Craigslist!"

Maybe the reality of having fewer Things will settle in later, but I doubt it.  Letting them go is perhaps the best way to realize how unimportant they really are.  In some ways, I feel like they hold the energy of the past three years and perhaps should stay here, anyway, so I can make a clean break of it.  It's always nice to give your Things to someone who is really excited about them, so your life can end just like Toy Story 3.  But I also realize that, as the Things go and leave empty spaces where they once stalwartly stood, I don't actually feel more empty.  Fewer Things means fewer worries.

And pretty soon I'll probably have to get more Things to replace the Things I'm letting go of now.  (I'd like to say I can live without a dresser, but who am I kidding?  I reiterate, I'm no Gandhi.)  But for the moment, I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to de-Thing.  It is a rare opportunity and a beautiful lesson about consumption, about importance, and about meaning.  So right now, I am just going to try to embrace this period between Thingyness, that quieter, less-cluttered, lighter, more open space when my love and attention and attachment can be devoted to the Things people that really matter.

Making it Better for Everyone

This was written for a class assignment, but I was hoping to get it to a larger audience.  I may have missed the boat on timing, though, so at least I can post it here!  This is my contribution to the critical commentary of the It Gets Better Project, not to tear it down, but to point out the limitations of addressing LGBTQ youth suicides with a single-axis framework.  With a special thanks to Caitlin Breedlove for answering questions and S.I.H for asking them <3.

UPDATE: A wider audience happened sooner than I thought!  Thanks to Caitlin, the article is now posted on S.O.N.G.'s website.

Making It Better for Everyone: A More Careful Look at LGBTQ Youth Suicide

First it was Justin Aaberg.  Then, just two months later, Billy Lucas. 

What both young white men shared besides their age – they were both 15 when they died of suicide – was that homophobic bullying destroyed their lives. 

Dan Savage, the gay white journalist behind the popular syndicated sex column, Savage Love, was frustrated and saddened by the loss of Aaberg and Lucas.  So he started an “It Gets Better” YouTube channel to reach out to those who are terrorized for their perceived or actual sexual identity.  On September 21st, 2010, Savage and his partner, Terry, posted the inaugural video directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth contemplating taking their lives, promising “it gets better.”

The next day, 18-year-old white gay Rutgers college student, Tyler Clementi, jumped off the George Washington Bridge after having been cyberbullied by a roommate who streamed Clementi’s sexual encounter with another man online.  His body was recovered a week later. 

Due in part to the publicity around Clementi’s death and the growing media attention surrounding gay male youth suicides that month, the It Gets Better (IGB) project went “viral.”  Savages’s original goal of collecting 100 online video posts offering encouragement to LGBTQ youth was shattered almost overnight.  The project has since swelled to over 10,000 video submissions, including high profile celebrity endorsements such as Ellen DeGeneres, the cast of Glee, Perez Hilton, and Hilary Clinton, all echoing the “it gets better” message.  Even President Barack Obama posted a video advocating for the end of LGBTQ harassment.

The widespread popularity of the project is undeniable – the original video of Savage and his partner has accumulated over 1.2 million hits.  “It Gets Better”-themed events have sprouted up across the United States from California to Maine.  A purple “It Gets Better” t-shirt is available through American Apparel.  And a collection of stories, The It Gets Better Book: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life worth Living, hit bookshelves in March and shot up to the number one spot in Amazon’s “Coming Out” section.

With a cacophony of voices – celebrities, politicians, and regular folks alike – insisting that “it gets better,” such certainty begs the question, does it really?

Beyond LGBTQ Identity

The groundswell behind IGB is clearly responding to a pressing social tragedy.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death for all youth ages 10-24, outranked only by accidents and homicide.  It is estimated that LGBQ youth attempt suicide at rates four times higher than that of their heterosexual peers, and this rate may be even higher for transgendered youth. 

To look at statistics for LGBTQ youth suicide alone, however, only paints a partial picture.  When youth suicide rates rose in 2004, the largest jump was for young girls.  Although young men were almost four times more likely to die from suicide than young women in 2007, young women were almost three times more likely than men to attempt suicide.  In other words, although girls are less likely than boys to die from suicide, they are more likely to try to. 

Nationally, Alaskan natives and Native Americans have suicide rates that are 70% higher than the overall US average.  Latino/a and Black youth are also much more likely to attempt suicide than white youth, with Latino/a youth being the most likely to consider attempting suicide.  Although less data has been collected for Asian American youths, Department of Health and Human Services data shows that Asian American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rates among their age and gender group. 

Suicide rates vary by economic status as well.  Poverty, while not directly correlated with suicide, is a high stress condition linked to depression.  LGBTQ youth are overrepresented among the homeless youth population, and in one study of homeless LGBTQ youth, over half reported that they had considered or attempted suicide.

Given the complicated reality of suicide rates, focusing on homophobic bullying alone does not address the gendered, racialized, and classed pressures that lead many LGBTQ youth to see their lives as unlivable.  The suicides that achieved the widespread publicity were those of white boys, but there were likely many more suicide attempts by white girls and youths of color, especially those living on the street, that never caught the public’s attention.

It Doesn’t Get Better For Everyone

Following the release of the It Gets Better Book, David Michael Connor of the Advocate critiqued IGB for privileging the attractive, masculine gay white man.  Indeed, life might not get better for gay white men who do not meet exacting beauty standards, and it certainly is a false message for gay white men like Connor, who struggles with persistent depression.

Beyond the hierarchy of gay male beauty and gender presentation, however, is the privileging of white men, period.  While IGB has made significant and meaningful contributions to LGBTQ suicide and LGBTQ bullying, the project further invisibilizes non-white and non-male LGBTQ youth by only responding to, highlighting, and constantly invoking suicides of mostly white men and boys.

Life may have ‘gotten better’ for Dan Savage and other white gay men with money, but the future of “happiness, potential, and positivity” promised by IGB is not as easily accessible for many LGBTQ youth who are women, low-income or poor, gender non-conforming, and people of color. 

Gabrielle Rivera, a self-identified queer women of color, defied the “it gets better” message in her video contribution to IGB.  “It doesn’t get better, but what does happen is you get stronger,” she said, adding, “Don’t give into this myth that it’s going be fancy and amazing when you’re older and that everything’s going to be fine.” 

Rivera’s video has accumulated 16,000 views, and a transcript of her contribution was included in the It Gets Better Book.  In a recent Time Magazine article, Savage names Rivera’s video as one that “surprised him,” saying that IGB put her video in the top viewing spot even though some thought he would not post it. 

That this video stands out so strongly amid the thousands of contributions speaks to the importance of Rivera’s voice, as well as the rarity of her perspective.  It also points to how the hyper messaging of “it gets better” has left very little room for alternative messages.

The Difference between it Getting Better and Making it Better

Many have challenged the core “it gets better” message as a reactive, rather than proactive, measure to help LGBTQ youth.  Implicit in the ‘it gets better’ frame is that LGBTQ youth should endure bullying until it ends, presumably when they graduate high school.  Encouraging LGBTQ youth to hold out for a better life eventually doesn’t do much for them in the meantime. 

One community group that has addressed this shortcoming is Southerners On New Ground (S.O.N.G.), a social justice group that centers the experiences of southern LGBTQ, low-income people of color.  S.O.N.G. co-director Caitlin Breedlove says, “The idea that "it gets better" suggests that young people should wait, and should not organize.  It intentionally or unintentionally erases the history of struggle in LGBT communities while also not confronting the realities of how deeply our world needs people and youth to fight for gender justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and against systems of oppression.” 

San Francisco’s Gay-Straight Alliance Network, among other organizations, shares this framework.  They created “Make it Better,” a project that aims to empower LGBTQ youth and adult to create immediate change in their schools, neighborhoods, and communities. 

Savage has answered this pervasive criticism by noting that IGB does not prevent people from taking action.  This response, however, does not address the core concern voiced by critics – IGB might not be holding anyone back from taking action, but it is not actively encouraging it, either. 

Reflecting on the strengths of IGB, Breedlove said that it has provided a valuable “space for anguish,” particularly through “access to storytelling through the internet.  It also meets the longing that LGBT adults have to protect youth from homophobia and transphobia.”  But, she adds, “To think about liberation is messy and complicated.”  What IGB proposes is too simple, too neat, and too easy of a response to LGBTQ suicide.  It does not address the far more complex realities of all LGBTQ youth.

Homophobic bullying alone does not define the lives of those who experience racism, sexism, and classism.  In order to truly make life better for LGBTQ youth, we cannot treat LGBTQ bullying as something that is separate from other forms of discrimination and harassment, but rather as something connected to larger systems of oppression. 

Making it better for all LGBTQ youth requires addressing school harassment, yes, but also ensuring adequate food and housing for low-income youth and adults, a living wage and job security, as well as integrated and well-funded schools, for a start.  We also cannot forget that LGBTQ bullying is intimately connected to sexism, and that anti-gay bullying is just as tied to sexist oppression as lesbian-baiting, where women who defy gender expectations are pejoratively called lesbians, regardless of their sexuality.  Addressing LGBTQ bullying without addressing gender discrimination is to miss the forest for the trees.

The It Gets Better Project has provided a valuable space for LGBTQ folks and allies to speak up in support of LGBTQ youth.  But we must remember that the It Gets Better Project on its own won’t necessarily make it so.