It’s Time To Make Room For Struggling Renters

Home wasn’t a stable place for me as a kid. My parents split up. My father, a Stanford University professor, didn’t get tenure. My mother was in recovery from alcoholism.

To make rent and live in Palo Alto, Calif., my father made and sold furniture. Despite his hard work, we were evicted five times in just a few years.

The uncertainty of my home life was a major distraction from my schoolwork, and the stress of not knowing if I’d have a place to live for the whole school year made it difficult to focus.

It was a tough road, but I eventually graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.

When I moved to San Francisco to be a musician, my dad’s struggle to make rent every month became my own. I would host “rent parties,” playing music for friends in order to raise enough money to keep a roof overhead. I knew I had to follow my path even if it meant being broke, but it almost prevented me from pursuing music altogether.

I was reminded of that experience this spring when I played an acoustic set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Make Room, a campaign that’s standing up for everyone struggling to make rent today.

This rent party, part of Make Room’s Concerts for the 1 series, was in the shotgun-style Louisiana home of Karl and Courtney, a couple raising a 7-year-old girl. Karl and Courtney both work full time, but they still struggle to make enough money to allow them to continue to live in the modest neighborhood where they grew up.

I’ve learned from Make Room that, like Karl and Courtney, 20 million workers in the United States pay more than 30 percent of their income (before taxes) on rent and utility bills. Many are paying as high as 50, 60 or even 70 percent of their income just to keep a roof over their heads.

It’s almost impossible to provide a steady life for your family when the rent keeps going up and the paychecks aren’t getting any bigger. People are going without food and medicine and school clothes.

My visit to Karl and Courtney’s took me back to my childhood. I never truly felt like I was a part of my community because I never knew if we would be able to stay. Kids shouldn’t have to grow up like that.

My hope in playing for Make Room is to remove the stigma for all the families who work hard but are still having trouble paying the rent.

When I was coming up in the music world, I made a choice to have four roommates and sleep in a closet.  But millions of families don’t have much of a choice at all. It’s hunger or homelessness. As a society, we shouldn’t stand for that.

Did you know that more than half of the $200 billion the government spends on housing every year goes to people earning more than $100,000 a year? That’s absurd -- and I’m proud to be part of the effort to change it.

Karl and Courtney, just like millions of Americans are decent people who are doing their best but still have trouble making rent. Politicians should put working families like Karl and Courtney at the top of their list rather than at the bottom.

What makes us great as a nation is our creativity and ingenuity. But too many people are stuck — spending time and energy making their too-small paychecks last until the end of every month. We have to Make Room.

Please follow @MakeRoomUSA, visit makeroomusa.org and take the pledge to give renters a voice: https://www.change.org/p/join-the-fight-to-give-renters-a-voice