Written by Josh Ishimatsu for ON/OFF Message, a Members-Only column
This on/off message column – by purpose and by the fact that it is contained within a members-only newsletter – is an opportunity for me to be a little more meta and reflective in ways that I might not be in a column targeted to a more general audience.
This month, I want to talk about the Housing and Musical Chairs metaphor, both in terms of how much in awe I am of this metaphor as a communication device and also how much the metaphor frustrates me. This column starts with a summary of the metaphor, then a little bit about what is great about the metaphor, and then a couple different things that I find problematic about it, and then, bridging from my critique, a call to action about how we need more and better metaphors that speak to a broader housing justice.
The Metaphor
As far as I can tell (from googling it), the first published usage of the musical chairs and housing metaphor was in a 1990 American Journal of Public Health editorial, “Homelessness and Housing Policy, A Game of Musical Chairs” by Columbia professor Elliot Sclar:
Dynamically the linkage between the structural loss of housing resources and the personal loss of shelter is analogous to the children’s game of musical chairs; a game with n players and n-1 chairs. When the music stops, each player is supposed to find a chair and be seated. Persons left standing are out of the game. The winner is the last of the final two players able to grab the remaining chair. The early dropouts are the physically least adept. By the end of the game, timing and more psychologically subtle characteristics begin to separate the continuing players from the drop-outs. No doubt luck has much to do with determining the ultimate winner.
The social construction of homelessness is the creation of a situation in which, as a matter of policy, too many poor people are asked to chase too few low cost housing units.
In more recent iterations, the metaphor that was once used to explain homelessness has been adapted to talk about overall housing UNaffordability (see for e.g., this video from the Sightline Institute). Compared to the first published (?) appearance of the metaphor in 1990, the metaphor has become more simple, streamlined, and clearer (from the Siteline Institute website linked above):
It’s like a huge game of musical chairs. If there aren’t enough chairs when the music stops, someone is left out. When there aren’t enough homes for people who live and work in a city, everybody has to compete for what’s available, and rents go up until people get priced out. In the housing market, instead of being fast, you just need to be rich to stay in the game.
A Great and Powerful Metaphor
This is a great and effective metaphor because it is simple and visceral. Most of us have had actual experience of playing (and losing) at musical chairs. We understand it as a structurally rigged game, where the rules dictate that there are many more losers than winners. This direct, shared experience with musical chairs predisposes us to get out of blaming those who are left chairless and to see the problem of chairlessness (or of being chair insecure) as a structural/purposeful problem of having too few chairs. It leads to a simple and obvious solution: we need more chairs.
Research has shown that the Sightline Institute video (under 2 minutes in length) was statistically significantly more effective in convincing people to support increasing the supply of housing than academic arguments, appeals to authority, and even more effective than other metaphors tested.
Bottom line, it’s a simple, effective metaphor which distills a complex set of systems into something digestible and persuasive. It’s been successful and, I believe, has played a big part in building the YIMBY movement’s success.
My Problem with the Metaphor
My problem with the metaphor is that it is too simple. Or, rather, that it leads one to solutions that are too simple. Yes, we need more chairs. AND, we don’t ONLY need more chairs.
And, before I get deeper on this critique, I should make sure it is abundantly clear that I believe that we need more housing of all kinds of different types and targeting all sorts of populations and income levels. So, while I am primarily an affordable housing advocate (it’s my job) and SV@Home primarily advocates for affordable housing (it’s our mission), I/we believe our county/region/state/country needs more housing of all types, including market rate housing. I say this because I want to be as explicit as possible that my problem is not with the fundamental concept that we need more chairs. This is a Yes/AND critique. Not an “Everything is WRONG!!!” critique.
So, back to the critique: while we need more chairs, we need other stuff too. Stuff that doesn’t fit nicely into the metaphor.
Affordable Chairs
The Siteline Institute video simply and elegantly explains vacancy chains and filtering. But, in high demand markets that attract high-income newcomers (like Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area), it can take decades before filtering impacts the prices seen by lower-income renters. If ever at all – see for e.g., this recent NY Times article, referencing a study in which 6 high production metros showed marked increases in rents over the past ~10 years, especially in the lower-rent segments of the market, despite producing proportionately more units than most other cities. In the reality of our housing market, it’s not that chairs are being taken away as much as it is that more and more people are joining the crowd milling about and competing for the scarce chairs. In high demand areas, production only makes housing more affordable if it outpaces demand, including addressing pent up demand. So, in housing markets like ours, where we’ve had decades of underbuilding, we can’t rely on market rate production to make housing affordable for lower-income renters (again, more market rate housing is still worthwhile in that new market rate housing relieves some demand and keeps housing prices from rising as fast as they would without it, even if not a panacea). To serve low-income renters who are suffering right now, we also need to build income-restricted affordable housing. We don’t only need more chairs. We also need more income-restricted, affordable chairs.
All 3 Ps
AND not just more affordable housing, we need all the 3Ps.
The CASA Compact recognized that more chairs is not enough in and of itself and created the 3Ps framework – Production (i.e., more chairs), Preservation (i.e., fixing up the run-down chairs that we already have), and Protection (e.g., people should not be forced out of their chairs without just cause). The 3Ps are a way to talk about big strategies for making sure that all people have affordable, high-quality homes. And, even with as much effort I’m putting into it, it is hard to stretch the musical chairs metaphor to cover the 3Ps.
SV@Home is a 3Ps organization (our former Executive Director, Leslye Corsiglia, was one of the co-chairs of the committee that produced the CASA Compact). And we therefore want communication frameworks that are inclusive of the 3Ps.
Another P Should Stand for POWER
AND not just the 3Ps, we need people power.
The musical chairs metaphor is an intentionally anti-NIMBY tool. It is an argument about why people should say yes to more housing.
NIMBYism historically is (and still is) about keeping those people out. Traditional NIMBYism is a racist (and classist) movement based upon the physical exclusion of low-income people, especially people of color.
However, as much as NIMBYism was and is about physical exclusion, it is also about whose voice matters, who has and should have power, who can be part of a community and who should be excluded.
And while the musical chairs metaphor is in opposition to the effects of NIMBYism (calls for more supply in the face of exclusion), the musical chair’s metaphor doesn’t confront the underlying inequities, the underlying beliefs, NIMBYism’s unconscious assumptions and arrangements.
So, to fully redress NIMBYism, we don’t only need more housing, we also need a housing movement that is rooted in racial justice, that is dedicated to building power in communities that have been historically (and still are) excluded.
An Ask
So that’s where I’m at with the musical chairs metaphor. I admire it deeply. AND it doesn’t feel useful to build a broader housing justice beyond our current crisis of housing unaffordability.
Not that we need to discard the metaphor. Instead, my ask here is that we get creative and come up with some more, additional metaphors, framing tools, and accessible talking points that bridge abundance and equity. This is something that we’re thinking about/working on here at SV@Home. But it is hard to come up with stuff as good and simple and elegant as the musical chairs. So, this is something we’d like to crowdsource, to tap your (our membership’s) collective knowledge and creativity. Let me know what you got! This is the brainstorming stage. All ideas are accepted!
See Part 2 for a brainstorm of a new metaphor.