Disproportionately impacting the low-income and poorly housed, COVID-19 was, in the words of one London politician, “a housing disease.” Historically, working-class people fought for and won public housing as a way of getting homes that wouldn’t cost their lives. Today, we need to improve on that past achievement — but in the United States as in Britain, that will also mean confronting some common foes.

British and American housing policy have been shadowing each other for decades. Both have aggressively pursued private home ownership as an economic and ideological weapon, leaving a trail of destruction in working-class communities, particularly communities of color.

The global real estate and finance industries and their political lackeys have systematically denigrated publicly owned housing. After all, it has always been a barrier to speculators’ power. More than that, affordable rents, secure tenancies, and homes safe from market-driven property deals are essential if the people who build and run our cities are also to live in them.