No, clearly not. Housing in Switzerland is becoming more and more of a luxury in some regions. Affordable housing should be a fundamental right in Switzerland. According to Caritas, the cost of housing represents 1/3 of the budget for many households, and this can rise to over 50% of the budget for those on low incomes or single-parent families, which is enormous. We clearly need to build more LUP (Logement d'utilité publique) housing, the aim of which is to make rents affordable. It's clear that a large proportion of real estate companies charge very high prices and take advantage of the fact that in some regions there is a housing crisis to play on these high prices. For example, tenants will have been overpaid by more than 10 billion for the year 2021. This situation is intolerable: tenants are being taken advantage of. What's more, the various national and cantonal parliaments want to tighten tenants' rights more and more, particularly when it comes to contesting rent increases. The right-wing and center parties are groveling before the real-estate industry, and don't give a damn about tenants. The main thing is that the real-estate companies are lining their pockets.



There could be solutions to avoid excessively high rents:&nbsp;

Return to state control of rents, as was the case in Switzerland until 1970. A supervisory body would ensure that housing prices were not excessive, and would be able to tell régies to lower their rents if they were not in line, at the risk of being fined.

Stop real estate speculation

Maintain at all costs the right of pre-emption to enable communes to buy land as a priority from the private sector in order to build LUP (Logement d'utilité publique) housing at affordable rents.

The question is not whether rents are affordable. It's like health insurance - it's hard to deny people's experiences.

The question is whether policy is doing enough to make rents affordable.

What does that mean? What is politics supposed to do to make rents affordable? Is politics even supposed to make rents affordable? Switzerland, i.e. the majority of the population, is center-right, so we won't be talking about social housing (France, UK) or price controls or anything like that. This doesn't exactly leave politicians with many instruments with which to act. Increasing habitable areas? Apart from the consequences for tourism, the environment, agriculture, etc., these are not necessarily useful areas. Favoring dormitory villages, or even relocating economic centers via infrastructure/transportation, telecommuting, etc.? Good luck with that. Administrative or legal issues? Politicians have just put two things to the vote that I'm sure will solve everything and win unanimous support.

In concrete terms, it's like asking a guard dog to watch over the house after tying him to a stake. He may bark, but that's about it. Given its mandate (and powers), politics does what it can. So yes, it does enough.

If someone tells me what more politics is supposed to do, I'm pretty sure I can answer why it shouldn't be allowed to.