People who know me can attest that I often use “frolic” and “mobilize” to describe my urge to meander about — I’m rarely home. 

But I can’t frolic from apartment to apartment, city to city, forever. That reality feeds my anxieties about what a “home” even means, or whether I’ll ever be able to secure a place to reside for a number of years. 

The thought first struck me when I joked with my older sister about inheriting our family’s little slate-gray house on the North Shore of Massachusetts. 

“Oh, no, you’re not getting the house,” she laughed. “I already asked Mom for it, and she said I could have it.” 

While I was affronted that my sister had already unofficially staked a claim on our childhood home, this exchange also made me ponder: With rising costs, idling wages and the economic uncertainty facing even middle-class families, would my family even own that house decades from now? Or would it be swallowed by the same forces pricing out families everywhere?

That question lands differently now after three years at USC. The University’s presence in South Central makes it impossible to ignore how unstable housing has become, where the housing crisis is a painfully present force. If renting near campus or securing postgraduate housing already leaves students’ stomachs filled with knots, then the idea of eventually owning a home — the traditional marker of adulthood — feels like a mirage. 

A report from the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate shows the scale of the problem: Between 2018 and 2024, Los Angeles County certified about 152,000 new units, of which only a small fraction were deemed affordable for lower-income households. Along a similar vein, the same report found that affordable housing construction is stagnating: Since 2021, fewer than 100,000 total units have been completed, far below the 700,000 needed by 2029, including nearly 300,000 affordable ones. 

The scarcity of safe, affordable housing near campus doesn’t just burden students; it reflects a wider housing crunch across L.A. Entire neighborhoods feel the strain of rapidly-increasing costs and dwindling options, and new multi-story student apartments tower over the vanishing duplexes of South Central, culminating in a mounting pressure to leave, especially for the deep-rooted, predominantly Black and Latine, residents of South Central.

Nationally, the picture is no better. Baby boomers and Gen Xers owned homes at a 49% rate at age 31, while millennials trail behind at 42% at the same age. First-time buyers once made up half of the market in 2010; in 2024, they accounted for a quarter, according to a chart by Apollo Global Management.  

Some politicians, most notably within the Trump administration, scapegoat undocumented immigrants for housing and general economic strain, but that logic backfires. Data from the Urban Institute suggests that mass deportations shrink the construction labor pool, deepening housing shortages. 

President Donald Trump’s budget proposals risk jeopardizing rental assistance; his Department of Housing and Urban Development proposal could endanger homes for more than one million low-income households, including a proposed two-year limit on public housing and Section 8 voucher programs that could push 1.4 million families to the brink of homelessness. 

Additionally, a potential consolidation of block-grant programs — merging existing federal housing funds into a single, less-regulated pool with broad state discretion — threatens to dismantle decades of housing support. 

Even tariffs have taken a toll: The National Association of Home Builders estimates Trump’s tariffs could add more than $9,000 to the cost of building a home, while proposals to privatize government-sponsored enterprises that help buyers finance mortgages, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will potentially restrict access for moderate-income borrowers. 

For students already struggling with yearly tuition increases and the overall rising cost of living, the off-campus housing market offers few lifelines. Private housing companies such as Orion Housing — which owns more than 100 properties surrounding University Park Campus — have turned the neighborhood into a profit engine.

In January, Orion was found guilty in the L.A. Superior Court of withholding a security deposit in bad faith, with other previous tenants recalling months-long water leaks, infestations and stolen packages ignored by management. Yet, for many students, Orion was the only affordable option left amid a market dominated by equally costly luxury developments such as the Lorenzo, or those run by management companies like Tripalink or Mosaic. 

When private landlords like Orion exploit students and displace longtime residents, stability feels impossible. When institutions like USC, which publicly champion sustainability and inclusion, sell off spaces like the USC Peace Garden for quick development deals and cash flow, they send a clear message: Permanence and affordability are expendable. 

It’s not just that homeownership is harder to acquire than it was for older generations; the entire housing ecosystem has been reshaped to prioritize profit over people. The result? Future generations growing up with fewer affordable options, fewer community ties and fewer paths to ever planting roots in one place.