The “American dream” can mean many different things for 
many different people, but for a lot of Americans, that dream includes owning your own house. Before the housing bust, Americans had achieved the highest rate of homeownership in our history with 69% of American citizens owning a home. That number has fallen off in recent years, but homeownership remains an integral part of the foundation of this nation. The federal government has done much to encourage homeownership through the years and the Obama Administration has set up many programs to help homeowners faced with foreclosure to either refinance their unmanageable mortgages or go through a structured sale process that will allow the homeowner to avoid foreclosure. The jury is still out on whether these programs have been successful but there is no doubt that the mortgage interest tax deduction and other preferential tax treatment afforded to homebuyers has encouraged homeownership in this country.
Should we as a society be putting so much focus on owning a home and should the government be using taxpayer dollars to promote homeownership?
Two recent articles look at these issues in two very different ways. In Saturday’s New York Times, financial reporter Joe Nocera penned an article called Wake-Up Time For a Dream which puts the blame for the financial crisis squarely on the shoulders of the dream of homeownership. Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect provides an opposite viewpoint in his piece, Don’t Blame the Dream of Homeownership.
Who do you agree with? Have we taken the dream of homeownership too far or is blame being unfairly placed on a long-held American value?
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