We should all be so lucky.

Honestly, writing about this feels transgressive. It is about money, and sounds a little like gloating. It is a topic I never bring up in conversation with people. But I want to talk about what owning a house has meant to me. I read everything I come across about the sub-prime mortgage market collapsing and I read about revisions to the mortgage income tax deduction and I always read Surreal Estate. I hate very many manifestations of the American Dream; I think the yearn for a single family detached home has caused terrible environmental and societal outcomes. And yet.

I always knew I would own a house. I grew up on a suburban acre; we are upper-middle class. My parents promised us down payments for our houses as wedding presents. When our permanent settling preceded marriages, they offered again. When I told my parents I’d be in second grad school for several years, my Dad said I might want to buy a house rather than rent. When we hung up the phone I walked straight out the door to go get a book on homebuying. I read the whole book that night. Counting dorm rooms and summer locations, I moved twenty-five times in four cities in the ‘90’s. I desperately wanted a permanent home. I wanted my house my way; I wanted my place to look like me. I did not want to negotiate another single thing about how I lived at house meeting.

With the down from my parents, we bought my house in the late 90’s. We bought a beautiful two bedroom Craftsmen bungalow for cheap. Sacramento was more underrated then and the housing bubble hadn't started at the time. My monthly mortgage payments are low. If you’re Californian, you would cry to hear what I pay per month. When I have a roommate, my mortgage payments are embarrassingly low. And that is what my house has come to mean to me. I bought it for permanence and domesticity and beauty and autonomy. But now, my cheap housing means freedom.

I own a cheap and beautiful house in a place where I love to live. From now on, that will always be my default. Being able to afford that means that I can choose things. I could choose a do-gooder career that doesn’t pay me much. If I had talent, I could be an artist. When a partner comes along, he could choose to do childcare instead of working. (I don’t think I am likely to do that, but maybe he’ll want to.) We can afford to live in my little house on one salary. I can afford for my friends to live with me for free when they are between work; I can offer my young friends more ease and comfort than they could elsewise afford. I am not trapped in a job. I can rent my house for twice the mortgage and use the difference to live in Oakland. My cheap secure housing means I am safe and free. I am grateful all the time that we bought that house.

I watch people in the Bay Area whose houses are exactly the opposite. Their houses are so expensive that they must work in high paying jobs just to live where they do (and these are not extravagant mansions, folks). They work long hours and give up recreation to own that house. Their expensive houses eat all their slack; a home disaster could tip them over into financial ruin. It is backwards from me, whose house gives me wealth and choice.

There are lots of mechanisms to grant people enough financial security that they can find works that fulfill them and help society. You could do school loan forgiveness or offer higher education for free. You could make sure their salaried work pays enough and has enough work-life balance that they can do good stuff on the side. You can give everyone health care, to de-link jobs and health care and fear. You could do fancy tax things or social safety net things. There are mechanisms and policies that would lift people out of the state where their lives are forced choices into drudgery. But the one that worked for me was cheap housing that I bought for other reasons. I don’t know if that is the best way to arrange that for a lot of people. But I treasure that security and freedom and I wish it for everyone.