{"product_id":"a-right-to-housing","title":"A Right to Housing?","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA radical blueprint for universal housing meets an unflinching assessment of why we haven’t won—from the best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eCapital City\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the fight for housing, we are caught between the world we know and the world we want. This book is both a road map and a reckoning. Drawing on his own experience of on-the-ground organizing, Samuel Stein presents practical policies for enacting a right to shelter, a right to a home, and a right to the city itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith raw honesty, he then explores why these visions founder on the rocks of political reality. He reveals the forces blocking our path—from the power of real estate capital to the inadequacy of our institutions—and captures the complex feelings of a left that has lost faith in the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten in the heady weeks surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s historic election for New York City mayor, Stein frames the book around the stirring possibilities and structural constraints of a socialist administration in the financial center of a sputtering empire. He opens a space for action in the absence of hope. This is an examination of life and politics at the intersection of optimism and pessimism, nihilism and naivety, faith and doubt—an essential book for activists, planners, and anyone who refuses to accept the housing crisis as inevitable or immutable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSamuel Stein\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the books \u003ci\u003eA Right to Housing?\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCapital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State\u003c\/i\u003e. He works as a housing policy researcher and advocate in New York City. His writing on urban politics and planning has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books, n+1, The Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, and many other publications.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat People Are Saying\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"It should come as a surprise to no one that the cost of housing has far outpaced growth in wages since 2000—it’s nothing short of an economic catastrophe for the idea of an American middle class. So, how can we unravel a tangled system that exists at local, state, and federal levels? Stein, a policy researcher and housing advocate writing in the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s historic political victory, has some worthwhile ideas, both practical and aspirational.\" Most Anticipated Books of 2026,  \u003cem\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Highly recommended for activists of all stripes, but a must-read for everyone who has struggled to instantiate a human right to housing.\" Gail Radford, author of \u003cem\u003eModern Housing for America\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A deeply thoughtful and provocative exploration of housing politics in the current conjuncture.\" David Madden, co-author of \u003cem\u003eIn Defense of Housing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"What a pleasure to see inside the doubting mind of Samuel Stein as he grapples with the impossibility of our housing quagmire. If you too have the uncomfortable suspicion that solving housing might be hopeless: read this book.\" Amanda Huron, author of \u003cem\u003eCarving out the Commons\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In this refreshingly honest look at the fight to secure housing as a human right, Samuel Stein turns his attention inward. What do we mean when we demand a right to housing? And how do we square this demand with a political and economic reality so at odds with its realization? As much a treatise on the undiminished power of the real estate state, Stein asks the reader to acknowledge the relative hopelessness of our aims. In leaning into the despairing aspects of our current conjuncture, Stein provides the socialist movement a rare gift – that of honesty. The hope, of course, is not to encourage complacency or retreat but to ask readers to face, forthrightly, the dissonances (cognitive and otherwise) within the struggle itself. For those engaged in the fight for socialism, \u003cem\u003eA Right to Housing? \u003c\/em\u003ewill remain a powerful little book, precisely because it demands that we start from the truth of our situation – and what a dismal truth that is – but that we nonetheless keep fighting. As Stein puts it beautifully, “it is entirely sensible to be hopeless, but it is entirely senseless to give up.\"  Kafui Attoh, author of \u003cem\u003eRights in Transit \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44996386455645,"sku":"9781836743262","price":25.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/0826\/1213\/files\/ARighttoHousing_verso2026.jpg?v=1788625633","url":"https:\/\/leftwingbooks.net\/products\/a-right-to-housing","provider":"Leftwingbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}