Housing
In shortfall: more than 1.1 billion people live in slums or informal settlements, per UN figures presented at the 2026 World Urban Forum. The same figures show the housing crisis affects nearly 2.8 billion people worldwide.
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Most of the global housing shortfall sits in countries where homes are built by households and informal builders. There, land tenure, titling, sanitation and slum upgrading are government and community tasks that no shareholder vote reaches. Corporate conduct matters in the high-income rental and for-sale markets where listed landlords, builders and their lobbies operate. The FTC found Invitation Homes charged renters undisclosed junk fees that could top 1,700 dollars a year, and the company settled for 48 million dollars in 2024. The Justice Department's antitrust case over RealPage's rent-setting algorithm ended in a November 2025 settlement barring use of real-time confidential data, after prosecutors said the software let landlords coordinate rent increases. Real-estate companies including Blackstone, Essex and Equity Residential were top donors to the 72 million dollar campaign that defeated California's 2018 rent-control initiative. The National Association of Realtors was the largest US federal lobbying spender in 2024 at 86.3 million dollars. If every listed housing company treated affordability as a core objective and put that lobbying weight behind zoning reform and supply, conditions in rich rental markets would ease. The billion-plus people in informal settlements would remain largely untouched, so owners help at the margin while public policy and household investment carry the outcome.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- 1.1 billion people live in slums. Can they be housed in dignity?, UN News, 2026-05-17
- FTC Takes Action Against Invitation Homes for Deceiving Renters, Charging Junk Fees, Withholding Security Deposits, and Employing Unfair Eviction Practices, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 2024-09-24
- New limits for rent algorithm that prosecutors say let landlords drive up prices, NPR, 2025-11-25
- California Proposition 10, Local Rent Control Initiative (2018), Ballotpedia, 2018
- NAR spent more on lobbying than any other group in 2024, Real Estate News, 2025-02-14
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. Searches located extensive government action on corporate landlords, including the FTC case against Invitation Homes, the Justice Department RealPage settlement and congressional letters, but no Rule 14a-8 proposal, investor coalition engagement or proxy voting policy aimed at listed landlords, homebuilders or their trade associations on housing affordability, rent-setting or eviction practices. The pressure on this sector has come through regulators, prosecutors and legislators rather than through ownership.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Doughnut Economics's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.