Not having enough food to eat today. Being unsure if you'll have enough to eat tomorrow. Missing a rent payment. Then having your hours cut at work.
Being short on the basics of life is stressful. But more than that, it actually affects our ability to think, to operate cognitively at a high level. Planning for the future, looking further than the next crisis becomes literally impossible. Scarcity* limits our ability to thrive, and threatens our survival.
Housing plays into this as much as food, money and friendship. Insecure accomodation, or no accomodation, can put any one of us in a scarcity mindset.
- If you don't know where you're going to stay tonight: You're at risk.
- If you don't know when your rent will go up, or by home much: You're at risk.
- If you're constantly on a 6-month fixed-term tenancy agreement: You're at risk.
- If you're receiving government assistance, but your rent could go up without your support increasing: You're at risk.
There's the beginnings of action happening to address this at the extreme ends of our society in New Zealand. But how many of "the rest of us" are also affected by a scarcity mindset because of housing.
- If you are living paycheck-to-paycheck and just making your mortgage payments: Are you at risk?
- If your flatmate just moved out and you're struggling to fill the room: Are you at risk?
- If your child is about to go to school but you want to move to avoid the local school with a bad reputation: Are you at risk?
- If house prices are dropping and you're looking at negative equity: Are you at risk?
People in a scarcity frame of mind aren't able to perform, contribute, and live at anything close to their potential capability. And none of us are immune.
How much are we as a society missing out?
*If you're interested in the concept of scarcity and how it affects us, check out the NPR Hidden Brain podcast episode "Tunnel Vision".