In America, home ownership is considered to be part and parcel of what helps define someone or some family that has achieved or is in the process of achieving that American dream; for one's home is really one's castle, and thereby a valuable sanctuary in what for a lot of Americans, is a life that presents far too often, a sea of trouble. Further to the point, those that do not own their own homes, have the fundamental issue that they still have a need to have somewhere to rest their weary heads and thereby to have safe shelter, of which, without the necessary income, credit, or money to purchase their own place, no matter how modest that place might be, they are thereby left to rent what they can, for whatever price that they can rent such for.
As reported by politifact.com, in a report issued by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, "In 2016, households that spend over half of their total income in housing included about 11 million renters." That amount of money being spent just to have a place to lay one's head down, does not take into account, the further monies needed for healthcare, education, food, utilities, transportation, and anything else of relevancy for a given family to thereby live a sustainable life. So that, when any family is placed into the unenviable situation of having to give up more than half of their total income, just to have shelter, that means almost for a certainty that they are going to have to sacrifice something else, and maybe many other necessary things in order to have some sort of semblance of sustainability, while still being in perpetual fear and constant danger of losing that which they really must have.
Those that do not own their own shelter, are at the beck and call of all those that do; and when those that own shelter of all different stripes and quality are able to dictate to the helpless and poor the price of admission for that shelter, those that have no bargaining power and with little ability to travel outside their domain of current residency, are going to have to pay the freight for that shelter, without much wiggle room, whatsoever.
While this country rightly understands the necessity of providing what is known as "food stamps" for those poor that qualify for such; it does not on the other hand, do nearly as robust a job at providing housing vouchers or housing subsidies or housing choices, for those that are in need of a helping hand for the shelter that they so require. When any country, permits those that work hard for a living, to achieve that, without receiving in return a fair and living wage, then unsurprisingly, those people with that shortfall of income, are vulnerable to all the ills and troubles that not having the right amount of compensation places them into. When the poor are precluded from being provided with good options to live in safe neighborhoods consisting of rent so being paid that effectively is a net amount reasonable for their given situation; then what happens, is that those poor are forever exploited by those that have or control that ownership, for the expressed benefit of those owners -- while that government of, by, and for the people, effectively looks the other way.