As a 43 year old woman, throughout my entire life housing is not something I’ve heard any politician provide any real, sensible solution to. Republicans seem to think it’s a hands-off issue, and Democrats seem to come up with platitudes instead of actual plans, saying things such as, “Yes, I believe we need affordable housing.”

Frankly, people living on the upper crusts of society seem completely out-of-touch with everyday Americans who are struggling and panicking to come up with rent, in fear of ending up homeless. With homeless Iowans having their property bulldozed, though, can you blame them?

Breaking Down the Math

The average apartment rent in Des Moines, IA is roughly $1,078 per month (Apartments.com).

Out-of-State Landlords are Draining Iowans Dry

Out-of-State Landlords Seize the Des Moines Metro

– 10% of the US population currently owns (1) ~82% of the real estate, (2) 81% of the stocks, and (3) 88% of the bonds (Federal Reserve Data, 1996). The top 5% of landowners (not 5% of the total population) own 75% of that land (Rural Psychology).

– Article – Out-of-State Landlords Seize the Des Moines Metro by Jason Clayworth. Axios Des Moines, 25 May 2023.

– A large rental property in Ames, Iowa called The Quarters is one of many examples wherein an out-of-state landlord* (The Tailwind Group headquartered in Mankato, MN, in this case) vacuums ~$275,000/mo. out of Iowa through rents, each month. 

– Half the tenants nationwide pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent. It’s considered the worst time in 36 years to be a renter in America ―It is the highest cost burden recorded by Zillow since the real estate firm began tracking the figure in 1979 (Zillow).

– 1 in 4 renting households spends at least 50 cents of every dollar they earn on rent (Harvard 2015).

– By age 30, the average millennial has spent 45% of their income on rent (USA TODAY).

 

We cannot…. keep… getting… bled dry.

For perhaps the first time in the history of its usage,
Let’s use Eminent Domain to actually help people

 

Before we unpack the logistics of the Sensible Housing Act, first let’s work to understand exactly what eminent domain is.

Apartment Improvers

Definition

 

The inherent power of a government entity to take privately owned property, especially land, and convert it to public use, subject to reasonable compensation for the taking (Black’s Law Dictionary 10 ed.).

 

The power of the government to take private property for a public use or public purpose without the owner’s consent, if it pays just compensation.  The process by which this is done is called condemnation (Ballantine’s Law Dictionary Legal Asst. ed.).

 

The theory of such power, otherwise known as compulsory purchase or expropriation, is that all lands are held mediately or immediately from the state, upon the implied condition that the eminent domain, the superior dominion, remains in the state, authorizing it to take the same for public uses, when necessity requires it, by paying therefor an equivalent in money.  it resembles the ancient prerogative of purveyance whereby the crown enjoyed the right of buying up provisions and other necessaries of  the use of the royal household at an appraised valuation, and in preference to all others, even without the consent of the owner. Re Barre Water Co. 62 Vt 27, 30 A 109. (Ballantine’s Law Dictionary 3rd ed.).

 

Excerpt from John E. Nowak and Ronald D. Rotunda’s Constitutional Law § 11.11, at 424-25 (4th ed. 1991) (quoting Bauman v. Ross, 167 U.S. 548, 574, 17 S.Ct. 966. (18971) “The term ’eminent domain’ is said to have originated with Grotius, the seventeenth century legal scholar.  Grotius believed that the state possessed the power to take or destroy property for the benefit of the social unity, but he believed that when the state so acted, it was obligated to compensate the injured property owner for his losses.  Blackstone, too, believed that society had no general power to take the private property of landowners, except on the payment of a reasonable price.  The just compensation clause of the fifth amendment to the Constitution was built upon this concept of a moral obligation to pay for governmental interference with private property…. No provision for the power of eminent domain appears in the federal Constitution.  The Supreme Court, however, has said that the power of eminent domain is an incident of federal sovereignty and an ‘offspring of political necessity.’  The Court has also noted that the fifth amendment’s limitation on taking private property is a tacit recognition that the power to take private property exists.”

 

Part One – A plan to help All Iowans:
Seize rental properties owned by Out-of-State Landlords
to reduce rent across the state and and improve Iowa’s healthcare system

 

1. Reduce the cost of rent for thousands of renters throughout the state – After the taking, rent will be drastically reduced for thousands of renters across the state. This is because, according to Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459, 170 N.W. 668, 3 A.L.R. 413 (Mich. 1919), “The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit for the shareholders.” Large rental properties, often owned by out-of-state shareholders, must prioritize “profit for shareholders” over the well-being of the renters. For taken properties, rent will be reduced to slightly above operations cost, with the exact amount of the “slightly above” percentage to be decided on by voters.

 

1.  Subsidize State Programs through the rent that is collected – The “slightly above” percentage described at the end of the previous section, will be used to (1) supplement and expand eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid while providing more appealing contract offers to surgeons and their teams, and (2) subsidize minimum wage (3) fix Iowa’s crumbling roads and bridges. Revenue for these programs, and revenue for the Statewide Gardening Program included in the Right to Garden Act, will also be paid for via the Iowa Commonwealth Act.

 

1. Keep millions of dollars currently being vacuumed from outside the state, via rents, in Iowa  – This type of relationship, wherein millions are vacuumed out of the while Iowans run “rental treadmills”, was set up prior to the current generation being born: it is not something discussed in public discourse, however it directly impacts Iowans to such a large extent. Thousands of Iowans running “rental treadmills” are feeling completely exhausted and politically unadvocated for. 

 

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History Tidbit, Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. (1919):

 

By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a surplus of $60 million. The price of the Model T, Ford’s mainstay product, had been successively cut over the years while the wages of the workers had dramatically, and quite publicly, increased. The company’s president and majority stockholder, Henry Ford, sought to end special dividends for shareholders in favor of massive investments in new plants that would enable Ford to dramatically increase production, and the number of people employed at his plants, while continuing to cut the costs and prices of his cars. In public defense of this strategy, Ford declared, “My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.”

 

While Ford may have believed that such a strategy might be in the long-term benefit of the company, he told his fellow shareholders that the value of this strategy to them was not a main consideration in his plans. The minority shareholders objected to this strategy, demanding that Ford stop reducing his prices when they could barely fill orders for cars and to continue to pay out special dividends from the capital surplus in lieu of his proposed plant investments. Two brothers, John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge, owned 10% of the company, among the largest shareholders next to Ford.

 

The Court was called upon to decide whether the minority shareholders could prevent Ford from operating the company in the direction that he had declared.

The Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford could not lower consumer prices and raise employee salaries. Notably, obiter dicta (a non-binding remark) in the opinion written by Russell C. Ostrander argued that the profits to the stockholders should be the primary concern for the company directors. Because this company was in business for profit, Ford could not turn it into a charity. This was compared to a spoliation of the company’s assets. The court therefore upheld the order of the trial court requiring that directors declare an extra dividend of $19.3 million. It said the following, “A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits or to the nondistribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes.”

 

As a direct result of this decision, Henry Ford threatened to set up a competing manufacturer as a way to finally compel his adversaries to sell back their shares to him. Subsequently, the money that the Dodge brothers received from the case would be used to expand the Dodge Brothers Company.

 

Ford was also motivated by a desire to squeeze out his minority shareholders, especially the Dodge brothers, whom he suspected (correctly) of using their Ford dividends to build a rival car company. By cutting off their dividends, Ford hoped to starve the Dodges of capital to fuel their growth.

 

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Part Two – Statewide Initiative helps Iowans build Credit

 

The initiative has two parts, both promulgated around public ad campaigns:

 

Educate Iowa’s youth about how to build credit via responsible credit card use – can lead to earlier qualification for home loans and other types of loans.

 

New Credit Building Initiative for longtime Renters – Unless a renter uses a credit card to pay their rent, payments are generally not reported to credit bureaus. As a result, many later-in-life tenants who would otherwise qualify for a home loan do not. Although educating Iowa’s youth helps set people on the right path toward building good credit, the credit building initiative for renters will enable any Iowan who has rented for 2+ years to have all rental payments to date, from the time they were 18, retroactively applied to their credit score. 

 

The State of Iowa has subject-matter jurisdiction
over all properties in Iowa.

 

For those who say it could never happen:

 

What locally elected or appointed judge
would rule in favor of out-of-state shareholders
over much-needed relief of Iowans?

 

Enhanced Personal Freedom

 

Some may wrongly argue that this proposal is “socialist” or “communist”, however it is distinctly not either of those two forms of government. Instead of restricting freedom, as those types of governments do, the Sensible Housing Act will enhance peoples’ personal freedom when enacted in tandem with the Right to Garden Act and Iowa Commonwealth Act. 

References

Apartments.com. (Retrieved June 9 2025). What is the average rent in Des Moines, Iowa? https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/des-moines-ia/.

Ballantine’s Law Dictionary Third Edition. James A. Ballantine (James Arthur 1871-1949).  Edited by William S. Anderson.  © 1969 by THE LAWYER’S CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY.  Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 68-30931.

 

Ballantine’s Law Dictionary Legal Assistant Edition

by Jack Ballantine (James Arthur 1871-1949).  Doctored by Jack G. Handler, J.D. © 1994 Delmar by Thomson Learning.  ISBN 0-8273-4874-6.

 

Black’s Law Dictionary Deluxe Tenth Edition by Henry Campbell Black, Editor in Chief Bryan A. Garner. ISBN: 978-0-314-61300-4. 

 

Federal Reserve Bank data in LEFT BUSINESS OBSERVER, April 3, 1996, p. 5: www.endgame.org/landlords-facts.html

 

Geisler, RURAL SOCIOLOGY, 1993, 58(4): 532-546: www.endgame.org/landlords-facts.htm

 

Hodak, Marc (Fall 2007). “The Ford Squeeze-Out”. Hodak Value Advisors and New York University. SSRN 1011924

 

2013 analysis from Harvard’s JOINT CENTER FOR HOUSING STUDIES. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/08/13/3691430/zillow-median-renter-report/ 

 

USA TODAY. (May 18, 2018)., Millennials spend huge amounts on rent, using up 45% of income made by age 30 by Bob Sullivan (May 18, 2018): https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2018/05/18/millennials-spendlarge-percentage-income-rent/609061002/ 

 

ZILLOW. (August 12, 2015). Worst Renters Have Had It In 30 Years:. Svenja Gudell. http://www.zillow.com/research/q2-2015-rent-mortgageaffordability-10268/#_edn