Homeownership is at relatively low levels in the United States. There is a disparity in homeownership between different racial and ethnic groups. Affordable housing is hard to come by in many housing markets. So why is homeownership not an issue more 2020 candidates are talking about?

Several possible reasons come to mind:

1. Policy options regarding housing on a national scale are not easy and/or may not be popular. Homeownership gets at a whole set of thorny issues including meritocracy, unequal distribution of resources, the power of local government, and exclusion from certain communities.
2. Federal policy has done less subsidizing of homeownership in recent years (even as the general policy over the last century or so has been to do so). Other areas of policy are more attractive or pressing (see #4 for example).
3. Many Americans desire to become homeowners at some point (including millennials) and they assume it will happen at some point, even if they face obstacles now. Perhaps they don’t see a big role for the federal government to play in this. Perhaps many Americans think housing is a free market operation (despite evidence to the contrary).
4. Debates about college loan debt and free college may be proxy issues for homeownership. No shortage of ink has been spilled writing about how possible young homeowners cannot purchase a home because of college debt. Provide a cheaper or less-debt-inducing college experience and homeownership rates might climb again.
5. Economic and social conditions have changed to the point where although many Americans still plan to own a home, it is no longer the same marker of success it was in the past. Success now may be no college debt or a fulfilling career or a funded retirement.

Even as American politicians for roughly a century have appealed to voters with arguments about expanding homeownership (for example, see Herbert Hoover in 1931 or George W. Bush in 2002), this election cycle may few such arguments.