GUEST WORDS--If housing is a human right, then it should no more be the vehicle for profiteering than other basic utilities of human existence such as the supply of water, education or life-saving medicine. If housing is a human right, then profiteering off housing is not only bad policy, it’s also immoral. Among numerous groups in California and elsewhere, there is much talk about a “housing crisis.” Yet this talk is misleading, and if self-styled “housing advocates” want to invoke any crisis, they should more properly be discussing an “affordable housing crisis.” As State Senator Nancy Skinner has pointed out, there are currently more than 1.2 million vacant units in California. According to the quasi-governmental housing giant Freddie Mac, the housing deficit in California amounts to some 830k units. This figure comes from just before the pandemic struck, in Feb. 2020, and before the exodus of firms and residents from the state appears to have accelerated.