After World War II, the GI Bill helped create the strongest middle class the world had ever seen. It paved the way for ordinary Americans to own their own homes and gave them a real stake in the country they loved. Veterans and their families founded communities, raised children, and strengthened schools and places of worship. They spurred the growth of major cities, colleges, research universities, and a technological boom the world had never seen before. Now this is coming to an end.
Today, hardly any young Americans can afford to own their own home. Trump’s answer to that? Fifty-year mortgages. I’m no math genius, but if the average home buying age is 40, that means no American will ever actually have their home paid off.
But that’s all by design.
The foreclosure disaster
The clearest example of where American home ownership is headed is the foreclosure disaster currently unfolding for veterans and their families. Since the Trump administration eliminated the VA Servicing Purchase Program, or VASP, more than 10,000 veterans have lost their homes to foreclosure. About 90,000 others were behind on their mortgage payments or were already in the foreclosure process. How many veterans would have been able to keep their homes if VASP had remained in effect is unclear. The Department of Veterans Affairs is quick to point out that there are “reasons for foreclosures other than the lack of VASP” – and there certainly are – but that doesn’t mean the program’s elimination hasn’t cost veterans their homes.
This wasn’t an unforeseen accident. The mortgage industry warned that unwinding VASPs without a succession plan in place would lead directly to foreclosures. The government did it anyway. But no matter how you twist and turn it: you will pay for this crazy decision. VA loans are backed and guaranteed by American taxpayers.
What makes the whole thing particularly cruel is that many of these veterans were not lost. For some, their disability pension or other income would have been enough to stay in the house – if they had been offered a viable repayment structure. Under VASP, thousands of borrowers in need have been able to obtain sustainable, affordable mortgages. But the door was slammed shut without much warning, leaving veteran families stranded between bureaucratic failure and financial ruin.
Anti-veteran policies in practice
This is what anti-veteran politics looks like in real life. It’s not always loud. It doesn’t always come packaged in “Suckers and Losers.” Sometimes it looks like paperwork, delay, indifference – and a government deciding that veterans can take another hit.
It looks like monthly mortgage payments rising by hundreds of dollars while groceries, gas and everything else also become more expensive. Trumpenomics 101.
And this disaster is unfolding amid a housing market that is already crushing ordinary Americans — especially younger families and first-time buyers. The proportion of first-time buyers has fallen to a historic low of just 21 percent. Their average age is now 40 years old – also a record. Repeat buyers, on the other hand, are older, wealthier and more likely to pay large down payments or buy outright with cash. In other words, the ladder to home ownership is being raised, and veterans are still being asked to climb.
Home ownership as wealth creation
This is significant because homeownership has historically been one of the primary ways veterans build wealth after service. It literally built the America we all enjoy today. If you delay that for a decade, you’re not just postponing a purchase. You rob yourself of years of equity, stability and opportunities. Even according to the National Association of Realtors, delaying the home purchase from 30 to 40 years can mean the loss of around $150,000 in equity for a typical entry-level home. For a veteran trying to transition from military service to civilian life, this is not an abstract statistic. That’s the difference between a house that’s paid off before you leave the workforce and one that isn’t.
Trump’s response to this crisis is not to restore protections for VA borrowers or expand affordable housing. Instead, his administration floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage for all Americans. As I said: This is not a solution. This is a trap. Yes, in the short term this might reduce the monthly rate a little. In the long term, however, it buries borrowers with far more interest and slows the accumulation of equity to a crawl. One analysis found that a 50-year mortgage on a $400,000 home saves about $250 a month, but costs more than $378,000 in additional interest compared to a traditional 30-year loan. This is not a return to the American dream. This is his refinancing into permanent debt.
One of the greatest achievements of the GI Bill and the classic American home ownership model was that a mortgage could be paid off in 15 to 25 years – leaving room for second mortgages to finance equity building, college tuition, debt consolidation, vacation homes, and so on. We will never see this kind of wealthy middle class in America again. Really not.
Blackstone and repression
Major corporations like Blackstone continue to expand in the rental market, buying up apartments, student housing, mobile home parks and single-family homes in emerging markets across the country. The result is a housing system in which big investors scale up, rents continue to rise, and ordinary families are asked to settle for smaller futures. Veterans are expected to compete in this market—after being deprived of the very safety nets that were supposed to reward their service.
Trump built his career and fortune using the same methods Blackstone uses. He was far less successful, but it shows that he is a real believer: mass ownership of real estate for the few, not the many.
A country that can endlessly spend money on wars but fails to protect veterans from losing their homes on the other side of the war is not just morally bankrupt – it is a disgrace.
Veterans were promised a path to the middle class.
Instead, they find themselves on the path to homelessness.
