Owners vs. renters: The political battle over America’s single-family homes | CNN Business

Mona Gass’ home is caught in the messy politics of America’s housing crisis. Gass, 72, pays $2,500 a month for a three-bedroom single-family rental she shares with her 94-year-old mother. It’s one of dozens of homes at Avilla Lehi Crossing, a gated community of detached single-family rentals outside Phoenix with a shared pool, outdoor grills and a maintenance team on site. They moved into the roughly 1,200-square-foot home six years ago, after her mother sold her house. The ranch-style home with a private entrance and porch fits them well, even if it’s built “a little cheaply,” Gass said. It was always going to be a rental for the two of them together — no worrying about fixing a broken AC or a leaky sink. With her mom getting older, Gass wasn’t sure how long she’d stay, and homes around Phoenix had become wildly unaffordable. Anything beat living in an apartment building with shared walls and neighbors upstairs. “Apartment complexes in Phoenix are all two and three stories. I’m not doing stairs,” she said. Rental communities like Avilla have expanded rapidly in the Sunbelt over the last decade. Roughly one in ten new US single-family homes is now constructe