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Participant: Most of it comes down to money. #ey [renters] struggle to pay rent. #ey don't have any extra, and the landlord doesn't care. #ey're just in it for the monthly check. D. !e Good Old Days model. A strong sense of nostalgia infuses public thinking about housing quality. On one level, the nostalgic Good Old Days model is about costs—people imagine a past in which housing was affordable and didn't cause "nancial stress. On another level, this model involves an implicit understanding about the decline in people's "moral "ber." People these days don't care anymore about their homes and aren't motivated to maintain and keep them up like they used to. Similarly, unrealistic expectations about comfort are understood as a moral failing; people "these days" have come to expect cushy living conditions, which leads to dissatisfaction with housing and to stress when the reality does not meet these modern ideals. #e public assumes that this historical shi% is irreversible. #e unaffordability of housing is a reality of modern life, moral breakdown is a tide that cannot be turned back, and our unrealistic expectations of housing are an inevitable product of our entrenched consumer culture. Participant: #e cost of living is higher than it used to be. Everything around you—be it gas, food, etc. #e cost of maintaining the house has gone up. #e income levels for the same job has not gone up to the same level. So, everybody's budget's tighter. People don't have the disposable income like they used to, to do the extra repair here, an extra repair there. — Participant: Over the years that I've been living here, it's gotten more and more expensive, more difficult to "nd. And the newer opportunities that you hear about is going to high- end housing. So, it seems like, with the population growing and with the economy being what it is, Boston housing is a difficult part of many people's lives. E. !e Just the Basics cultural model. Members of the public o%en consider housing quality in terms of meeting the most basic standards: having four walls and a roof, plumbing, heat, and electricity. When this model is active and people are focused on these most basic standards, attention is trained away from other vital aspects of quality housing (e.g., built environments that support health and well- being), which are viewed as "extras" rather than as necessities. #e model is closely related to the de"nitional Place to Lay Your Head model. Participant: Shelter. Just something over you. A house, a tent, a box. Anything. Shelter. And maybe I have a pretty basic view on it. — Participant: It's a place that you can live in. A place where you can get along, that's where you're gonna sleep, live, where you can eat, you can cook, you can shower, that's housing. "A House, a Tent, a Box": Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Healthy Housing 21

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