There are a lot of goodies in the housing bill legislation that was recently passed to help address the foreclosure crisis. But renters are not so lucky, according to an op-ed piece that appears in the Boston Globe. The Bay Area should take note, since the high cost of buying a home means that many residents are renters.

NOT EVERYBODY in the family tree makes it into the family portrait. Most families have ne’er-do-wells; many families crop them out.

Housing USA is like a family portrait. We see ourselves as a nation of homeowners or wannabe homeowners; and our policies, programs, and rhetoric support that image. The news focuses on the homeownership crisis: foreclosures, toxic loans, mortgage fraud, the “jingle mail” when homeowners, facing foreclosure, send keys to the lender. The major federal housing initiatives (including the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System) have helped more than two-thirds of us buy into the American dream. Indeed, a few years ago policy-makers were lauding the nifty subprime mortgages marketed even to buyers with poor credit, enabling even them to own.

What about renters? One-third of all households rent - surely they are part of the American family; but policies, as well as rhetoric, have overlooked them. While the federal government has subsidized some renters (25 percent of eligible households) and the production of some “affordable” units, those subsidies pale beside the forgone tax revenues from the mortgage interest deduction, property tax deduction, and capital gains exclusion.