Moral blindness is an inability to see an ethical reality right in front of one’s nose. When a liar says, “There is nothing wrong with lying – everyone does it,” he is suffering from moral blindness–an inability to see that lying is manipulative and that it fails to treat others with the respect they deserve. When a bystander walks past a suffering child and responds, “It is not my child, so it is not my concern,” she is suffering from moral blindness – failing to see that we have a responsibility to others in desperate need.

New Hampshire is suffering from a massive housing crisis, and the root cause is moral blindness. According to the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority’s 2019 Housing Market Report, New Hampshire needs an estimated 20,000 affordable homes to meet the economic needs of the state and our residents. If you don’t believe the numbers, just speak to anyone looking to buy a house or rent an apartment in New Hampshire today. Their stories are alarming. Young couples, growing families, aging seniors, and essential workers have nowhere to turn: they simply can’t find housing. Despite this, the common refrain is, “You need a home? Not my problem. I like my neighborhood as it is. Go find a home elsewhere.”

There are simply not enough accessory dwelling units, apartments, duplexes, townhouses, condominiums, or single-family homes for people currently living in New Hampshire, much less those who want to move here because of our employment opportunities or our beautiful resources. We need to build more housing, but pernicious roadblocks stand in the way. Those roadblocks are the very vocal NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) factions in every community that won’t let the developers build. These are the people I am writing about here.

The problem with moral blindness is that those who have it are unaware of their condition. Yes, we hear many excuses and justifications from those who oppose any development in their neighborhoods. When they defend their exclusionary zoning ordinances, or speak against new housing at public hearings, or publicly rail against the new Housing Appeals Board, you will hear them speak about the necessity of “preserving the character of our community,” or the importance of “local control,” or “greedy developers.” You shouldn’t be deceived. It is simply moral blindness talking at you – an inability to see that there is a desperate shortage of housing and a reluctance to acknowledge our moral responsibility in the matter.

So, just what is our moral responsibility? (I do really wish the NIMBY’s would pause their strident opposition to new housing, just for a moment, and reflect on this very question.)

Actually, no one is asking these fierce and self-righteous opponents of housing to share their own homes with those in need. And no one is even asking them to share their own property for housing development. In fact, we are not asking anything of them, except to stop using the local ordinances and their communities’ planning and zoning boards to prevent others among us from addressing the desperate shortage.

Yes, there are many among us in the state who want to help develop new homes. Our Center’s poll last year shows that 63% of New Hampshire voters support the development of more homes in their communities. These enterprising, open-minded, and caring people realize that affordable homes do not mean unsightly high-rise apartment buildings, but instead housing that is appropriate for our neighborhoods and that supports our families and businesses alike. But the morally blind are always waiting at community meetings to stand in the way. Just attend any land use board hearing for any new housing development in any community, and you will see the naysayers and hear their cries of outrage at the proposed development.

It might be one thing for you to walk past a suffering child when it is not your own child. I happen to think you are a monster, but I suppose someone somewhere might argue that you have no moral duty to save a child that is not your own. That said, I think we can all agree that if you do not act to help the unknown child and actively prevent other people from helping the child, you are a monster of the worst sort.

Maybe lacking an affordable home is not quite as distressing as a suffering child, but there is still a pressing basic human need at stake, and the obstructionism works just the same. Anti-housing voters everywhere are not just refusing to develop new homes and rental units on their own private property; they are actively preventing others from doing so as well (and for trivial reasons such as “the character of their community”).

Here is my response to that: if you want to preserve or enhance the real character of your community, i.e., your community’s moral character, start practicing some hospitality and tolerance for our young families, our low-wage workers, and our aging seniors looking to downsize. Instead of doing everything to prevent others from having a place to live, why don’t we all roll up our sleeves and work together to get appropriate new housing built in our communities? It is what decent human beings do.

Dr. Max Latona is executive director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College. The Center for Ethics in Society was founded in 2017 as a forum for research, discourse, and education about pressing ethical issues in New Hampshire’s communities and organizations. For more information, visit www.anselm.edu/ethics or email ethics@anselm.edu.”