“But we also think that the responsibility for the safety of [low-income people] — and let’s face it, it’s low-income people who have this problem — that’s a responsibility for society at large, for everyone, not just for the people who happen to own the buildings where these people make their homes.”
Whether you sell it or not, that doesnt change the fact that you have invested a great deal of money into it, therefore it is an investment. Its status in your life has nothing to do with whether you plan on making a profit on it or not, its merely the definition of investing money.
It’s an investment for you but it’s an expense for your clients. It’s an investment for you because if you sell it, you’re not homeless. You can realize the return on investment. I’m a poor person who is fortunate enough to own my home. It doesn’t make sense for me to think of my home as an investment because I can never realize the return.
If I need to buy a pacemaker or an artificial heart for however many hundreds of thousands of dollars, you would call that an investment. That’s absurd.