[hau]

It's about safety and having a tomorrow. A lot of places where you won't live long without housing. You could live your whole life without strong connections to other people even if a miserable one.

Not having a major disruption to your whole life beyond your control is a meaningful thing, and a basic need. It could be reliable, predictable, stable source of income or saving, which allows you to rent without such concerns. It could be owning place to sleep, to eat, to invite friends.

[prewett]

Not being able to afford a house doesn't imply that you're in risk of being homeless. OP seems to be using home owning as the measure for having hope in life, which is ridiculous. Now when I lived in Beijing, rent was expensive (for any place a westerner would see as livable), the apartments were lousy, finding an apartment was a hassle, landlords were annoying, and I ended up moving every year. Sure, all the foreigners kvetched about finding an apartment. Every one of us had some sort of major disruption due to something out of our control (that's pretty much going to happen in China). None of us lost hope in life because of it.