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The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

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Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#111

Post by refurb »

yellowapple wrote: post #109
refurb wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if I don't want to own? If I'm some early 20's person just starting out, no money to my name, I need a cheap place to rent. I don't want to own or in fact, I probably can't own. And it's not just early 20's people. I moved to a new city for 1 year with the intent of returning. I don't want to buy anything, I want to rent. Landlord's are providing me a service in that case - housing.

> If I'm some early 20's person just starting out, no money to my name, I need a cheap place to rent. I don't want to own or in fact, I probably can't own. Which is exactly why it's handy to be able to pool resources with other people looking to do the same thing, thus spreading the debt (if there is any) - and the risks thereof - across multiple parties. Think of it less like a real estate purchase and more like a s…

But I don't want to buy and sell into a cooperative. I can't pool my money, I have none beyond my paycheck. I want to rent a place. I need landlords for that.

I've heard stories about cooperatives in NYC and the bureaucracy can be a negative. It sounds like an HOA or condo board.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#112

Post by refurb »

door100 wrote: post #97
refurb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure the landlord is doing something I can’t, as a tenant, can’t do myself - if all I have is an income of a few thousand a month and I need housing, the landlord is providing me housing I couldn’t otherwise afford.

What kind of housing someone can afford is a political question. Our current answer to it is that this should be resolved through market mechanisms, which creates high prices alongside scarcity

If you're just starting out it doesn't matter if homes are $100k or $1M, you don't have money to purchase.

People act like renting is some sort of evil forced upon people, but don't realize there is a big market for renting. People don't always want to own their own housing.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#113

Post by refurb »

yellowapple wrote: post #98
refurb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a great theoretical internet take and not applicable to the real world in the least. So some 50 year old blue collar dude who saves just enough to buy a duplex and live in half of it, but can’t stop working or he’ll starve, has suddenly been propelled from the working class into the lazy, cigar-smoking, top hat twirling capital class?

Yes. If he wants to not be in that "lazy, cigar-smoking, top hat twirling capital class" (as you put it - because apparently hyperbole and gross misrepresentation of an argument counts as "discussion" on Hacker News nowadays), he is welcome to transition his ownership of that duplex into, say, a housing cooperative consisting of himself and the other half of that duplex (or - more likely - a cooperative for the land…

Don't put the hyperbole on me. I'm just repeating what I hear from the far left. They love to pain landlords as some evil 1%ers when in fact many are middle income people trying to get by.

And great, start a cooperative. But for everyone else who wants to rent a place, there are landlords.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#114

Post by door100 »

refurb wrote: post #112
door100 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of housing someone can afford is a political question. Our current answer to it is that this should be resolved through market mechanisms, which creates high prices alongside scarcity

If you're just starting out it doesn't matter if homes are $100k or $1M, you don't have money to purchase. People act like renting is some sort of evil forced upon people, but don't realize there is a big market for renting. People don't always want to own their own housing.

There’s nothing wrong with renting, I support strong, high quality, inexpensive public housing. I don’t support private landlords and the commodification of housing.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#115

Post by eecc »

testfoobar wrote: post #100
imgabe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find framing things as "rights" is counterproductive. It creates all sorts of entitlement issues. I think it's better to say that society functions better - that is everyone, in total, is generally happier and healthier, if we all agree to work together to provide certain things for each other. Forget about whether it's a right. Personally, I'd rather live in a society with free, happy people who aren't scared and…

Agreed. Raising the floor for everyone by supporting each other is a great objective. It would be beneficial for all of us to greatly reduce food, shelter, income and healthcare insecurity. But this isn't the way our current political discourse is going. Instead new rights are being created seemingly by the day. Voters are asked by politicians to demand their rights. If housing is a right, then some politician will e…

> If housing is a right, then some politician will eventually say that vacation homes are also a right.

Oh come on, slippery slopes aren’t valid arguments.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#116

Post by gremlinsinc »

testfoobar wrote: post #93
eecc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option would be a social housing program to buffer evictions and provide human rights (food and shelter are one, there's absolutely no discussion about this) to those in most difficulty. Of course this approach will be met with howls of criticism about market distortion, having something to do with "social(ism)", and removing incentives to work hard.

Philosophically - there is a solid discussion to be had. Where does the right to food or shelter originate? I want to eat and I want shelter. But how and where am I going to get it? Do I have a right to compel someone else to feed and shelter me? How does my desire for food and shelter turn into a right? If food and shelter are a right - does it follow that it is now an obligation on someone else to provide me food a…

If my 3 year old is about to pass away from starvation, and you walk by with a loaf of bread. I'll ask first, if you say no - I'll still be taking that bread.

Any parent would do the same. Who has a right to that bread? The person who bought it? Or the person who fought and "won" it from the other? Didn't I work just as hard to take it from you?

Is it right that a three year old die, if it could be avoided?

There was a time land was basically first come first serve claim any parcel you want and live off the toil of your labors. Lots of today's land owners I'm sure are predecessors of those first land-lords.

You feel you have a right to "peace" and that the police will protect you from crime.

If you're walking home with a bunch of junk food, and warm bread - you might see one family that salivates, maybe you can outrun them. What happens when 90% of society are those people?

Every year more people are getting pushed down into the dumps. Society is just one big social contract, I won't hurt you because I'm okay, things are good. I got food, water, heat, electric, I can't complain. I'm also too busy playing on my android phone to worry about what you have, or want to take it -- the incentive to commit a crime just isn't there...

Take away all my things, my home, my clothes, and make my kids starve and you'll see a very different version of me, probably a version I never knew existed. A lot of society is the same.

Society functions when everyone is at least "comfortable" and it degrades into anarchy and gotham city-like when everyone is relegated to squalor. If you don't believe me, consult the history books on the French Revolution and see how well it turned out for Marie Antoinette and her compadres.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#117

Post by rob74 »

jimbob21 wrote: post #36
rob74 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that you can choose to take out a loan and buy a house, but you can't really choose not to pay rent (unless you want to be homeless of course, but that's not an option I would recommend to anyone)

Except now people are literally choosing not to pay rent. And there are no consequences. So who wins in this scenario? The landlord is screwed over, and the house is taken by the bank. Then they sell it at a loss cause its filled with a useless nonpaying tenant and that bombs all the housing prices in the neighborhood. Millions of dollars will be lost, corporations will come out ahead, and everyone is worse off. Bril…

Excuse me, but if a libertarian website tries to paint the landlords as victims by giving some extreme (but still anecdotal) examples, I'll take that with a grain of salt. Especially the first example:

>Gao discovered that one of his former tenants had given her keys to a friend who had moved in without permission. Gao has never met the squatter now living in his house and is afraid to contact this person out of fear that he'll be sued for harassment.

So it's not that the tenants were forced to stop paying rent, someone who doesn't even have a rental agreement has simply moved in, so the landlord would have every right to get them evicted, but chooses not to for... reasons?!

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#118

Post by sofixa »

testfoobar wrote: post #6
ceejayoz wrote: post #2

As with much of the US pandemic response, a half measure with significant consequences.

The sad part is how politicians and organized groups are seemingly afraid to change their direction for fear of voter retribution. Comparing datasets across states and regions, it is not entirely clear to me which had the most effective policies. I would like to see an official CDC report that identifies which policies worked and which did not. I don't think we're going to see a report - because it would become an in…

> Eviction moratoriums in 2021 - a full year after the start of the crisis are nonsensica

The US economy is still heavily impacted by the pandemic, and entire sectors are dead or heavily damaged ( e.g. tourism, airlines, etc.). Unemployment is at 6.3%, which is significantly more than pre-pandemic (3.5%). Not to mention all the employed with reduced income ( e.g. restaurant staff, cab drivers etc.).

What do you propose should happen to all those that are still un or underemployed ? What is the bigger problem, millions of people on the streets driven to crime, or millions of property owners losing property and/or money?

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#119

Post by SilasX »

rob74 wrote: post #117
jimbob21 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except now people are literally choosing not to pay rent. And there are no consequences. So who wins in this scenario? The landlord is screwed over, and the house is taken by the bank. Then they sell it at a loss cause its filled with a useless nonpaying tenant and that bombs all the housing prices in the neighborhood. Millions of dollars will be lost, corporations will come out ahead, and everyone is worse off. Bril…

Excuse me, but if a libertarian website tries to paint the landlords as victims by giving some extreme (but still anecdotal) examples, I'll take that with a grain of salt. Especially the first example: > Gao discovered that one of his former tenants had given her keys to a friend who had moved in without permission. Gao has never met the squatter now living in his house and is afraid to contact this person out of fea…

Did you read the rest? He can’t get the eviction because of squatters’ rights and courts being shut down.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#120

Post by tomg »

yellowapple wrote: post #80
tomg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By being extremely frugal. Did you read the part of the article where the owner does not live in the house. The owner lives in a "cheap studio apartment nearby with their two young daughters". That is how! You’re referring to Gao, I’m referring to Won. Different people.

And the top-level was seemingly referring to Gao by referencing the $80k in back rent.

> Won says her tenant owes her more than $80,000 in back rent.
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