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The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

moneywise.com

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Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#381

Post by seanmcdirmid »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #289
alexb_ wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. Rent control is the ultimate "I got mine" - it rewards people who got in early while making it impossible for anyone else to have housing. The reason rent could go up that much is because supply is so artificiall…

> Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. In many cases, rent gets raised by $500 for the unit to be vacant so the landlord can claim to have $500 more in revenue per month (and get loans on that). In some parts of the country - you have >50% of units in large population centers owned and/or operated by just a few companies. Like KSA reducing oil supply by 10% to increase prices 5%…

Those are different from the places where the vacancy rates are low, people have trouble finding vacant apartments at any price, and the rent increases are limited. It was a nightmare finding a place to rent in Lausanne. The rents were affordable compared to my salary, but the competition for units was fierce. Since bidding wars weren’t allowed, landlords would use other criteria to select tenants (being a foreigner was a negative).

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#383

Post by jefftk »

zb1plus wrote: post #134

In places like the bay area with a housing crisis and limited space to expand, the state should seize office buildings (remote work is the future and would help alleviate the shortage while new housing is developed) by eminent domain and set up a scheme like Singapore's HDB system [1] to develop affordable housing. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board

There's no need to seize any buildings: the issue is that building dense new housing is illegal. If cities allowed much higher density ("upzoning") then we'd see prices for new units fall to not much above the cost of construction.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#384

Post by toomuchtodo »

zenkat wrote: post #355
breakyerself wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comforting to think homelessness is caused by people making bad decisions, but it's almost entirely a result of bad public policy. West Virginia has a much higher rate of drug addiction than Portland, but much less homelessness. Because drug addicts in West Virginia can afford housing. Other places have worse access to mental healthcare but less homelessness for the same reason. Demand in metropolitan areas has…

Housing is cheap in West Virginia because it's currently experiencing the largest population exodus in the US. https://apnews.com/article/al-state-wire-west-virginia-lifes...

So perhaps the solution is more affordable senior housing built in lower cost of living areas? If we’re subsidizing the housing, medical care (Medicare), income (Social Security or a bridge to it), you don’t need to build in expensive urban cores; location is not as important. Suburban cores are probably fine if the land cost is reasonable and close enough to public transit.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#385

Post by jpadkins »

klodolph wrote: post #336
breakyerself wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comforting to think homelessness is caused by people making bad decisions, but it's almost entirely a result of bad public policy. West Virginia has a much higher rate of drug addiction than Portland, but much less homelessness. Because drug addicts in West Virginia can afford housing. Other places have worse access to mental healthcare but less homelessness for the same reason. Demand in metropolitan areas has…

I think it’s hard to compare West Virginia to Portland, and conclude that the differences are a result of policy decisions.

can you expand upon that? What else other than policy decisions would have a major impact? demographics?

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#386

Post by mcv »

alexb_ wrote: post #262
mcv wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the problem is government regulation. And not just too much regulation, but the wrong kind of regulation, and a lack of regulation in areas that need it. Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Corporations buying up homes in order to drive up prices shouldn't be allowed. Lots of things are allowed that shouldn't be. A…

> Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. Rent control is the ultimate "I got mine" - it rewards people who got in early while making it impossible for anyone else to have housing. The reason rent could go up that much is because supply is so artificiall…

Extreme increases in rent are extortion. It's abusing vendor lock-in. Moving costs a lot of time and money, so people will feel forced to pay more for a house than they would have paid if they were looking. The landlord is abusing their position of power.

In plenty of countries, you can fight rent increases if you feel they're not justified.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#387

Post by gniv »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #35
jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

The issue is not supply and demand for houses - there are plenty enough to go around (though often in the wrong place). The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funnelled to the very wealthy. For example, medical bills. For example student loans. For example zero interest rates with zero wage inflation meaning accommodation cost…

> This means taking wealth away from those who have amassed too much, and returning it to those who had it stolen from them.

This is what inflation does, partly. Assuming of course that wages keep up.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#388

Post by hotpotamus »

dpeckett wrote: post #264
hotpotamus wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a kid today, I'd be pissed about those things yes, but I'd be more pissed that we're destabilizing the global climate system. I'm not so surprised about the fertility collapse; I'm more surprised that anyone still has children at all.

Ironically enough I'm more optimistic we can mitigate the worst impacts of climate change (as it's more of an engineering and technology issue). Sure the transition will be expensive but we're making solid progress [1] and we still have a bunch of unused tools in our tool belt (geoengineering, cloud brightening, carbon capture etc). Demographically (and by proxy politically) though things are far from improving, we a…

I live in South Texas and the heat this year really broke me. And we're not exactly that far into the climate change experience. I feel like if you don't live in the heat, then it's a lot easier to dismiss it. And globally speaking, carbon emissions only ever increase. I don't disagree that there are potential engineering solutions and the advancement of green energy has been quite impressive. I myself plan on getting an electric car likely before this year is done to hopefully reduce my personal transportation emissions. I feel that it's all too late however.

I've always found it odd that societal/financial problems are seen as insurmountable when they are really just human inventions; we could forgive all/some portion of debts, and all the people and infrastructure who exist today would be exactly the same tomorrow. But the very air we breathe contains a third more carbon today than it did when my parents were born; it's an awesome (in the bad way) feat of humanity that we've altered the very atmosphere of our planet in such a dramatic fashion, and there's no simple way to remove it.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#389

Post by mindslight »

titzer wrote: post #329
escapedmoose wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among my friends seeking to buy houses, the greater problem is the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, which they then immediately turn into a rental. It’s nearly impossible to compete with a company who will pay $50k over asking price, in cash, for the house you’re trying to get. Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete, so saying they’re the problem is a weird…

> the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, And that has a simple cause: they created too much money to prop up both the housing and stock markets. We're in an inflationary debt spiral that has a very high chance of going the same route as every other one in history; completely devaluing the currency, defaulting on debt, and issuing new currency. The rational play in such a scenario is to ta…

Raise the government-set lending rates and keep them there, let overextended private parties (like highly leveraged asset owners) actually default en masse, and slowly pay down the government's external debt by moving it to the federal reserve. I'm not saying that the metastasized finance industry will let this happen, but there is a way out of the spiral.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#390

Post by fastaguy88 »

This article does not say anything about whether more baby boomers are becoming homeless. It says that the fraction of homeless over 60 has increased dramatically. But exactly the same number of people who were homeless in their 40s twenty years ago could still be homeless now, and if the homeless people in their 60s then have mostly died, a larger fraction of homeless people could be their 60s. Perhaps the fraction of homeless 60 year olds has increased (and it would be nice to know what that number is), but we cannot tell from this article. Policy changes in the 1970s — closing of state mental hospitals and the Vietnam war — dramatically increased the number of homeless. That group has gotten older. But it is very unclear that there are new factors that are forcing baby boomers into homelessness.
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