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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

#441

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

escapedmoose wrote: post #192
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…

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…

> Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete,

Does that even matter? They don't have to compete on house purchases, they just have to increase demand on rentals, even at the low end. This pushes everyone in an income bracket above them to compete for the higher priced rentals, until those say "screw this, I'll just buy" find out that even that's no longer possible.

In this game, it's possible for everyone to lose.

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

#442

Post by tempsy »

escapedmoose wrote: post #192
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…

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…

Is the problem really just boomers who have rented long term and never bought?

Even if you own you could be forced to sell your house if you can't afford the property taxes and maintenance costs associated with your home, especially in states where they aren't strict limits on how much your property taxes can increase each year.

A $500k house in Texas is more than $10k in property taxes a year. Not cheap especially if you do not work or have limited income.

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

#444

Post by klodolph »

jpadkins wrote: post #385
klodolph wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Wikipedia pegs the largest city in West Virginia as Charleston, pop 48,000. Portland is population 650,000 with over twice the density. Homelessness is an easier problem to solve when you have fewer people and more available land per person.

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

#445

Post by datavirtue »

spir wrote: post #234
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…

You only perceive corporate landlords as the greater problem because we're not living in the counterfactual reality where there are millions of new apartments that are inexpensive, tiny, safe, quiet, modern, clean, dignified, and well-located. In pretty much every major city in North America, it is illegal or there is too much red tape to build the affordable housing people actually want. Why is it that living in a t…

Saw a YouTube video about row houses being built in Texas. They start at $135k to $160k ranging from 350sq ft to 600sq ft. You have to buy. Parking for one. No street parking. The feng shui is horrible/dystopian. They are all going to sell.

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

#446

Post by gruez »

unethical_ban wrote: post #312
ryukafalz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But other than zoning it seems it would help more if the government would step in to disallow large leasing companies buying up giant swathes of the housing stock just to flip into rentals. There was a timely video about this yesterday from Oh the Urbanity: https://youtu.be/BRqZBuu_Ers?si=NlavrFpm8sNTUcYp Summary is that Rotterdam did just this, and the effect was that the price to purchase a house did not measurab…

If more people actually owned, that's a positive.

1. Homeowners being a powerful political bloc and using that power to stop development is part of the problem in the first place

2. Buying a house makes sense if you're a starting a family and/or setting down roots, but that's not everyone's situation. Students or young professionals get utterly shafted by lack of rental housing, because they don't have the income or the credit to buy a house, and they don't intend on staying long they'll get eaten by the transaction fees.

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

#447

Post by DontchaKnowit »

momirlan wrote: post #91

this is the generation that had it best: jobs for life, good benefits, cheap houses, etc. they also destroyed the planet with their "American dream" style consumption. what's coming for the new generations if these are suffering ?

I see this perspective a lot, and I really don't understand it. Millennials have it pretty damn good as well. And everyone wants to ignore how difficult the 80s were as far as jobs, housing, etc. Boomers got bumblefucked in the 80s. Interest rates for home loans were abysmal, small banks failed all over the place, business loans got called, etc etc.

I think the only thing gen z or millennials really have to complain about is the fact that the government hocked them risky loans for bullshit education.

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

#448

Post by kevinsync »

voidwtf wrote: post #290
kevinsync wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area, the Malt-O-Meal knockoff version ("Tootie Fruities") is $5.99/30oz ($0.20/oz). I point this out because it always seems weird to me that discussing housing / utilities / healthcare / education costs somehow get boiled down to grocery store pricing disparities, when grocery stores allow you to comparison shop (and real estate / electricity / oil / etc don't).

Because this method of judging inflation by using “equivalent” substitutes completely ignores the change in quality of life. Real inflation is what happens when my behavior doesn’t change at all, but my costs increase. If I keep making adjustments to my behaviors then I’m just trying to counteract inflation, it doesn’t mean inflation isn’t happening.

That's actually a very fair point, thank you!

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

#449

Post by dpeckett »

hotpotamus wrote: post #388
dpeckett wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gettin…

Yeh I live in Germany but was born in inland Australia, most people have no idea how crushing heat can become (part of why I'm living somewhere more temperate). I suspect geoengineering will be on the table a lot sooner than most expect, in-fact it's already quietly underway [1].

> I've always found it odd that societal/financial problems are seen as insurmountable when they are really just human inventions.

Very true!

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjya_arTWjs

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

#450

Post by justin66 »

jeffbee wrote: post #379
incahoots wrote: post #365

Ah yes, apathy my old friend. We can recognize the various problems that got us here, but when it comes to resolving them, well that’s simply a bridge too far. Take note: we absolutely have the resources to defeat homelessness and hunger, it’s just not a profitable model.

[flagged]

The most intriguing thing about boomers is that they all believe exactly the same things.
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