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I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

mcsweeneys.net

171–180 of 452 posts

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#171
post #136

I live just outside Minneapolis. There's an absolute glut right now of largely unoccupied apartments that have sprung up in the last couple years anywhere there was an open lot and many places there wasn't - tearing down a number of historic buildings in the name of cheaply built wooden framed apartments. Well over 100 new buildings in the last five years within a 10 mile radius. Most of them cost more per month to l…

I feel you there with only luxury housing being the only kind of housing being built in many areas. Honestly, a lot of it is damn ugly too. Allowing developers to construct non-luxury housing would help much more than only allowing them to build luxury housing.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#172
post #8

From what I have seen there isn't a housing shortage as much as an "affordable housing" shortage. Just my observation. Tons of overpriced apartments being built at 2x the price of the average renter. Housing subsidies will be next. Another attempt to prop up the rampant capitalism by means of socialism.

Various studies have found that even building expensive housing reduces rents for the entire market as it pushes people with more money into the new housing and reduces upward price pressure on older housing. Yes, it'd be good to build housing of all types. But even just building luxury apartments or whatever has an effect.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#173

How did homeless become homeless though? 1. They never had a home before so they kept living like that 2. They had a home before but then they couldn't afford it (or whatever other reason) I doubt we have a lot of case 1 (born without a home). For case 2, I doubt building more homes work, because if you are homeless, that not only means that you can't afford buying a home, but you cannot afford renting one as well, a…

A lot of people become homeless even while they have jobs. They can almost make rent but then some incident happens and they get evicted. Once you've been evicted it becomes remarkably difficult to rent anywhere. Boom, now you are living in your car for the foreseeable future.

Cheaper housing helps prevent this.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#174

This isn't everywhere. I live in Nashville and we have SO MUCH housing being built. Just apartment building after apartment building after apartment building.

It is a big problem in Democratic states like California, where the leftists (Dean Preston and other leftist NIMBYs) have allied themselves with homeowner liberals to make it impossible to build housing. Republican states like Texas do a significantly better job, as you can see by looking at annual per capita new housing, and lower rental inflation. There's a growing liberal movement to change this status quo but the…

> leftists

Lmao

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#175

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

You'll get mental issues if you sleep under a bridge for a while. You see, homelessness is a very low-status existence. Hormone levels mirror it and make your mind to be low-status. It changes your behavior in perceptible ways. Like a position of leadership changes a personality of people by adjusting their hormone levels, so a position of low-status omega do.

It doesn't mean that it is impossible to fight it and to stop being homeless, but the longer you are homeless, the closer you to a mind state where you don't feel that you have any human rights, including the right to exist. So it becomes harder with time passed. And if you were not a kind of a person that had spent years meditating and had reached enlightenment, resolving all of small psychological issues that everyone have, then your smallest psychological issues will become big and you will have mental issues.

Of course, there are still a lot of people who manage to fight homelessness despite of odds, and there are a lot of people who had become homelessness because of their mental issues, but at the same time there are a lot of homeless people who have mental issues because they became homeless at some point and didn't manage to get their place in the first year or so.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#176
post #157

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

I see this take a lot but it's a very static take on homelessness. Yes, homeless people are often in a mental state where they are difficult to take care of. However, that doesn't mean they're homeless because they're mentally unstable. Often, the reason they are unstable is because they are homeless. Being on the street heavily exacerbates drug and mental health issues. Plenty of homeless people start out normal and…

> Often, the reason they are unstable is because they are homeless

I think a more common situation is that they are on the street because they are unstable, but being on the street makes it much worse.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#177
It's universal problem everywhere where you pay with dollars and euros. The jobs are not where the housing is. Where the jobs exist the housing immediately becomes a turbo investment vehicle. Where there are no jobs the housing is not particularly cheap either. The solution usually is to inherit a real estate or two in desirable location. So we continue ignoring it or everyone are like "I have mine, fuck you"?

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#178

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

In my experience among young people sometimes homelessness is also just living with some friends, moving between friends places or some random locations, with most of your stuff being stored somewhere, without having permanent place to stay for long periods of time (like a year), and that’s usually because of affordability and availability.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#180
post #157

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

I see this take a lot but it's a very static take on homelessness. Yes, homeless people are often in a mental state where they are difficult to take care of. However, that doesn't mean they're homeless because they're mentally unstable. Often, the reason they are unstable is because they are homeless. Being on the street heavily exacerbates drug and mental health issues. Plenty of homeless people start out normal and…

That works as long as they don't strip out all the copper wiring, appliances, doors, windows, and anything else of value either because of drugs or some other unmet real need or other issues that come up when inevitably they can't be monitored 24/7. Which probably will only happen sometimes, but it only takes a few to destroy the whole program due to the sky high cost of construction in the US.

You probably need some buy in, like have the homeless people go into a wood with an axe and build their own cabin. Then it's all their own labor if they lose it.

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