Live data from Hacker News

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

mcsweeneys.net

261–270 of 452 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are no leftists in the US. The people you are refering to a liberals, who are defacto identical to conservatives

Hi there! I live in the US. I am a leftist. I am in favor of prison abolition, universal basic income, massively increased taxation of the rich, and voting reform.

Care to explain why I either don't count or don't really exist?

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

#262
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... because after Ireland agreed to implement the OECD minimum corporate tax rate (15%) same as everyone else, Ireland just didn't do as agreed, came up with some excuse (I would tell you which excuse, but they keep retroactively changing it), the prime minister explained in at least 5 extensive speeches how fabulous, fantastic and great he was for implementing it, and kept it at 12.5%. Then the minister of finance…

> Can you provide a source for this assertion? https://www.google.com/search?q=current+tax+rate+for+multina... > They all look to be 40+ from the linked page Not really. 30, some even less. Average age is probably 40. So indeed, suspiciously young the positions they hold. How many leaders of a large investment fund are under 60 at least? > Look, I get that this is tax avoidance in some sense, but (it is) > Do you thi…

> The new global minimum effective tax rate of 15% means that many large multinational corporations operating in Ireland will face a top-up tax.

From the second line of the AI overview. I mean, seriously?

So the 12.5% rate remains for irish headquartered companies, NOT multinationals. And personally I'm OK with that (cries as he pays 52% marginal).

> Not really. 30, some even less. Average age is probably 40. So indeed, suspiciously young the positions they hold. How many leaders of a large investment fund are under 60 at least?

You and I clearly have different ideas of what older people look like. They mostly look like the kind of middle-aged people I work with. And I think you're missing that most of those roles are pretty low-level, the investment fund is very very small by investment fund standards.

> (yes, that is, after all, the promise a country or anyone makes when they borrow money. Alternatively you could NOT bail them out)

So, the Irish government tried (repeatedly) to renegotiate those deals. The bondholders were (mostly) fine with it (as they'd bought the bonds later). The ECB and the IMF refused to allow this to happen, for fear of contagian. This lead to basically all capital projects (housing/water etc) being cut, and basically the entire public service taking massive pay cuts. And remember, at this point the multinationals were paying approximately zero tax, so people like me (higher rate taxpayers) funded all of this.

And as a result, we have huge infrastructural deficits and a housing crisis (where this thread got started).

> This is stealing, simply because it is not Irish tax revenue.

This is a ridiculous argument, who does the tax revenue "belong" to? If the US charges Shell taxes on their US activity is that stealing? If the Feds charge Shell tax revenue on their Texas activities is that stealing? If Shell pay all their corporate tax in Delaware is that stealing?

I'm making the assumption that you are Dutch (based on previous comments). Was the Dutch East India company stealing from India? Is that also against your moral code? Do you plan to make reparations to the Indians about this?

> Enabling tax avoidance, especially after signing international treaties that you would do the opposite is not success.

Again, on the assumption that you are Dutch, do you realise that most of the schemes avoiding all of the tax (the double irish with a dutch sandwich) involved your country? Was that OK? How come you haven't changed your tax laws?

Note: i think there's a really interesting question here around where revenue "should" be taxed so even if you're annoyed at the rest of the comment, I'd appreciate your thoughts on that.

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

#263
It's insane. I'm seeing this even I'm straight up ghettos. No evictions/perfect credit/income 3X rent/first+last+deposit

All to live in a place I'd need to buy a gun for a security.

This is in a small Midwestern city. Someone ran down, but overall maybe only a little worse than other small cities I've lived.

I've been trying to find a place for over a year now. I don't have the credit, but have the income. My gf has the credit but not the income. We're basically pariahs.

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

#264

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’ve been closely involved with one of the largest shelter providers in the Pacific Northwest for the last couple of years and I can say this is not true for the vast majority of people we serve. The primary causes of homelessness for those people are getting evicted because of a temporary financial crunch (health issue, lost a job, etc), domestic issues (leaving a domestic violence situation) or legal issues (refugees, etc). I had a similar belief (that substance and mental instability) prior to working with this organization because the visibly homeless people I saw seemed to fall into that category so I fell into this bias. However, what people miss are the tons of people living in their cars, wearing regular clothes, not panhandling and showing up to work best they can.

In addition, the causality is sometime backwards. The substance abuse and mental issues come after homelessness as people try to cope with the incredible stress of life on the streets. This, of course, makes it even harder to pull out of the downward spiral.

It’s tough but I encourage everyone to find a way to support/volunteer reputable organizations in their areas

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

#265

UK has a chronic shortage of houses, as in, if you count the people in the country and how many houses you need, that's a bigger number than what you've got. Building in the UK is also hard. England, which is like 90% of the population, is very densely inhabited. Cities are sprawling, their road and transit infrastructure barely support their current size, never mind bigger population. Plus, with the housing bubble,…

That, and reduce the immigration ffs. Importing a city-sized population (500k+) every year? - Sorry mate, you just won't be able to build a new city every year.

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

#266
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah I buy that to some extent. But according to the studies I've read, the primary driver of homelessness is rising rent, not mental health issues. See e.g. https://www.statista.com/chart/32585/change-in-median-rent-a...

Keep in mind these are the same economists who said that Milei's reforms would not alleviate Argentina's inflation

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

#267

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…

> 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem

I disagree. With some exceptions, most people would rather be sheltered if they could just make rent, but they can't. Often it is mental health or substance abuse, other times it's rising rents and jobs that just don't pay enough even to get a room in a basic shared flat. Yes, housing may be cheap _somewhere_ but it may not be a place where people are able to actually live and support themselves.

While not directly about homelessness, I found Evicted (Matthew Desmond) a very eye opening book (at least for me, who only relatively recently moved to the US despite being a US citizen). There are so many people who are right on the edge that all it takes is one bad illness or other mishap to fall off, and once you're off it's really hard to get back on and stay on.

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

#268

UK has a chronic shortage of houses, as in, if you count the people in the country and how many houses you need, that's a bigger number than what you've got. Building in the UK is also hard. England, which is like 90% of the population, is very densely inhabited. Cities are sprawling, their road and transit infrastructure barely support their current size, never mind bigger population. Plus, with the housing bubble,…

Building new towns is hard because you need jobs nearby and there's no guarantee they'll materialize to a large enough degree to support the town.

I'm wondering if it's okay to have the government take over properties that are simply poor uses of land even if the owners don't want to sell?

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

#269

UK has a chronic shortage of houses, as in, if you count the people in the country and how many houses you need, that's a bigger number than what you've got. Building in the UK is also hard. England, which is like 90% of the population, is very densely inhabited. Cities are sprawling, their road and transit infrastructure barely support their current size, never mind bigger population. Plus, with the housing bubble,…

A lot of the issue in the UK is getting permission to build anything. My dad had a 160 acre farm near london, you can get nordic type cabins for ~£50k (https://www.quick-garden.co.uk/log-cabins/homes/) and you could stick loads there for little money but can you get permission? On no.

I can understand not wanting to give windfall profits to folks like my dad who did nothing but the government could buy land and develop it. Also they could maybe actually make something attractive? People tend to hate new development because it's so ugly. Maybe we could build like Cambridge or Venice rather than endless boxes.

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

#270

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'm not sure what your experience is. To your 2nd point, I googled "homelessness studies" and here's some stuff I found: The bulk of homelessness is a housing problem [0]. Per-capita rates are the highest in the most expensive places to live. This isn't because homeless people migrate to the places w/ the best homelessness programs either: they're largely long-term residents of their cities [1]. Homelessness is incre…

Homelessness studies is a useless field because it conflates those temporarily without a permanent home with those living on the streets.

Which is to say a family who lost their home and is living with a friend while supportive housing services is getting them accomodations is considered as 'homeless' as the crazy man who sleeps under the bridge and exposed himself to young girls.

Everyone is supportive of the former and by and large this group is helped and gets housed.

The latter... No one needs that

Post reply on HN